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Film

Tsar
Text by John Harrison

The film ‘Tsar’, starring Peter Mamonov and Oleg Yankovsky, directed and scripted by Pavel Lungin, opens in Moscow in November. Pavel Lungin is a self-styled, independent scriptwriter and director, one of the first to combine these two roles successfully in Russia. The film stars Peter Mamonov as Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible). Mamonov is a hugely talented, well-known and reclusive rock musician turned actor; whose life is worthy of a separate article. Oleg Yankovsky who sadly passed away in May of this year, plays Metropolitan Fillip. Oleg Yankovsky was an extremely well-known and talented Russian actor whose career spanned five decades. He is most well-known by foreigners for his roles in Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpieces: Zerkalo (The Mirror) in 1975, and Nostalgia (Nostalgia) in 1983.

Peter Mamonov as Ivan the Terrible

‘Tsar’ covers a tumultuous part of Russia’s history, when Moscow was transforming itself from being a Grand Duchy to the capital of an expanding empire independent of the Mongols. Aged 16, Ivan IV was crowned Tsar (derived from the medieval European meaning of Caesar, or Emperor) in 1547, a title that his father Ivan III had intermittedly used (when he could get away with it) after he married Sofia Paleologue, the niece of the last Byzantine Emperor. The young Ivan did not grow up in polite society. He witnessed the reality of boyars struggling for power whilst his own favorites were eliminated, and came to power harboring a desire to curb the boyar’s power and turn the image of supreme Tsarist power into reality. He consolidated state power in his early reign: he curtailed the boyars’ power, improved direct taxation, tightening his grip on the army though ‘service estates’ and consolidating the borders of his burgeoning empire. He also set up the first printing press, introduced self-management in rural regions, and opened up new trade routes. Since his power rested just as much on religious as on secular grounds, he tried to discipline the church by imposing his own messianic and authoritarian version of Christianity. Ivan was an erudite, intense young man, and went about his duties as if Russia really was ‘Third Rome’. His ideals were grandiose, aesthetic and demanding. When he realized he could not turn his vision of divine Russia into reality, he swung from self-denial into orgies of sensuality and sadism. In 1560 Ivan’s beloved wife Anastasia died, removing the last restraining element on his unstable personality.

Ivan’s critics accused him of excessive cruelty towards his own people, including military officers. Ivan in turn practiced the Machiavellian creed that cruel means were justified when sovereignty had to be demonstratively exercised, a philosophy also used by Stalin and a host of other dictators.

Ivan created a police force to uphold and enforce his regime; the oprichniki. This was more than a police force; this became an instrument of terror over which he had absolute power. The oprichniki were given extensive territories in former boyar strongholds in the Novgorod region. According to Geoffrey Hoskins in his masterpiece; Russia, People and Empire 1552-1917, ‘the process was a not a tidy one’; Boyars who apparently did not display loyalty and devotion were summarily executed on charges of heresy or treason. The oprichniki provided sources of taxes and personnel for the army, at the same time they were subjects of an absurd circus. Ivan called those oprichniki working in his security force ‘brothers’, and used them as examples of the kind of Christian life that he wanted his subjects to lead. They wore long black coats, each carried a dog’s head mounted on a long stick (hence the nickname Tsar’s Dogs), charged about on large horses, and were awarded special powers of investigation and arrest of anybody suspected of treasonous behavior.

The film Tsar is set in the middle of this never-never land, and focuses on the relationship between Ivan and the Metropolitan Filipp who was one of the only people of influence to resist Ivan’s tyranny. The story-line is not historically accurate but does convey the atmosphere and spirit of the times. The film is split into four chapters, the first of which ‘The Tsar’s Prayer’ opens in the 1560s when Ivan IV (Mamonov, beaky nose and glowering eyes) is already an all-powerful tyrant with his feared ‘Tsar’s Dogs’ which are goaded on by flashing- eyes and the sadistic Tsarina, Maria Temryukovna, (Ramilya Iskander). The Tsar, who was already a certifiable [nowadays] religious madman, is taunted in a Shakespearian way by how he will be called to account during the Last Judgment. He becomes increasingly paranoid about perceived enemies all around him.

Oleg Yankovsky (as Metropolitan Filipp) kissing the decapitated head of
his cousin Alexei Makarov

The film Tsar is set in the middle of this never-never land, and focuses on the relationship between Ivan and the Metropolitan Filipp who was one of the only people of influence to resist Ivan’s tyranny. The story-line is not historically accurate but does convey the atmosphere and spirit of the times. The film is split into four chapters, the first of which ‘The Tsar’s Prayer’ opens in the 1560s when Ivan IV (Mamonov, beaky nose and glowering eyes) is already an all-powerful tyrant with his feared ‘Tsar’s Dogs’ which are goaded on by flashing- eyes and the sadistic Tsarina, Maria Temryukovna, (Ramilya Iskander). The Tsar, who was already a certifiable [nowadays] religious madman, is taunted in a Shakespearian way by how he will be called to account during the Last Judgment. He becomes increasingly paranoid about perceived enemies all around him.

Conflict between the two soon starts in the film’s second section ‘The Tsar’s War’. The Metropolitan opposed Ivan’s over-violent methods, and on humanitarian grounds conceals members of the Russian nobility accused by Ivan of surrendering the town of Polotsk to Polish invaders. After discovering these nobles hiding in a monastery, Ivan extracts ‘confessions’ of cowardice with all the sadism he is historically known for. Filipp is spared, but when he refuses to endorse their death sentence, Ivan demonstratively has them torn apart in public by wild bears. In the end, the Metropolitan is publically humiliated, exiled and murdered in 1569 on orders of the Tsar. Fillip is today honored as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church.

