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He's first seen ankle-deep in seawater, the prince vexed at a Tatar toad for interrupting the catch of the day, the joke is that he's got bigger fish to fry. (Nikolay Cherkasov's resemblance to Errol Flynn informs the vision of Nevsky as a magisterial swashbuckler.) "Difficult times are approaching," slain children in Pskov illustrate the toll of the invading Teutons. The veteran warrior takes over despite the objections of Novgorod moneymen, and lays out the "delicate work" of strategy: "I know nothing of defense. We will attack!" For his part, the proto-Nazi conqueror (Vladimir Yershov) has his own troops to rally: "I invite you to hunt the Russian bear." The radical innovator in the mainstream, Sergei Eisenstein searching for art in jingoistic spectacle, a medieval canvas suspended between assignment and experiment. Stout Hollywood staples populate the noble side—chummy oafs (Nikolai Okhlopkov, Andrei Abrikosov) vying for the hand of the maiden (Valentina Ivashova), philosophical blacksmith (Dmitriy Orlov) and plucky tomboy (Alexandra Danilova) rattling under gargantuan skies. (The quisling shrinking into his armor like a spooked turtle and the buzzard-faced monk bent over the organ keyboard better indicate the director's caricatural hand.) "What makes a sword strong? The arm that wields it!" Stalin's scrutiny means compositional slabs instead of barbed montage, a poster-like frontality governs much of the imagery. Eisenstein rewards himself for all the ponderous speechifying with the Battle of the Ice, an extended set-piece of clanking metal and crunching frost where opposing forces become fierce abstractions colliding to Prokofiev's symphonic throbs. (Uccello is the point of departure, knights loom in the frame like marauding statues and are swallowed up by the awakened motherland.) "We defeated you once, and we shall defeat you again." The pageantry is taken up by Olivier and Kurosawa and Welles, and magnificently curdled by Eisenstein himself in the Ivan the Terrible films. Cinematography by Eduard Tisse. With Nikolai Arsky, Varvara Massalitinova, Sergei Blinnikov, Ivan Lagutin, Lev Fenin, Naum Rogozhin, and Vasili Novikov. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |