This Thing of Darkness : Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible in Stalin's Russia / Joan Neuberger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Neuberger, Joan, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion pictures--Political aspects--Soviet Union.

Motion pictures.

Ivan Groznyĭ (Motion picture).

Ivan IV, Czar of Russia, 1530-1584--In motion pictures.

Stalin, Joseph, 1878-1953--Influence.

Eisenstein, Sergei, 1898-1948--Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (425 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Sergei Eisenstein's unfinished masterpiece, Ivan the Terrible, was no ordinary movie. Commissioned by Joseph Stalin in 1941 to justify state terror in the sixteenth century and in the twentieth, the film's politics, style, and epic scope aroused controversy even before it was released. In This Thing of Darkness, Joan Neuberger offers a sweeping account of the conception, making, and reception of Ivan the Terrible that weaves together Eisenstein's expansive thinking and experimental practice with a groundbreaking new view of artistic production under Stalin. Drawing on Eisenstein's unpublished production notebooks, diaries, and manuscripts, Neuberger's riveting narrative chronicles Eisenstein's personal, creative, and political challenges and reveals the ways cinematic invention, artistic theory, political critique, and historical and psychological analysis went hand in hand in this famously complex film. Neuberger's bold arguments and daring insights into every aspect of Eisenstein's work during this period, together with her ability to lucidly connect his wide-ranging late theory with his work on Ivan, show the director exploiting the institutions of Soviet artistic production not only to expose the cruelties of Stalin and his circle but to challenge the fundamental principles of Soviet ideology itself. Ivan the Terrible, she argues, shows us one of the world's greatest filmmakers and one of the 20th century's greatest artists observing the world around him and experimenting with every element of film art to explore the psychology of political ambition, uncover the history of recurring cycles of violence and lay bare the tragedy of absolute power.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Transliteration, Translations, and Citations

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

1. The Potholed Path: Ivan in Production

2. Shifts in Time: Ivan as History

3. Power Personified: Ivan as Biography

4. Power Projected: Ivan as Fugue

5. How to Do It: Ivan as Polyphonic Montage

6. The Official Reception: Ivan as Triumph and Nightmare

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 06. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9781501781377

1501781375

9781501732775

1501732773

OCLC:

1047573373