ALEXANDER NEVSKY Movie Review

1938 Sergei Eisenstein

At the risk of making light of an acknowledged masterpiece of world cinema, it must be said that Sergei Eisenstein's second great piece of unashamed flag-waving propaganda (after Battleship Potemkin) has aged artlessly. Given the film's checkered genesis, that's almost inevitable. It's obvious that Eisenstein is uncomfortable with the basic premise, and though the film was made at the beginning of the sound era, he never accepted sound as a useful part of film. While the big frozen lake scene is still studied and imitated by filmmakers, the whole work lacks enthusiasm and life. Today, Alexander Nevsky is most notable for its impressive battlefield orchestration, big crowd scenes, pneumatic heroines, and stiffbacked heroes. Actually, its most obvious successors are those lumbering historical epics that Hollywood cranked out in the 1950s. In fact, a young Troy Donohue in a blond Prince Valiant wig would have been perfect as the lead.

But the title role went to square-jawed Nikolai Cherkasov. As the opening credits explain, “13th Century Teutonic Knights were advancing upon Russia from the west. Russia's vast lands and riches attracted the invaders. The Germans expected an easy victory.” The rest of the film is equally blunt and blatant. As the Germans approach, Russian nobles and peasants implore Alexander (Cherkasov), a hero in the last war, to raise an army and lead them. A few traitorous aristocrats disagree, advocating immediate capitulation to the invaders. Meanwhile, the Teutonic Knights, whose crucifix symbol is reminiscent of a swastika, are literally throwing children into a bonfire. With their armor, tall helmets, white capes, and robed horses, they're as visually impressive as D.W. Griffith's Klansmen in Birth of a Nation. (Virtually identical robed riders and horses would reappear in the 1970s as supernatural monsters in Armando de Ossorio's Blind Dead horror films.)

In a laborious subplot, two young men vying for the hand of the same girl decide that the most valorous in battle will win her. Another young woman disguises herself as a man so she can join the fight. During the extended preparations, the characters who aren't making speeches tend to speak in fortune cookie aphorisms. “What makes a sword strong? The arm that wields it.”

Modern viewers who can get past those excesses will find that the famous sequence on the frozen Lake Chudskoye is still one of the finest medieval battle scenes ever put on film. Whether it's accurate or plausible, the tactics of the engagement are clearly choreographed and the whole thing is played out in fine dramatic fashion. The icy landscape is an eerie setting for the knights and their horses, all in white. (At the same time, some of the other costumes and the bowl haircuts give the action a dated, silly quality.) The battle itself is filled with exciting moments and Prokofiev's rousing score is one of the finest pieces of film music ever written. Eisenstein actually conceived the work more as a “cinematic symphony” (A Short History of the Movies, Gerald Mast) than as a conventional narrative. Even so, nothing here matches the visual complexity of Potemkin.

Throughout the film, it's apparent that the central theme of the individual hero-redeemer was not to Eisenstein's liking. As a dedicated communist, he didn't agree with that kind of cinematic storytelling. But he was also a filmmaker who wanted to work. During the course of his career, political realities had changed. Battleship Potemkin was made in 1925 under Lenin, when the ideals of the Russian Revolution were still fresh and vital. When Alexander Nevsky was made in 1938, Stalin was in power and Hitler was an immediate military threat to the Soviet Union. The film was conceived and executed as propaganda to rouse the Soviet citizenry, to move them to action without making the Germans seem invincible. Judged then as propaganda, it succeeds brilliantly—so brilliantly that it didn't survive the next change in political reality. A year later, in 1939 when Hitler and Stalin signed a Non-aggression Pact, Alexander Nevsky was abruptly withdrawn from distribution. But, as we know, what goes ‘round comes ‘round. On June 23, 1941, the day after Hitler broke the treaty and German forces invaded Russia, the film found itself back in favor.

Cast: Nikolai Cherkasov (Prince Alexander Nevsky), Nikolai P. Okhlopkov (Vasili Buslai), Andrei Abrikosov (Gavrilo Oleksich), Alexandra Danilova (Vasilisa), Dmitri Orlov (Vasili Buslai), Vera Ivasheva (Olga Danilovna), Sergei Blinnikov (Tverdilo, Traitorous Mayor of Pskov), Lev Fenin (Archbishop), Vladimir Yershov (Von Balk, Master of the Teutons), Nikolai Arsky (Domash Tverdislavich), Naum Rogozhin (Black-Cowled Monk), Varvara O. Massalitinova (Mother Buslai), Vasili Novikov (Pasha, Governor of Pskov), Ivan Lagutin (Anasias); Written by: Sergei Eisenstein, Pyotr Pavlenko; Cinematography by: Eduard Tisse; Music by: Sergei Prokofiev. Russian. Running Time: 110 minutes. Format: VHS, LV, DVD.