Sooooo after viewing Part 1 of "Ivan the Terrible", directed by the one and only Eisenstein, I don't know what to really make of it. I am certain of a few things, like how this movie portrays Socialist Realism, yet it was very different from the more modern films. It was a hard one to get into for me, just because the language is a lot different from conventional films.
I found Ivan to be an astounding character. He was very peculiar at first, eventually I warmed up to his out of the ordinary antics. He seemed to start off being a positive force, with all of the people immediately accepting him as the tsar, but things changed throughout. It was clear that Prince Kurbsky had an undeniable grudge against him dealing with Anastasia...but it didn't seem like he ever truly wanted to follow him as the tsar. Throughout the movie, I would say that Ivan became more evil. Everything around him started off being promising (like saying the money from the people of Moscow and Russia would be put towards a great army), yet it turned out for evil purposes. Anastasia dying was one of my favorite scenes, very unpredictable yet it made sense as to why it happened.
It is also funny that Eisenstein looked to Kabuki for inspiration, because I have seen some Kabuki and it does remind me of this movie and Battle Potemkin. It was somewhat slower, everything took its time to really act out what was happening. At least that is what I took from it.
Last but not least, I just wanted to ask a question. The man who is Ivan's "ears" I think they said, the one with the headband on, I didn't quite follow him. Did he start out as a peasent and slowly work his way into the tsar's quarters? Just a bit unclear to me.
Maliuta Skuratov is referred to in the film as the Tsar's "eye." The first time we see him in the film (when he invades the palace with a bunch of others right after the wedding banquet) he is one of the commoners who wants to take Ivan down from power. But he quickly becomes pulled over to Ivan's cause and becomes part of his retinue (so the way you describe it there at the end is quite correct). He and Basmanov (the one Ivan first talks to during the war and who has the young son) are the ones who form the Tsar's "oprchnina" (secret police) and who represent the way in which Ivan tended to pull people out of nowhere and favor them over the privileged Boyar-Princes.
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