The Making of Ivan the Terrible
Radio 4
IVAN The Terrible, Sergei Eisenstein’s epic, is an acknowledged masterpiece of world cinema. He lived to complete only the first two parts. There’s quite a history behind this. Ivan the Terrible Part One is a key moment in filmmaking. The crisis over it brought to the fore the tensions between artistic expression and the central control of authority in the Soviet Union. Previously, Eisenstein was regarded at home as an honoured Soviet artist and by intellectuals abroad as a true creative original who shamed Hollywood slaves of the commercial imperative.
Eisenstein had notably supported the Russian Revolution in Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1928). The Bolsheviks gladly used this propaganda film. Subsequently, as required at the height of the Soviet conflict with the Nazis, he portrayed the 13th century struggle between the Russian people and invading Teutonic Knights in Aleksander Nevsky (1938) as a struggle to the death between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
Then, unexpectedly, Stalin and Hitler signed the mutual non-aggression pact, designed to facilitate the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939. All of a sudden, this cinematic anti-German epic was emphatically not, as it were, very tactful. The authorities did their best to make Eisenstein’s tremendous account of Aleksander Nevsky’s heroic leadership disappear.
Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible Part One (1944) dealt with Ivan’s power struggle, coronation and attempts to re-conquer Russian territory. It should have flattered Stalin. But there were certain aspects that might have suggested otherwise. Were the parallels too close? In Ivan’s struggle, did far too many die? Was his reign too barbaric? Was he power-mad? Historical accuracy is all very well, but there are times…
Eisenstein’s artistic achievement was acclaimed. He was awarded the Stalin Prize. Unfortunately, he had a heart attack during the celebratory banquet. Stalin, it had been thought, was delighted with the depiction of Ivan as a cruel and ruthless ruler.
But Uncle Joe was fully informed as to the nature of Ivan the Terrible Part Two. And he was far from pleased. Eisenstein portrayed Ivan as neurotic, mad and vindictive. The parallels between Ivan and Stalin were a bit near the bone. In 1946, Ivan the Terrible Part Two was denounced by the Central Committee on Cinema and Theatre. It was not shown in the West until 1958.
Hattie Naylor’s The Making of Ivan the Terrible used interviews at the banquet to introduce various strands of the two films’ complex background saga and made ideal radio drama. Eisenstein was played by Tim McInnerny, Molotov by Daniel Goode and Stalin by Bill Wallis. It was directed by Paul Dodgson.
Did you know that Eisenstein went to United States and was contracted to direct the filming of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. But that’s another story – and, who, knows – another radio drama?
Robert Giddings
