IVAN THE TERRIBLE - PART II

IVAN THE TERRIBLE was originally conceived as a trilogy on the life of the notorious 16th-century Czar who united Russia, but only the first two parts were completed before the director's death. Shifting from the montage-based aesthetic of Eisenstein's silent films, the two IVAN's are a triumph of shadowy, claustrophobic mise-en-scene, filled with looming icons, gargoylish close-ups, and the Kabuki-like postures struck by imposing lead actor Cherkassov.

PART I charts the young Czar's ruthless rise to power in the face of treacherous nobles, Asian armies, and near-fatal illness. In the more flamboyant and eccentric PART II (banned by Stalin and not released until 1958), an epic of national unity turns into a nightmare of despotic paranoia, capped by the most sinister musical number (one of the film's two color sequences) this side of SWEENEY TODD. Music by Sergei Prokofiev. In Russian with English subtitles. 35mm. (MR)