Eisenstein and the Historical Film

BEN MADDOW

BEN MADDOW is a sergeant in the Army Air Force. nor as the Gentle, but as the protago-
He wrote the script for The Bridge and Silent War.
nist of mammoth forces which were
IVAN THE TERRIBLE is SO huge a film, creating around Moscow as a center,
so studied and so cumbersome, that it and out of many narrow, grotesque,
is easy for us to scoff at it. We are ill at and medieval states-a Russian unity.
ease before it: we are foreigners to its There are two choices open to the
purpose. It neither fills our needs nor, artist who wishes to recreate such gi-
as do some great new films, does it break gantic blocks of history: selection, or
through with unique energy to create compression. We ignore, here, the in-
its own special importance. But its fail- genious solutions of such films as The
ure with us is less interesting than the Sign of the Cross, in which Elissa Landi
closer reasons for this failure, the study is pursued by Fredric March but caught
of its strange, awkward, and impressive by a historic lion, and in which is re-
disappointments. corded not only the persecution of the
It is clearly a film impossible except early Christians but also the historic
in a time of intense Russian patriotism. milk bath containing Miss Colbert;
Though conceived before 1941, it was and we omit, too, the special solution
written and produced during the war. in Marie Antoinette, which is prefaced
Its darkness and rhetoric should be by the customary disclaimer: "Any re-
projected against the war as it appears, semblance to real persons or real events
not to ourselves, but to the Russians. is purely coincidental."
It was a desperate war against a cruel Any serious treatment of the era of
and ingenious invasion, whose defeat Ivan might, however, have chosen a
cost the early death of millions, and month, or a week, or even a single
every Russian audience for this film climactic afternoon, whose light would
will have its quota of those who wear be meant to shine backward and for-
the stumps of the battle-maimed, the ward into history; such is the choice of
tattoo of a Nazi labor camp, or the un- most first-rate historical films. But in
natural scars of the tortured. Ivan Eisenstein has undertaken a far
We should think of this audience more daring alternative: he wished to
when we read Eisenstein's intention: crowd the events of a whole reign, the
that "this image [of Ivan the Dread] changes of a whole epoch, into a three-
fearful and entrancing, attractive and part film. We must think of Part I in
terrible, utterly tragic in the inward the light of this choice.
struggle with self, waged by Ivan con- It has the character of an enormous-
currently with his struggle against the and static-prelude. It is like the first
enemies of his country, will become scenes of an Elizabethan historical
comprehensible to the man of our own tragedy, in which the characters move
day." Thus it was Eisenstein's plan to only, at first, in their set speeches. Un-
present Ivan neither as the Monster luckily, these speeches are in Russian;
1:26
 EISENSTEIN AND THE HISTORICAL FILM 27
so we lose most of their special quality. without recognizing the terrible gran-
The whole episode of the riot at Ivan's deur of the same period in Russia.
wedding, and his treatment of the To compress all of this epoch into
people's leader, Grigori Skuratov, falls the narrow hours of film time was
flat unless we know also that the bells Eisenstein's novel and difficult plan.
had been cut from the church towers But in the very act of compression the
of Moscow, and that this dreadful chief characters and events are crowded
event was attributed to sorcery and to together; and though they seem to gain
the ill omens of Ivan's ascension to the in gloomy stature, they lose in breadth
throne. To quote directly from Eisen- and in detail. The touching minutiae
stein's scenario: of human behavior are sacrificed to the
This is the firstmeetingof Ivan and the bigness of epic conception. Here, in
this choice, is the source of Ivan's
people face to face....
He goes toward the excited giant, values, and the source of its failures as
Grigori. well.
Ivan: "Sorcery,you say?The bells fell?" For it is hard to remember Ivan as a
He extendshis arm: "Anyhead that be-
movie. Sometimes it unrolls like a
lieves in sorceryis itself"-he tapshis finger
on Grigori'sforehead,-"an empty bell." brocaded tapestry, stiff with metallic
Laughteramong the crowd. thread and embossed with jewels more
Ivan: "And sometimes the head itself real, at times, than their wearers. Or
can fall?" it resembles a vast mural by a master
There's laughter everywhere.Grigori is who has learned both from Michel-
dumbfounded.
Ivan says tenderly,"In order to fall,-it angelo and from Orozco: for the long
would have to be cut."He drawshis finger shots in the film seem reproductions of
across Grigori's neck. His eyes sparkle, whole sections of this tortuous mural,
Grigorifeels a sudden chill come over his and close-ups are leafed over as if in a
flesh.
