Ivan the Terrible

Ivan the Terrible (Russian Иван Грозный, Ivan Groznyy) is a 1944-1945 Soviet Russian historical drama film duology, Sergei Eisenstein's second (and last) sound film and a Spiritual Successor to Alexander Nevsky, with Nikolay Cherkasov in the main role once again. As with the latter film, Sergei Prokofiev composed the soundtrack.

This highly stylized film duology chronicles the life of the (in)famous Ivan IV "The Terrible", from his rise as a Prince henpecked by the Boyars (feudal noblemen) to a powerful Tsar who will unite Russia into a gigantic kingdom. Part I chronicles the Prince's marriage, his benign and happy early years, his wars in the Kazan, personal tragedy and eventual rise. Part II shows the Prince preparing to stave off the Boyars from making a resurgence, establishing his special secret police, the Oprichniki, and finally embracing his destiny as "Groznyy" ("The Terrible").

The first film was made during World War II, and had the support of Josef Stalin, whose Cult of Personality invoked Ivan. Eisenstein conceived of the film as a trilogy, yet only two parts were finished, with Part III being cancelled in mid-production after Stalin banned Part II in 1946. Not long after Eisenstein died, guaranteeing that the third film would never be made. (Eisenstein had shot 20 minutes of Part III when production was cancelled. A four-minute sequence survives.) Part I released in 1944 earned the director the Stalin Prize (Soviet Nobel Prize-cum-Oscar) and was well-received internationally. The second part, shot back-to-back with the first one, was released only in 1958 long after Eisenstein's (and five years after Stalin's) death. Part II became especially famous for its color sequence, which was shot on Agfacolor film stock looted by Red Army troops in Germany.

Ivan the Terrible is regarded as a classic of Soviet/Russian and world cinema, and is available on The Criterion Collection. It can also be watched for free on the YouTube channel of Mosfilm, Part I here and Part II here.

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This film provides examples of:

• Adaptation Distillation: Malyuta, Ivan's Side Kick, chief of Oprichnina is a peasant who wants to execute aristocrats. That trope easily fits the movie format. Historical Malyuta was a low-ranking aristocrat who resented high ranking aristocrats, explaining the Side Kick's character arc would have taken too long.
• Anti-Hero: Ivan and his Terror Squad, the Oprichniki.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: All of them, save for the Tsar and Anastasia Romanovna Zakharyina-Yuryeva, his wife and Morality Pet.
• Artistic License – History: The movie takes many, many liberties with history.
  • Most of Ivan's opponents are conflated into Eufrosinia Staritskaya and her son.
  • In reality, Ivan had seven wives; only one is shown in the film.
  • Many events from Ivan's life are omitted or rearranged in sequence, etc. All this was done to present him, at least in Part I, as a positive figure.
• Aside Glance: Kolychov aka "Philip", the Metropolitan (high priest) of Moscow, actually leans into the camera, looking directly at the lens, as he says "Justice must be done to the tsar!"
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: The movie begins with the coronation of Ivan as Tsar of Moscow and Autocrat of All Russia. The scene is quite lavish and lasts 10 minutes, and culminates with Ivan being showered with gold coins.
• Batman Gambit: The tsar's plan to eliminate his opposition.
• Black-and-Grey Morality: The boyars are a wicked and callous lot, but Ivan is no angel, either. This makes it, ironically, the most balanced of Eisenstein's films.
• The Caligula: Ivan during the Oprichnik dance scene (see below).
• The Chessmaster: Both Ivan and his nemesis Efrosinia Staritskaya. ("Yevrosinya"; your subtitles may vary).
• Costume Porn: There's quite a multitude of lavish costumes, especially for the coronation scene.
• Crapsack World: Medieval Russia seems to be a really, really, really nasty place to live.
• Cultural Posturing: Both Ivan and his enemies (e.g., the Tatar envoy and the Polish king) go through their share of national chest-thumping.
• Decadent Court: The boyars.
• Defector from Decadence: Prince Kurbsky is hailed as one at the Polish court.
• Epic Movie: One of the most lavish spectacles of Stalinian cinema.
• Ermine Cape Effect: The tsar wears some really wealthy clothing.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Efrosinia, of all people, has one of these moments in Part 2, when the Bishop[?] tells her he plans to let Philip be condemned, so they'll have a saintly martyr for their crusade against Ivan: "White is the cowl but black the soul!"
• Face–Heel Turn: Andrey Kurbsky and, arguably, Fyodor Kolychov
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Fyodor Basmanov is angelically beautiful. He is also Ivan's fanatically loyal right-hand man and happily sings about murder and burning in hellishly lit banquets (also helped by the Agfacolor film stock used for it emphasizing red).
• Foreshadowing: To Real Life, paralleling Russia's suffering in the time of Ivan the Terrible with its suffering in the Great Patriotic War.
  • "The first English ships have entered the White Sea."
  • "We've beaten you, Germans-Livonians! The time will come when you shall submit to Muscovy."
• Freudian Excuse: Ivan hates the Boyars and is paranoid because as a young Prince, they separated him from his mother and killed her.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: Anastasia as the Good Angel, Fyodor as the Bad Angel
• Gorgeous Period Dress: A lot of it, very historically accurate as well. Especially impressive considering this was made during World War II when even the cast and crew had to live on rations.
• He Who Fights Monsters: While fighting against insidious, immoral, and corrupt boyars, Ivan slowly descends into brutality, paranoia and outright madness. Most notably in Part II, he gives a Motive Rant as to why he hates the boyars, noting that as a child they separated him from his mother. At the end of that, Ivan kills Vladimir in front of his mother Efrosinia. Film historians, noting the subtext and the Freudian themes in the film, suggest that this was part of the film's critique. Ivan is a populist monarch who appeals to the people rather than the nobleman, but he ends up becoming the tyrant he had opposed to start with, noting that this was part of Eisenstein's Self-Deprecation on the entire Soviet generation.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: Ivan IV was always better regarded in Russia than across Europe. Even aside from the Stalinist propaganda, the film does highlight the Tsar's drive to unify and centralize the monarchy and curtail the power of the corrupt noblemen, one reason for his real-life popularity. Part 1 does exaggerate the Tsar's "populism" however. The second part, however, shows Ivan IV building and empowering the Oprichniki.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: The Oprichniki in Part II, according to Stalin and the Central Committee. They are depicted as Ku Klux Klan-type fanatics rather than, in Stalin's words, "the progressive army"^note .
• In Vino Veritas: During the banquet with the dance of the Oprichniki, a drunk Vladimir reveals to Ivan that the boyars plot to kill him and place himself (Vladimir) on the throne.
• Kick the Dog: Kurbsky's needless cruelty towards the Tatars foreshadows his betrayal of the tsar.
• Kubrick Stare:
  • Lots. In the coronation scene that kicks off Part I, all of Ivan's rivals and enemies are looking at him this way.
  • Ivan gives an extremely chilling one to Vladimir, after pretending to kneel after ordering that Vladimir be dressed in the tsar's regalia in a mock coronation.
• Lonely at the Top: The entire premise of the movie, and the reality at the end of Part II.
• Lost in Translation: Ivan's sobriquet, "Groznyi", really means more "Fearsome" than "Terrible"—but the modern English connotation of the word makes it sounds like, say, Pope John XII (AKA "Pope John the Bad").
• Morality Chain: The Czarina.
• Murder by Mistake: Deliberately engineered by Ivan. Having learned from Vladimir himself that the boyars are planning to kill him and put Vladimir in his place, Ivan dresses Vladimir up in the tsar's ceremonial robes. He then forces Vladimir to leave the banquet chamber, and Pyotr the assassin fatally stabs Vladimir after mistaking him for Ivan. Efrosinia is fooled for a minute also.
• Name Drop: Averted (in Part One)—nobody calls Ivan "the Terrible". Then played totally straight in Part Two, when Ivan declares, quite melodramatically, that

