Details by Film
Alexander Nevsky
Streaming Options
Ivan the Terrible, Part I
Streaming Options
Ivan the Terrible, Part II
With color segmentsStreaming Options
Alexander Nevsky
Eisenstein drew on history, Russian folk narratives, and the techniques of Walt Disney to create this broadly painted epic of Russian resilience. This story of Teutonic knights vanquished by Prince Alexander Nevsky’s tactical brilliance resonated deeply with a Soviet Union concerned with the rise of Nazi Germany. Widely imitated—most notably by Laurence Olivier’s Battle of Agincourt re-creation for Henry V—the Battle on the Ice scene remains one of the most famous audio-visual experiments in film history, perfectly blending action with the rousing score of Sergei Prokofiev.
Ivan the Terrible
Navigating the deadly waters of Stalinist politics, Eisenstein was able to film two parts of his planned trilogy about the troubled sixteenth-century tsar who united Russia. Visually stunning and powerfully acted, Ivan the Terrible charts the rise to power and descent into terror of this veritable dictator. Though pleased with the first installment, Stalin detested the portrait in the second film—with its summary executions and secret police—and promptly banned it. Criterion is proud to present Ivan the Terrible, Parts I and II, in new digital transfers with extensive image and sound restoration.
Technical Specifications
Supplements
- Audio essay by film scholar David Bordwell, author of The Cinema of Eisenstein
- Russell Merritt's multimedia essay on the Eisenstein-Prokofiev collaboration
- A reconstruction of Eisenstein
- Drawings and production stills
- Restoration demonstration
- Insert featuring an essay by J. Hoberman
- Multimedia essay on the history of Ivan the Terrible by Joan Neuberger, director of the Center for Soviet Studies at the University of Texas at Austin
- Deleted scenes for Part I
- Drawings and production stills for Part I
- Multimedia essay on Eisenstein's visual vocabulary by Yuri Tsivian, art history professor at the University of Chicago
- Insert featuring an essay by J. Hoberman