Lost in Criterion

We're combining two films this week because one of the films does not exist as it's own proper Spine number in the Criterion Collection. Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible (Part I 1944 and Part II 1958) is an historical epic about Josef Stalin's favorite Czar, and an early unifier of all of Russia, or all the Russias, as the case may be. The first film I'm sure Stalin loved as it paints Ivan as a strong leader with clear Stalinesque parallels. The second dives into the man's troubles and violent treatment of just about everyone he could treat violently, and Stalin stopped appreciating the comparison. Which is why the Part II wasn't released until five years after Stalin's death (and, sadly, ten years after Eisenstein's).

Alexander Nevsky, one of Sergei Eisenstein's famous Soviet historical epics, is a monstrous and monstrously propagandistic film that has left all sorts of influence in its wake. Pat and I aren't really into it, even with it's massive battle sequences.

Pat and Adam watch Pygmalion and get distracted complaining about how people who actually agree with Henry Higgins still exist and shouldn't.

Ozu's 1959 comedy Good Morning is about two young brothers who go on a silence strike until their parents agree to buy a television. It's also a pretty great window into suburban life in Japan in the Sixties. That combines to stand in a pretty stark contrast to the other Japanese films we've watched so far.