  "Henceforth, I shall be as you name me! I shall be...Ivan the Terrible!!"

• Nasty Party: The banquet with the dance of the Oprichniki is meant to lead to the death of Vladimir (though it happens once the party's over rather than during it). The "nasty" side is still present with the evil cult-ish vibe and what the Oprichniki sing.
• Necessarily Evil: The Oprichnina terror campaign.
• New Era Speech: Ivan makes one right after the coronation, much to the boyars' dismay.
• Police State: The Oprichniki establish this in Part II, and Part III would have shown them at the height of their power. The only surviving scene from Part III, available on the Criterion DVD, shows them bullying Heinrich von Stadten.
• Previously on…: Part II starts with a quick recap of the first along with the listing of the cast.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: Ivan's slow journey from heroic young king to bitter tyrant is the core of the story, and infamously a reason for Stalin's poor reception to Part II. Stalin related entirely too hard to Ivan Groznyy, and didn't like the implications for his own tyrannical rule.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: The oath of the Oprichniki, also a quote from Ivan himself, ends "For the sake of the GREAT! RUSSIAN! KINGDOM!" (Ради русского царства великого!)
• Puppet King: The boyars want Vladimir Staritsky on the throne, for he's a weak and easily influenceable doofus. Ivan's actions will ensure this doesn't happen.
• Reign of Terror: What Ivan and the Oprichniki establish at the end of Part II.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Ivan personally commands his army during the siege of Kazan and tirelessly works to strengthen his realm.
• Rule of Symbolism: The movie is rife with symbols, some pretty obvious, some quite intricate. Wikipedia does a good job of sorting them out.
• Sanity Slippage: In the second film, Ivan slowly descends into madness and wickedness, culminating in the colour sequence.
• Shout-Out:
  • Eisenstein conceived the film as a historical film in the tradition of William Shakespeare's history plays (also propaganda for the Tudor and Jacobean monarchs) and so deliberately modelled the film on Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth.
  • Visually, the film is filled with a range of artistic and literary references. It alludes at several times to Paul Gauguin, Giotto and other historical paintings in its compositions and references.
• Slouch of Villainy: King Sigismund of Poland is slouching lazily on his throne, in the scene where traitorous Russian Prince Kurbsky takes a knee and formally swears his allegiance.
• Splash of Color: The Oprichnik banquet scene is filmed in color (thanks to Agfacolor film that was looted by the Red Army in Germany in 1945), making it look nightmarishly surreal.
• State Sec: The Oprichniki, Ivan's fanatically loyal agents.
• That Russian Squat Dance: Performed by the Oprichniki during the banquet scene.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: The Tsar decides to become a terror after repeated Boyar attempts against him.
• Villainous BSoD: Efrosinia has one at the end of Part Two after her son is killed. She is left on the floor in a daze, singing a folk song even after Vladimir's corpse is taken away.
• Villain Protagonist: By the later parts, Ivan has become the villain of his own story.
• Villain Song: Two or three of them, one sung by Fyodor Basmanov and the oprichniks, another by Efrosinia, the third... if you consider the tsar a villain, that would be the theme song.
• Wicked Cultured: Ivan is shown to be quite knowledgeable and refined for his era.
• World of Ham: The entire cast is fond of theatrics, eye-rolling, hand-waving and bombastic speeches.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Everybody speaks a highly stylized language with a veneer of antiquity that has actually little to do with actual Old Russian.

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