Ivan the Terrible

Ivan the Terrible is a two part movie, filmed towards the end of World War II, but the second part wasn't released until 1958 due to it being awesome. Or, alternately, being anti-crazy ruler consolidating power through fear and the secret police. Funny how that wasn't popular with Stalin. The first film was a crappy DVD (Netflix didn't have the Criterion version?), with almost illegible subtitles (not as bad as Green Snake's supremely unwatchable DVD, which pisses me off, since I am an enormous Maggie Cheung fan, although it just brings up a really bad mental connection for me), but the second film was the second film I've watched from my Janus films box. I did watch one of the films before, but that still leaves somewhere around half the box I haven't seen. They're just sitting there, in the box, not being watched because I can watch them at any point. Like when I get the first part of Ivan the Terrible and want to watch the second one. Anyway, the first one was just sort of a normal film about the rise of a clearly unstable leader to great power. And then it just sort of is an eh film, nothing particularly noteworthy about it. But Part II... Well, I understand now why it's not a big deal not having the first part in the Janus films box. Because the second one starts with Kurbsky meeting with King Sigismund of Poland in an enormous set with checkerboard flooring and many ridiculous ruffles, surrendering his sword and then kissing it, and just becomes more and more insane, leading to a blue and red tinted scene at a party that is just outstanding. Along the way, there's decapitations, poisonings, back story, and plain awesomeness. Everything is exaggerated to an extreme, with posing that specifically apes Lenin and Christ, at different points. Or same point, depending on just how commie you are. But the entire thing is a sort of anti-bourgeois rant by a crazy authoritarian leader who leads through fear and his secret police. I really wonder just why Stalin didn't like it? Was it just that the bourgeois killed his mom and that lead to the Army purges in the 30s? If so, they were a little late in killing his mom.