[Artemisia] M I's medieval movie night

drchelm no1home at onewest.net
Tue Feb 3 00:12:58 CST 2004


We know the roads are bad with the lousy  with the winter weather and 
folks who are not lucky enough to live near by are more than likely not 
able to come - but think of the  great medieval movies you hear about 
here that you can hunt down on your own.  We've gone further afield 
this year than we have before, seeing movies somewhat off the 
well-beaten track - and this month and next month brings a movie that 
few have seen in this or any other country. (Our apologies to those who 
see this post twice.)

Barony of One Thousand Eyes Medieval Movie Night

yes, this is a few days late...but I was waiting to see if we would get 
the movie I wanted to show this month - and next month!  It arrived 
just today, ie monday.  The movie is Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible - 
another great Eisenstein movie with another really fabulous Prokovief 
score.  You all know Prokovief, I know you do...he's the guy who did 
Peter and the Wolf - one of the great composers of the 20th century.  
He was the lucky one of the great Eisenstein - Prokovief collaboration; 
he managed to get out of Russia before Stalin sent him off to the 
Gulag, and he mananged to land in Glendale CA working for Walt Disney 
for the last few years of his life.  Eisenstein was not so lucky.  Part 
II of Ivan the Terrible landed Eisenstein in the Gulag - thus ending 
the career of the greatest soviet film maker of all time.

We've not even seen this movie ourselves yet.  Wednesday will be the 
first time and we will have time only for part I this month, the part 
with the big big battle scene and thousands of extras - which is only 
to be expected for a movie on a Stalinesque scale.  I've been looking 
for this movie for quite literally more than a decade.  I think I know 
the Prokovief score to the movie by heart by now - it's a tremendous 
piece of music and I think I wrote at least a third of my 300+ page 
dissertation to Prokovief's film music.  It's the only one of 
Eisenstein "famous 3" films that I have never seen.  Very few people 
hav seen it other than fuzzy copies smuggled out of Russia in the late 
80s. This is the first public release of a movie whose Part II was the 
literal death of the man who made it and was not ever even seen in 
Russia before just a few years ago.  The film clips I have seen of it 
thus far leave me regretting the decision to not open the box until 
Wednesday...and even then, I might not be able to last that long..

Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible, Part I with the Ivan the Terrible 
"short" from the Warner Brothers' cartoon series Histeria at approx. 
7:20 as a warm up
7:30 pm Weds at Viscountess Lynn's in Ammon (a wide spot in the road 
just east of Idaho Falls on 17th St)
"snow-check" showings may be available if the weather is bad and you 
really wanted to see it.
Be there or be an orthogonal equal-lateral quadragon


More information about the Artemisia mailing list