This is the second part of a projected three-part epic biopic of Russian Czar Ivan Grozny, undertaken by Soviet film-maker Sergei Eisenstein at the behest of Josef Stalin. Production of the epic was stopped before the third part could be filmed, due to producer dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's introducing forbidden experimental filming techniques into the material, more evident in this part than the first part. As it was, this second part was banned from showings until after the deaths of both Eisenstein and Stalin, and a change of attitude by the subsequent heads of the Soviet government. In this part, as Ivan the Terrible attempts to consolidate his power by establishing a personal army, his political rivals, the Russian boyars, plot to assassinate him.
Direction
Eisenstein's forbidden experiments: extreme angles, color sequences, psychological montage.
Cinematography
Every frame a painting — literally influenced by Russian iconography.
Acting
Cherkasov's Ivan: hunched, haunted, eating scenery with a golden spoon.
Director
Sergei Eisenstein
Nikolai Cherkasov
Czar Ivan IV
Serafima Birman
Boyarina Efrosinia Staritskaya
Pavel Kadochnikov
Vladimir Andreyevich Staritsky
Mikhail Zharov
Czar's Guard Malyuta Skuratov
Amvrosii Buchma
Czar's Guard Aleksei Basmanov
Vsevolod Pudovkin
Nikolay the Fanatic
Mikhail Kuznetsov
Fyodor Basmanov
Alexander Mgebrov
Novgorod's Archbishop Pimen
Andrei Abrikosov
Archbishop Philip (formerly Fyodor Kolychev)
Vladimir Balashov
Pyotr Volynets
Erik Pyryev
Ivan IV as a boy
Mikhail Nazvanov
Prince Andrei Kurbsky
Pavel Massalsky
King Sigismund of Poland
Ada Vojtsik
Elena Glinskaya, Ivan's Mother
Aleksandr Rumnyov
The Stranger (uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Stalin saw himself in Ivan and initially loved Part I. Part II's portrayal of paranoid tyranny hit too close to home.
The color sequence was Soviet cinema's first — Eisenstein hand-painted frames himself. Stalin's censors called it 'formalist excess.'
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