day nine - WWII Era Film

'Ivan the Terrible, Part I' dir. Sergei Eisentstein, 1944.

I was just looking up where Kazan is, and it's really not where I thought it was. I figured it would be much further East since the people portrayed there looked very Asian in comparison to most of the ruling people in the Moscow area. But it's actually much closer to the European side of Russia, just more South toward the border with modern-day Kazakhstan, which I suppose also makes sense. I thought maybe it would not actually be a part of Russia anymore, but instead inside the borders of one of the Eastern European republics that became independant states after the dissolution of the USSR. It's actually surprisingly close to Moscow.
Here is a map of where Kazan is.

Wikipedia exaplins the Tatar people as a 'Turkic' ethnic group and says that today:
Volga Tatars number nearly 8 millions, mostly in Russia and the republics of the former Soviet Union. While the bulk of the population is to be found in Tatarstan (nearly 2 million) and neighbouring regions, significant numbers of Kazan Tatars live in Central Asia, Siberia and the Caucasus. Outside of Tatarstan, urban Tatars usually speak Russian as their first language (in cities such as Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, Tashkent, Almaty, and cities of the Ural and western Siberia) and other languages in a worldwide diaspora.

I was curious about them just becuase I didn't really know about it before. And because I had seen an emblem for "Tartary" on a circus wagon representing Asia and I've been wondering about that ever since. I didn't know that groups like that lived so close to Europe, I guess my mind wants to place them much closer to places like China and Mongolia, but I suppose it would make sense for them to be there since it is relatively close to Turkey, and they are thought of (in the Western perception, anyway) as being in between Asia and Europe. It's interesting to think where the line is drawn between European and Asian peoples. (stupid senior sem, now I am thinking of Orientalism, which I used in my thesis, bah!)

But anyway, thinking about the actual film, it is funny to think that there are Asian-Russians, since we think so much about Russia being part of Europe, especially since much of the population and bigger cities are closer to Europe than to Asia. So, Ivan really did do a lot to incorporate such a huge area into one single governing republic. I'm curious as to how exactly Russia looked right before the advent of the USSR, if all of the smaller 'republics' that it incorporated were independent in between Ivan and communism or they finally became their own countries afterward? I guess I don't know much about that part of the world.

Re-directing myself again...the assignment sheet mentions Eisenstein's interest in Japanese Kabuki theatre.
This short video is a nice explanation of the basics of Kabuki.

Given that information, I can see why the acting style was so overdramatic. It is very similar in style. One thing specifically I noticed about almost all of the actors in the film was that they always seemed like they had to have their eyes open as widely as humanly possible at all times, to make for really dramatic expressions, which I think might be Eisenstein's replacement for the special makeup that simplifies the facial features, making them clearly stand out. There was also a lot of posing, where someone would say something and stare in a 'dramatic pose', which according to Kabuki, helps to define characters.

I find it odd that this mimicking of Japanese style would be accepted in the USSR, especially during WWII, given that the Japanese were allied with Nazi Germany who were causing the USSR so much grief. The one text, however, seems to imply a naievete on behalf of some of Stalin's higher-ups regarding Eisenstein's foreign influences and willingness to take the risk of putting his own opinions and spins on things into his film. I could easily see the parallels between the story being portrayed of Ivan and the figure of Stalin, which probably kept them happy. It was obvious to me that the boyars were meant to represent bourgeoise culture, who are said to want all the power for themselves. I must say, until I read the assignment sheet, I thought that the main boyar who poisoned Ivan's wife was a man. I had no idea.

I think that's all I have for right now.