IMDb > Ivan Groznyy I (1944)

Ivan Groznyy I (1944) More at IMDbPro »

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Ivan Groznyy I (1944) -- Open-ended Trailer from Image Entertainment

Overview

User Rating:
7.6/10   3,204 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 8% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.
Writer:
Sergei M. Eisenstein (writer)
Contact:
View company contact information for Ivan the Terrible, Part One on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
8 March 1947 (USA) more
Genre:
Biography more
Plot:
During the early part of his reign, Ivan the Terrible faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people. full summary | full synopsis
Plot Keywords:
more
Awards:
1 win more
User Comments:
Eisenstein and sound - oil and water more (42 total)

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)
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Additional Details

Also Known As:
Иван Грозный (Soviet Union: Russian title)
Ivan the Terrible, Part One (USA)
Ivane Mriskhane, natsili pirveli (Soviet Union: Georgian title)
more
Runtime:
103 min | USA:95 min
Country:
Soviet Union
Language:
Russian
Aspect Ratio:
1.37 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono
Filming Locations:
Almaty, Kazakhstan
Company:
Mosfilm more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
One of the films included in "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (and how they got that way)" by Harry Medved and Randy Lowell. more
Goofs:
Continuity: Amount of coins in the bowls that are showered over Ivan at the end of the coronation scene. more
Movie Connections:
Referenced in Hitler - ein Film aus Deutschland (1977) more

FAQ

Have critics praised this film unanimously?
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21 out of 36 people found the following comment useful.
Eisenstein and sound - oil and water, 27 October 2001
Author: cogs from (e.g. London, England)

The problem with this film is it is in sound and anyone who knows Eisenstein will know that he and John Gilbert were the two people most afraid of the element of sound in film. Basically with Ivan Groznyj parts one and two Eisenstein has tried to make a silent film with sound. No that's not a contradiction, well not for Eisenstein. Here is a man whose art has passed him by and he has never come to terms with it. The most impressive aspects of the film is its visuality which is often sublime but just as often fails to succeed because it is overlaid by sound which Eisenstein both ignores and neglects to varying degrees. Hence we have a film made in the 1940s which looks 20 years older with acting styles that are even more antiquated. Eisenstein, along with the likes of Pudovkin, resented the audio component of film because it detracted from the poetry of the visual image and would align film too closely with drama. He concluded the cinema would merely become a series of filmed plays. Eisenstein obviously believed his criticism for it is Ivan Groznyj I & 2 which betrays a theatricality that had long been overcome in mainstream American and English cinema. So Eisenstein merely uses his actors as props and stages the drama in broad strokes of sweeping gesture and concentrated stares. Not unlike the type of production one will see on the stage. Eisenstein was truly a poet but by the time he made this film cinema had progressed markedly. There were new and more gifted filmmakers doing more than he was now capable of as they embraced the devices at their disposal and set about crafting art with a subtlety and novelty in which he was sadly lacking.

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Recent Posts (updated daily)User
Best Eisenstein film? belgamino
English Speaking Remake themistofthisabyss
Ivan the Terrible and Fantasia liron_zu
One of the Masterworks meldada
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