CINÉMA DE LA PLAGE – Some curiosities about Ivan the Terrible

The reign of Ivan the terrible, recounted in two parts. The young Tsar has to confront the rivality of his aunt, who wants to put her son on the throne with the help of the boyars. In Ivan Grozny (Ivan the Terrible) 1 & 2, Sergueï Eisenstein allows us to glimpse some of the characteristics of Stalin in both his grandeur and his failings. Technically, the two films overflow with cinematic curiosities.

Still from film © RR

The desire for perfection. As a theoretician of cinema, Sergueï Eisenstein constantly thought about reworking his films. He fine tuned the lighting, the rhythm and the colour in each shot, but it was editing that was his core concern. He theorised that there were four types of editing, depending on the length of the shot, the rhythm of the action, the emotional charge and the perception of sight and sound. These ideas, which appear self-evident today, were entirely new at the time.

From black and white to colour. Ivan le Terrible 2 includes a major curiosity: thirty minutes before the end of the movie the screen switches into colour. The reason is actually historical: following the German defeat at Stalingrad, an Agfacolor plan fell into the hands of the advancing Red Army.

An operatic air. Though Eisenstein shared Stalin’s communist ideas, he allowed himself more freedom in the second part and signed a Shakespearean drama in which everything is out of the ordinary. For the score, Eisenstein worked closely with Sergueï Prokofiev. What could be more natural then, than to see the Bolshoi Ballet adapt the life of the Tsar in 1975, an opera that was screened in cinemas around the world last April.

The film was to have had a third part but it never got made: Sergueï Eisenstein died in 1948 from a heart attack. Ivan le Terrible, although unfinished,  stands as the culmination of his life’s work

Tarik Khaldi

SCREENING

Sunday 17 May/ Ivan the Terrible 1 & 2 / Plage Macé / 21h00
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