A flash of the future "Terrible"passes great book of details. Or again, in
in the look of the young Ivan.... retrospect, the entire length of the film
seems compressed by Eisenstein's mind
But we have lost more than these into an enormous ikon, formalized,
subtleties: the central drama of the tragic, and encrusted with gold.
film, the gloomy conflict between the This resemblance may perhaps be
boyars and the rising tsar, is almost unconscious, for Eisenstein has always
unknown to us. We should not be so un- been fascinated by the physical details
comfortable with the slow, almost sub- of religion. There is a robed priest even
terranean pace of Ivan if the hero were on board the battleship Potemkin; Ten
Washington, and the subject the unifi- Days That Shook the World includes a
cation of an America out of quarreling detailed symbolic history of religion;
States. As Eisenstein himself remarks, in Old and New a central sequence is
we know the England of the sixteenth the prayer and procession for rain, at
century, of Elizabeth, Mary of Scots, whose culmination the cloud in the sky
Drake, and Shakespeare; we know, by becomes the head of the fertile bull;
reputation at least, Spain of the Inqui- and symbols of this sort abound in the
sition and France of the St. Bartholo- material for his unmade Que Viva
mew Massacre; but we come to this film Mexico! and recur, of course, in Alex-
28 HOLLYWOOD QUARTERLY
ander Nevsky. He fondles these details remind you of opera: "Peasants, etc.,
of ritual and prolongs them with such crowd into scene." This is Nevsky all
an excess of love that he seems at times over again, but even further in that
to have become a religious artist- ponderous, stiff-kneed direction. This
whose religion, however, is pagan and is deliberately unlearning all the mag-
totemic. nificent work of the best film artists
But if this development is uncon- of every country; of the Ukrainian
scious, it is the only element that is: for Dovzhenko, genius of detail and move-
Eisenstein is supremely the conscious ment; and of the Eisenstein who cre-
artist. Like Picasso, his technical con- ated the unforgettable sailor, hung
trol is so great and his intelligence so with grenades and cartridges, who tip-
broad that each of his films is in a dif- toes through the empty Winter Palace
ferent, novel, and fully mastered style. while the assault prepares outdoors, in
But, as with Picasso, these experiments Ten Days That Shook the World.
outrage us at first; and it seems difficult, The fact is that because characters
sometimes, to see how they will im- in a historical film have real names does
prove with age. They break open, not not guarantee that they are real people.
new roads, but whole new or forgotten Tsar, prince, metropolitan must be
areas; and, as with Ivan, they face the created with as much care and dramatic
risk of pomposity and inertia. sense as the unknown child, wife, and
It is not easy, after experiencing the father of Elia Kazan'sA Tree Grows in
real brilliance and gravity of this film, Brooklyn. If history in films is about
to recover, nevertheless, out of a kind real events but not real people, it is
of stunned dissatisfaction the essentials false-even if the dates are correct and
of its failure with us. We see, first, that the ruff on the ambassador is accurate.
the excitement of physical movement It is easy to make this mistake. What
is almost absent from Ivan; Eisenstein is left from a dead century may very
has apparently sacrificed it to obtain well be just such dead and inde-
epic weight and epic compression. Nor structible elements: drawings and doc-
do we feel the dramatic rush and flow uments, stony towers and courtyards,
of events on the screen, but rather a fine and curious armor. But to create a
great heavy waiting, watching, and film out of such elements gives it the
speaking. And in order to render his mothproof smell of a museum closet.
central characters in immense square Rudolph Mate, cameraman of the
perspective he has chosen to neglect the Dreyer film The Passion of Joan of
continuous spiral of dramatic move- Arc-which is in many ways the height
ment. and supreme achievement of the silent
There is opposition within Ivan, but cinema,-relates that, when a choice
it is static: the relationship of character was made of the helmets to be used by
to character changes little, or changes the English soldiers at Joan's trial, the
mechanically. And this affects the de- design chosen was a flat helmet which
piction of character-gives rise often to looked most like those used in World
ridiculous and inexpressive gestures, to War I, and therefore most ordinary.
poses back to back, to crowds that are Every set and costume in this intense
such undifferentiated masses that they film was thus purified and rendered
 EISENSTEIN AND THE HISTORICAL FILM 29
simple so as to bring into marvelous events; thus a detail can be symbolic of
focus that most expressive of all the a movement, a year, a war, or a cen-
elements of cinema, the play of change tury. But such a symbol must be made
upon the human face. real to be believed. So if a man repre-
But the subtle values of this great sents a tsar, and a tsar the unification
and classic movie are rare in Ivan. Iso- of Russia, we will not believe this sym-
lated sequences: the extraordinary cor- bol unless we return again to the man,
onation with its anointment with gold with clothes that have been worn, a
coins, the necromantic ritual during throne that has been used, a bed that
Ivan's illness; and isolated use of de- has been warmed, even by a royal
tail: Staritzkaya covering the poisoned rump.
cup with a black fold of her clothes, or In Ten Days Eisenstein puts a pile of
the huge eye of a painted image beside jumbled typewriters at the door of the
Kurbsky during his indecision, give Military Subcommittee of the revolt;
evidence once more of Eisenstein's and he depicts an intellectual who
genius. But there is much, besides, of leads an assault, with celluloid cuffs
cold, precise juxtaposition, where the that fall around his hands at critical
elements fail to add up, fail to rebound moments. Details like these appear to
and react upon one another, fail to go contrary to the heroic events in
create the sweat and exhilaration of which they appear, but actually they
high tragedy. are deeply consistent, and they are be-
Instead we have the siege of Kazan. lieved without question because they
Here is neither the ponderosity of have the twist of truth. But contradic-
battle nor its hideous personal details. tory details of this kind have been elim-
Here papier-mache walls are blown up inated from Ivan.