In the final section of the film: ‘The Tsar’s Fairground’, Ivan’s Russia bears the marks of massive mis-management. Many of the boyars had been evicted from their ancestral lands, the clergy was torn apart by heretical hunts, merchants and peasants suffered under the burden of heavy taxation. Peasants deserted the land, and the Tsar entered the final stages of madness and sadism. In the film’s closing scenes, Ivan stares at an empty town square, and murmurs desperately and innocently: “where are all my people”.

The two actors seem to work naturally with their roles; Mamonov naturally supplies the wild-eyed demonics, whilst Yankovsky brings a quiet dignity to his man of faith. Both actors are immersed in talent; the roles appear to have come somewhat naturally to both men. Director Pavel Lungin commented in an interview with Passport in regard to Mamonov’s role: “I noticed that Peter could play Ivan when we were working on [the film] Island. It seemed to me that he has something in common with the way Ivan looked, and Peter’s personality is not alien to that of Ivan. Peter is a hugely talented actor who is able to project himself into any role which he is given. I had no worries about him being able to play the part. I’d even say that if it hadn’t been for Peter, I may not have made the film. If anybody could play Ivan the Terrible, it is Peter Mamonov.” The director added that he wrote the script for Tsar with Mamonov in mind for the role of Ivan IV.

Tsar is first and foremost about the conflict between Ivan and Filipp. Here we have the same issues of duty versus friendship and loyalty to the regent versus loyalty to God as those documented in A Man For All Seasons, or Beckett. Ivan considered himself to be appointed by God; “Ivan put himself in a position higher than the Metropolitan. He could kill him, he didn’t need the Metropolitan. He is the Tsar, he has direct contact with God,” commented Lungin. But at the same time, Ivan was humbled by the Metropolitan’s strength of character. Ivan IV, however, takes this paradigm a lot further. Ivan IV replaces determination with fanaticism and mental instability. His ruthlessness is backed up by limitless power. Ivan’s instability fosters a duality in everything he does, as clearly demonstrated by the dualistic way he treated the oprichniki and the ordinary people. Lungin commented: “From the time of Ivan the Terrible, there have been, practically speaking, two Gods in Russia. One is the God of state power, which defends any action the state makes, and then there is the God of the people. And they are different things. This duality is very strong in Russia. There are two Gods, two truths, two justices, two sets of laws. I saw this in the personality of Ivan the Terrible when I was researching material for the film. I came across excerpts of his speeches, which are very strong. He said things like: ‘As a man I am a sinner, but as Tsar, I am right.’ The Tsar cannot be a sinner. In one respect it [the film] was simply the story of the inter-relationship of two people, on the other it was an attempt to track down the source of Russian Autocratic Power which exists to this very day. The state wanted to replace God. State power wanted to become God, and demanded first and foremost the people’s love. Not loving authority was already a crime. The oprichniki were an organ which punished people because they didn’t love the Tsar enough. Ivan took this to messianic extremes; if the Tsar wasn’t loved enough then there wasn’t enough bread to go round, and livestock weren’t born.”

Director Pavel Lungin on the set of Tsar

The film cannot be said to be historically accurate; but then please tell me what historical film is? This is Pavel Lungnin’s personal view of events. For example the real Ivan the IV was 41 years when these events took place, not a toothless, bald old man. The surrender of Polotsk occurred many years after the Ivan-Filipp conflict. There is also no real hint in the film that Ivan was a very erudite human being; a highly accomplished writer and even one of the first Russian composers. This of course has nothing to do with whether this film is to be judged a masterpiece or not; these days it seems to be all about how many millions of dollars are spent on production, however making a film about Ivan the Terrible does beg comparison to Sergei Eisenstein’s film: Ivan the Terrible, which, despite being created in conditions of strict control, is far more historically accurate as far as dates are concerned. In Lugnin’s other films where Mamonov has starred, historical accuracy was unimportant, but given that the subject matter of this film is highly sensitivity issue, why bother to use the name of Ivan the Terrible at all? To this, Lungin commented: “But this is not an historic film, it is an artistic piece of work. The period covered in the film touches on the most important issues in Ivan’s life, I know that it doesn’t follow historical facts exactly. But for me, Mamonov was more important [than the actor’s age]. “Ivan the Terrible is a key figure in Russian history. But Eisenstein made a film according to a dictate by Stalin during World War II. I don’t know whether he did what he wanted to do or not, but the film became aesthetic. Tsar is not trying to compete with Eisenstein’s film - it is talking about a completely different world. Eisenstein’s Ivan was more about statesmanship; whereas this was an attempt to get inside Ivan’s personality. I can’t say whether it worked or not, but I tried to do this. In the beginning I called the film: Ivan the Terrible and Metropolitan Fillip, but it seemed to me that that would be too academic. The name Tsar opened up wider horizons.”

Being such a strong statement, the film opens itself to all sorts of criticism inside Russia, not least that of being simplistic. The film may well be sidelined to the art house circuit, the fate of many brilliant films labeled ‘non-commercial’; and a similar fate will probably await the film in the West. “It seems unlikely that westerners will understand what this film is all about, because these problems one way or the other have already been resolved in the West. But in Russia these problems are not unresolved ,” commented Lungin.

After I saw the preview of this film in June, I returned home to my flat in Moscow, where my wife had just started to watch Angels and Demons. What a shallow, tinsel production that seemed, despite its amazing technical and human stunts seemed in comparison to Tsar, which may, or may not have its faults. On an emotional and soul-level, where the Russians reign supreme, the film is magic. This is a must-see.







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