In this second part of the story, Ivan flashes back to his childhood, to when the seeds of his hatred for the boyars were planted. A young Ivan watches his mother poisoned by the them and grows up witnessing Russia torn apart by its various ethnic, political and religious rivalries.
After the death of his beloved wife (also poisoned) and only trusted ally in Ivan the Terrible I, Tsar Ivan is consumed with doubt and fear about his lack of allies and confidantes. He beheads the boyar traitors responsible for fomenting insurrection and courts real hatred when he breaks from the powerful church.
But Ivan decides that if rumors about his viciousness are being continuously circulated anyway, he will live up to them and rule without mercy as "Ivan the Terrible." His resolve proves fortuitous when he learns of an assassination plot against him and with the help of his trusted bodyguard Fyodor (Mikhail A. Kuznetsov), foils the plot, while exposing his greatest boyar enemy.
Though Ivan the Terrible II begins in black and white, it suddenly switches to color in two extended scenes, one where Russian dancers entertain Ivan during a festive, raucous banquet and in the film's concluding scene where Ivan again affirms his loyalty to a united Russia. The color film stock was actually war booty, captured from the Germans during the war and used for several Soviet films.
Ivan II, subtitled "The Revolt of the Boyars" was filmed shortly after Ivan the Terrible, Part I (1945). But it was not released until 1958 (after both Stalin and Eisenstein's death), and was censored by Stalin because of its negative depiction of Ivan's secret police, which Stalin believed was a sideways swipe at his own abuses of power. Stalin did, however, approve the script for the third film in the Ivan trilogy: subtitled "The Battles of Ivan," though it never came to fruition before Eisenstein's death in 1948. Upon its release, critics hardly regarded Ivan II as Eisenstein's best work. Even its lead, Cherkasov complained in his autobiography "My confidence in the film waned and my worries grew with each passing day."
Some criticized Ivan as more a Hamlet-style, doubt-plagued hero than a realistic historical figure, but questions of realism or accuracy aside, many agreed that Ivan II was nevertheless a moving and highly ambitious addition to the Eisenstein legend. With his death at 50 of a heart attack, one of the cinema's greatest innovators was gone, leaving behind this and other profound documents of his cinematic genius.
Producer/Director: Sergei Eisenstein
Screenplay: Sergei Eisenstein
Cinematography: Eduard Tisse, Andrei Moskvin
Production Design: Isaak Shpinel
Music: Sergei Prokofiev
Cast: Nikolai Cherkasov (Tsar Ivan IV), Serafima Birman (Boyarina Efrosinia Staritskaya), Pavel Kadochnikov (Vladimir Andreyevich Staritsky), Mikhail A. Kuznetsov (Fyodor), Mikhail Zharov (Malyuta Skuratov), Andrei Abrikosov (Fyodor Kolychev/Philip the Metropolitan), Aleksand Mgebrov (Pimen the Bishop of Novgorod), Vladimir Balashov (Piotr Volynets).
BW&C-86m.
by Felicia Feaster
