Ivan the Terrible, Part II

The second part of Eisenstein’s unfinished trilogy is mainly concerned with Ivan’s return to the throne and his ruthless opposition to the schemes of the boyars to keep Russia divided among its princes and foreign interests. Stalin took a particular dislike to the portrayal of the Czar’s secret police, and the film was banned; finished in 1946, Part II was not released until 1958. It contains a lovely flashback to Ivan’s childhood; a meditation on the loneliness of the Czar; a marvelous set piece setting up the usurper Vladimir for assassination; and a Brechtian operatic interlude that is Eisenstein’s one and only experiment in the two-color process. This print includes a few minutes of test footage from the unfinished Part III.