Word: eisensteins
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...difficult to accurately praise Alexander Nevsky because Sergei Eisenstein, the main reason for its existence and excellence, is incomparably above his fellow directors. When, in the course of review, you have exhausted the supply of superlatives describing Kazan, Stevens, De Sica, and the other conventional geniuses, to evaluate Eisenstein is a frightening task...
While the others specialize in high points and "nice touches," emphasizing the actors' talents and individual ideas of pacing, Eisenstein carries the picture and makes himself the film's dominant force. When one speaks of an "art picture" the usual reference is to theme, good acting, and a few well staged scenes. Eisenstein's picture is a series of extremely well constructed scenes. Actually, Alexander Nevsky seems almost to be a set of still shots, posed for an exhibition of exquisite composition, and strung together with a minimum of transition. Contrasted to most pictures in which composition is subordinate...
...oddest factor in the Eisenstein technique is the feeling of motion that he maintains with essentially static grouping and poses. Telling a good part of his story by shifting the camera from group to group, Eisenstein at no time dwells long enough on any subject to create the boredom attending many of the silent films that, like Alexander Nevsky, give the main role to the director and his camera...
...small but steady consignment of celluloid continues to cross the Iron Curtain westward. Russian movies, still shown in a handful of small U.S. theaters, are mostly party-line pageants, e.g., Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible (which was practically rewritten by that supercolossal scenarist, Joe Stalin himself), and heavy footed musicals. But occasionally a good film comes out of Russia. One of the best in years is Sadko (Mosfilm; Artkino). Directed by Alexander Ptushko, who also did Stone Flower (TIME, Jan. 27, 1947), it is a hearty, grandly dressed and often beautiful version of the opera* that Rimsky-Korsakov...
...long episode at the bottom of the sea is ludicrously out of sort and rhythm with the rest. Anna Larionova is a bit bovine as the heroine, although Serge Stolyarov is a splendidly male and forthright Sadko. On the whole, by going back to Russian moods far older than Eisenstein or Stalin, this picture achieves an almost childlike air, dreamy, simple, and yet full of hints of ancient wisdom...