with firecrackers, as if upon the stage It is Eisenstein's contention, in a
of an opera. Here three captive Tartars recent essay, that "our cinema is not
are transfixed with arrows, and droop altogether without parents and with-
in the image of St. Sebastian instead of out pedigree, without a past, without
dying as real men die, in real agony and the traditions and rich cultural heri-
shock. Instead we have scenes like Ivan, tage of past epochs." This is good, and
full of gloomy and grandiloquent mon- true, and nowhere more than here in
ologues, at the open coffin of his poi- Hollywood is it important to go deeper
soned wife, where the tragedy of Ivan than our own generation of movies, for
as tsar overwhelms and obscures the the sources of style and drama. But it
sharper tragedy of Ivan as man. And is equally mistaken to forget the po-
then there are almost insane details tentialities of that machine, the cam-
like Anastasia smiling suddenly in her era, which gives the cinema its unique
coffin. breadth and freedom.
Such a detail (although justified by It is supremely the untiring eye of
legend) is of course meant symbolically, the camera that can grasp and hold de-
and it is true that to compress history, tails, that can fill even the corners of
as Eisenstein planned to do, every inci- the frame with the abracadabra of real-
dent and character must cast behind ity; an overturned chair, or the texture
it the shadow of huge, little-known of weathered ironwork; an indifferent
30 HOLLYWOOD QUARTERLY
dog, the opening of a door that is irrel- swing the great apparatus of his will
evant, or a face, close for a moment, and his intelligence; he can have
that is not part of the central action neither, fully, when an enemy is tear-
beyond. All such details have been at this native land with Mark VI's and
ruthlessly stripped from Ivan. It is the Messerschmitts. In such a time he can
camera, too, that can magnify the tiny generate anger and eloquence and a
motion of an eyelid till it becomes the weighty splendor: these are in Ivan,
highest moment of climax. But this and a few immense personages, and cer-
close intensity of human behavior, too, tain overpowering sequences; but little
has been ignored in Ivan. of plain and moving humanity.
Finally, it is the movie camera alone Gaunt necessity of war may be the
that can follow and hold-and, by edit- mother of invention, but deeper sci-
ing, sustain, heighten, and contradict ence and the deepest art-and new films
into drama-all the tumult of human by Sergei Eisenstein which will recom-
events, all their violent concurrence in bine magnificence of conception with
the three-dimensional space of the human movement and the intensity of
screen; but this freedom, too, Eisen- human detail-must wait to be born to
stein has put aside in order to freeze the fullness of the coming peace.
and monumentalize an era. It is with
Ivan the Terrible (Part One); Central
terrible logic that Eisenstein has elimi- Film Studios, Alma-Ata, U.S.S.R.; 1945.
nated these three basic functions of the Director-writer:SergeiEisenstein.
camera. It is a stylistic road along The Sign of the Cross; DeMille-Para;
which he has gone further and further 1932. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Novel by
in his last films, away from true cinema, Wilson Barrett. Screen play: Waldemar
and toward bas-relief and mural. Youngand SidneyBuchman.
The result in Ivan is a film quite pure Potemkin; Goskino, Moscow; 1925. Di-
rector-writer:SergeiEisenstein.
in style, hideous in its magnificence,
Ten Days That Shook the World; Sov-
and superhuman in its characters. For kino, Moscow; 1927-1928. Director-writers:
Eisenstein's plan was successful. These SergeiEisenstein,GrigoriAlexandrov.
characters, stiff, hollow-eyed, and Old and New; Sovkino, Moscow; 1927-
harsh, do create a deep central impres- 1928. Director-writers: Sergei Eisenstein,
sion within the film; and even after GrigoriAlexandrov.
several weeks one can still feel the pres- Que Viva Mexico!; independently pro-
ence of Ivan, the presence of the bo- duced; left unfinished, 1931. Director-writ-
ers: Sergei Eisenstein, Grigori Alexandrov.
yarina, these two dark protagonists of Alexander Nevsky; Mosfilm, Moscow;
a drama which is too easily forgotten.
1938. Directors: Sergei Eisenstein and D. I.
Thus Ivan is a great film, in motive and Vasiliev. Writers: Sergei Eisenstein and
in plan; but it is not a good one. Piotr Pavlenko.
The fact is plain once more, that art A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; Tw; 1945.
Director: Elia Kazan. Novel by Betty
during a war suffers as the human body
suffers. It is put to uses not its own, and Smith. Screen play: Tess Slesinger and
Frank Davis.
its full health is less important than its
The Passion of Joan of Arc; Societe
mere survival. Rich and profound work Gen6rale des Films, Paris; 1928. Director:
takes an artist's full attention, con- Carl-Th6odore Dreyer. Writers: Carl Theo-
scious and unconscious; it takes time to dore Dreyer and Joseph Deteil.