Alexander Nevsky
A 1938 Soviet poster
Directed by	Sergei Eisenstein Dmitri Vasilyev
Written by	Sergei M. Eisenstein Pyotr Pavlenko
Starring	Nikolai Cherkasov Nikolai Okhlopkov Andrei Abrikosov
Music by	Sergei Prokofiev
Release date(s)	December 1, 1938 March 22, 1939
Running time	112 min
Country	USSR
Language	Russian
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Alexander Nevsky (Александр Невский) is a 1938 historical drama film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and Dmitry Vasiliev and produced by Mosfilm, based on the life of Alexander Nevsky. With Nikolai Cherkasov in the title role and a score by Sergei Prokofiev, Alexander Nevsky is Eisenstein's most popular sound film, and has an audience appeal not found in his Ivan the Terrible.

Synopsis

The film depicts the 13th century conflict between the Teutonic Knights and the Russian people of Novgorod. It follows the knights as they invade Pskov and massacre its population. Alexander Nevsky then rallies the people of Novgorod and at a battle on the surface of the frozen Lake Chudskoe, the outnumbered Novgorodians defeat the Germanic invaders.

Political subtext

Alexander Nevsky was made during the Stalinist era, when the Soviet Union was at odds with Nazi Germany. Stalin directly requested that Eisenstein make a film that would warn the Soviet people of German aggression. The film contains many elements of propaganda that reflect the political situation of the 1930s. The helmets worn by the Teutonic soldiers resemble larger versions of German soldier helmets from the 20th century, while "in the first draft of the Alexander Nevsky script, swastikas even appeared in the invaders' helmets."^[1] The film also shows Nevsky making peace with the Mongols, his old enemies, in order to face the Teutonic Knights, hinting at the necessity of making peace with the Western powers to deal with Nazi Germany.

Unfortunately for Eisenstein, the film was released a few months before Stalin agreed to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which provided for non-aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union. The film was therefore suppressed and not shown in theaters. This changed dramatically in 1941 after the German attack on the Soviet Union: the film began to be shown in many Soviet cinemas. Scenes from the film were also incorporated in the American propaganda film The Battle of Russia.

Although the film is visually impressive, its soundtrack suffers from less-than-satisfactory sound quality, because Stalin's distrust of Eisenstein's intellectual motivations led to the premature confiscation, review, and approval of the film while its soundtrack was still in the process of being edited. This is particularly unfortunate because of the memorable musical score that Sergei Prokofiev wrote for the film. Those wishing to hear the full range of the music can listen to one of the recordings of Prokofiev's cantata.

Style

Alexander Nevsky is less experimental in its narrative structure than his previous films: it tells one story with a single narrative arc and focuses on one main character. The special effects and cinematography were some of the most advanced at the time.^[2]

The film was the first of Eisenstein's dramatic films to use sound. (A 1933 documentary, Que Viva Mexico!, had also used sound.) The film's score was composed by Sergei Prokofiev, who later reworked the score into a concert cantata. Prokofiev viewed the film's rough cut as the first step in composing its inimitable score. The strong and technically innovative collaboration between Eisenstein and Prokofiev in the editing process resulted in a match of music and imagery that remains a standard for filmmakers. The film climaxes in the half-hour battle on the ice, propelled by Prokofiev's ominous, rousing, triumphant musical narrative, a sequence that has served as a model for epic movie battles ever since (e.g., in Spartacus or the Star Wars saga, especially in the Hoth battle of The Empire Strikes Back).

Pop culture references

The Simpsons episode "G.I. (Annoyed Grunt)" used a song from the soundtrack of this movie in a parody U.S. Army recruitment ad.

The Tom Clancy novel Red Storm Rising depicted two American intelligence officers watching Alexander Nevsky (pirating the Soviet state television satellite feed) on the eve of World War III. The officers took note of the film's improved sound track as well as its anti-German sentiment and strong sense of Russian (as opposed to Soviet) nationalism. The next day, as part of a plot to split the NATO alliance politically, KGB agents detonated a bomb in the Kremlin and arrested a West German sleeper agent on charges of terrorism. While airing Nevsky immediately prior to the bombing may have been intended to inflame the Soviet population in favor of war with the West, the timing of the two events led the Americans to suspect the plot.

Several films have scenes strongly influenced by the Battle of Lake Peipus, including Doctor Zhivago (1965), Mulan (1998), and King Arthur (2004). However, the most striking homage appears during the culminating battle in the Ken Russell Harry Palmer sleuth story Billion Dollar Brain (1967).

Animator Ralph Bakshi's 1978 film based upon the fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings rotoscoped the ice-battle scene from Nevsky to create the Battle of Helm's Deep. The animators painted over the original images: Teutonic Knights became orcs, for example. The technique was fairly effective, but the rest of the film didn't come up to the same level. Peter Jackson's 2001-2003 live action versions of The Lord of the Rings do not use this technique.

In John Milius's 1984 film Red Dawn, a marquee advertising a showing of Alexander Nevsky can be seen as the Wolverines make their way through Calumet for the first time since the attack.

Movie-concerts

In the 1990s a new print became available, which was cleaned up somewhat. A number of symphony orchestras gave performanances of Prokofiev's cantata, synchronized with a showing of the new print. The New York Philharmonic,^[3], the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Philadelphia Orchestra are four such ensembles. The concerts were quite popular, because Prokofiev's music is badly degraded by the original soundtrack recording, which suffers from extreme distortion and limited frequency respnse, as well as cuts to the original score to fit scenes that had already shot. The cantata not only restored cuts but considerably expanded parts of the score.

New edition of the film

In 1995, a new edition of the film was issued on VHS, for which Prokofiev's score was entirely re-recorded in hi-fi digital stereo, although the dialogue portions of the soundtrack were left unchanged. This enabled a new generation to experience Eisenstein's film and Prokofiev's score in high fidelity, rather than having to settle for the badly recorded musical portion that had existed since the film's original release. Unfortunately, it is the original version of the film, with its 1938 musical soundtrack, that has been released on DVD. The 1995 version has yet to be released in that medium. (Ironically, the 1995 version was never released on laserdisc).

See also

• Middle Ages in film

References

External links

• Criterion Collection essay by J. Hoberman
• Article from Three Oranges, the Journal of the Serge Prokofiev Foundation, on the radio version of the Nevsky soundtrack.
• Preview clip at Google Video
• Complete film at Google Video

•  • [ e] Cinema of Russia
Cinema of the Russian Empire (Pre-1917) • Cinema of the Soviet Union (1917-1990)
	• • Chronology of films • • • • • • • • •