Ivan The Terrible (written Иван Грозный in Russian, pronounced Ivan Groznyy) is a two-part historical epic film about Ivan IV of Russia made by Russian director Sergei Eisenstein. Part 1 was released in 1944 but Part 2 was not released until 1958 due to political censorship. The films were originally planned as part of a trilogy, but Eisenstein died before filming of the third part could be finished.
During World War II, with the German army appr...
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Ivan The Terrible (written Иван Грозный in Russian, pronounced Ivan Groznyy) is a two-part historical epic film about Ivan IV of Russia made by Russian director Sergei Eisenstein. Part 1 was released in 1944 but Part 2 was not released until 1958 due to political censorship. The films were originally planned as part of a trilogy, but Eisenstein died before filming of the third part could be finished.
During World War II, with the German army approaching Moscow, Eisenstein was one of many Moscow-based filmmakers who were evacuated to Almaty, in the Kazakh SSR. There, Eisenstein first considered the idea of making a film about Tsar Ivan IV, aka Ivan the Terrible, whom Joseph Stalin admired, seeing him as the same kind of brilliant, decisive, successful leader that Stalin aspired to be.
The first film, Ivan The Terrible, Part I, was filmed between 1942 and 1944 and released at the end of that year. The film presented Ivan as a national hero, and won Joseph Stalin's approval (and even a...
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