Ivan The Terrible

I had mixed feelings about Ivan The Terrible. The actors portrayed their emotions in such an extreme, overbearing manner. Nearly all of the actors made their eyes very large when they spoke and all of their motions were very over acted which made many of the scenes seem unrealistic. I definitely see influences of kabuki in the film. Kabuki is derived from the root words meaning "to lean" or "to be out of the ordinary" which are two great ways to describe the acting throughout the entire film. The acting came across as bizarre and something the western culture is definitely not used to.

It was strange that so many people choose to follow Ivan because he seemed indecisive and radical in most of his decisions. I do understand that this was a time of indecision and many people were looking for any leader to get them out of their curent predicament. What I don't understand is that Ivan seemed to be a pretty typical Soviet leader and besides the fact that he was offering comradery between the people, he seemed to be leading them in a similar direction to where they were headed. Also, many of his followers could not be trusted which added to Ivans irrational decision making.

I did notice some similarities in Eisensteins films such as how he filmed the long line of followers and in the way he portrayed Soviet Russia. However, other than these few similarities I wouldn't have guessed the Eisenstein filmed this movie. I'm sure this had a great deal to do with the fact that he was incorporating sound into this film.