Second swim - Hogbacks already buggy

 

First swim of 2024!

Before:

 

...and after (chilled to the bone):

Come rain or come shine

 Yesterday

 ...and today

Film review: Ivan the Terrible, Part II (1958)

If Alexander Nevsky is Eisenstein's Seven Samurai (bravura battle scenes, noble hero(s)), this film is his Throne of Blood, in that it's very Shakespearean and almost ridiculously stylized.  Now, why are we watching Part II without watching the first one, you might ask?  Because this is the only one that's in our box set.  And while the first film met with Stalin's approval, this one did not, probably because the titular Ivan is presented as friendless and paranoid, something said of Stalin at the time.  In fact, Part I was released in 1944 and Part II was finished in 1946, and Eisenstein was working on Part III, but the release of Part II was stopped (hence the 1958 release date) and all funding to Part III stopped.  So, Part II is confusing enough, but adding to the confusion is that it is a sequel to a film that we haven't seen and a prequel to a film that was never finished.

Okay, so a brief rundown of the plot.  Essentially Poland (not Germany this time) is plotting to control Russia.  The Poles (in particular, King Sigismund) are presented (in the most amazingly Liberace/Fifth Element outfits) 

as foppish and decadent, as well as sneering, effeminate and condescending.  Their plan is to collaborate with some Russian noble (boyar) or other to install him as Tsar after he bumps off Ivan.  

This is probably in the noble's interest because Ivan, in trying to unite all the principalities of Russia, is about to bump off most of them.  Meanwhile, Ivan is in exile 

sulking because his beloved wife died when he gave her wine that (unbeknownst to him) had been poisoned by his wicked aunt Yefrosinya Staritskaya, who wants her son Vladimir (who is not at all interested and as foppish as any Pole) to be Tsar.  Ivan is missing two old friends: one, Kurbsky, a prince and rather brutish general, and the other, formerly Fyodor Kolychev but now a monk named Philip.  After a flashback where we see Ivan's mother being poisoned (it's a trend) 

and Ivan installed as an intended puppet as a teen, when instead he stands up to the boyars and confiscates their lands and re-installs them as managers.  Cut back to the present and Philip arrives, and agrees to become Orthodox bishop of Moscow provided he has the right to intercede for condemned men.  But Ivan is persuaded to find a way round this and we see several nobles (including three of Philip's kinsmen) getting the axe (well, not on camera - you just see extreme closeups of neck 

and then cut to an axeman bringing down his axe).  In Part I Philip has started the oprichniki, which consists of a personal guard of loyal commoners (which is another thing that pisses off the boyars), and one of them helps Ivan work out that his wife was poisoned and that his aunt should be the main suspect.  Meanwhile, the boyars plead their case to Philip (still smarting from the betrayal of his kinsmen being offed).  Then there's a confusing interlude (to be honest, the whole film is a confusing interlude) with a play where children are acting (singing) as Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego and a small child confuses Ivan for Nebuchadnezzar.  Ivan throws a fit and says that that's what he'll be like and adopts the moniker of The Terrible.  This spurs the boyars to plan to assassinate him and a young man called Pyotr is blessed by Philip to perform this certainly fatal task.  And then the film becomes color!  And we're having a banquet, and Ivan gets Vladimir drunk and he gets a bit loose-lipped (and reminded me of a cross between Bill Hader and Stan Laurel), 

Ivan says he should try being Tsar for a while, and dresses him up as such and has him lead a procession into the cathedral... where Pyotr mistakes him for Ivan and stabs him.  A delighted Yefrosinya comes in and starts shouting about how it's good Ivan is dead... until the crowd parts and there's Ivan.  She nervously pokes him to see that he's real and then, dread dawning on her, she turns over her son, and clearly goes crazy, singing a song about a black beaver while cradling him.  Pyotr expects to be killed but vows not to give up his co-conspirators, but Ivan says that there's no reason to keep him because he's killed the Tsar's worst enemy.

But the plot isn't really what matters.  What matters is that the film looks astonishing.  It's like German Expressionist cinema on steroids.  

The lighting is stark.  The closeups are extreme.  

The blocking, whereby faces come into the frame, is so stylized as to prompt snorts of laughter.  The costumes are beyond imagination.  All of which is to cover up the fact that the film is just an hour and a half of plotting.  The contrast with the action of Alexander Nevsky is stark: everything is claustrophobic and the mood of paranoia is conveyed as much by the visuals as by the acting.  It's really a silent film by temperament, with the exaggerated expressions and overall artificiality that's typical of the more experimental silents.  Really watching it is more like visiting an art exhibition than watching a film with a plot.  But none-the-less recommended for that.

Green and pleasant

 

Film review: Alexander Nevsky (1938)

This viewing was inspired by an Instagram post of Thomas's where he referenced Alexander Nevsky, being the great-battles-of-history nerd that all his online gaming requires him to be, and I remembered that we had the Eisenstein film as one of the 11 (now 10) remaining unwatched films in our Criterion 50-great-arty-films collection.  Verdict: amazing battle scenes, mixed with blatant (at the time, certainly justified) anti-German propaganda.  Throw in a couple of lovable warriors (Vasily Buslai, the goofier of the two, with unfortunate haircut and facial hair, and Gavrilo Oleksich, the more brooding and noble), both of whom are fighting for the affections of the fair Olga, 

who patriotically promises to wed whichever of them most distinguishes himself in battle for human interest and mild comic relief, and you've got yourself a picture!  One thing that you notice immediately Alexander comes on screen (standing in the river Neva, fishing) is that he's really tall.  He towers over everybody, until he arrives in Novgorod and meets Vasily and Gavrilo, because it turns out the actors were 6'6", 6'4" and 6'4.5".  That's a good basketball team of a cast!

Anyway, the basic premise is that we meet Alexander after he's won a historic victory over the Swedes, but while the Mongols are conquering Russia from one side and the Germans from the other, leaving the hills strewn with corpses.  

He has a surprisingly jocular meeting with some Mongols, when their leader (who has to crane his neck back) asks Alexander to become one of their generals, but he declines.  

He puts off dealing with them, though, to deal with the much nastier Germans, whom we see (led by a sinister religious figure, who has the most amazing face and who is a dead ringer for Emperor Palantine in Return of the Jedi - although in this picture he's not wearing his black cowl and is wearing insignia that are clearly meant to evoke swastikas) 

committing all sorts of atrocities, most notably tossing crying infants into bonfires (nice bit of special effects... I hope).  

Meanwhile, Novgorod is the largest and most prosperous city in the Germans' line of fire, so Alexander heads there, recruiting the peasantry along the way.  We see the people of Novgorod debating whether or not to throw their lot in with Alexander, and surprisingly, a fair number are agin' it, but the man they pick as their general gets up and says that, really, Alexander would be better for the job.  And when Alexander arrives he more or less says I don't care if you're with me because I've got the peasantry (no doubt red meat to the Soviet audience).  Anyway, all of this is just prologue to the battle that is the whole point of the film, which takes place on a frozen lake.  And what a battle it is - seemingly thousands of extras (none of your Lord of the Rings CGI-d soldiers here), actual tactics and just endless thwacking of sword and axe on sword and armor.  I swear, my arm would've been too tired to go on after about 2 minutes.

It's all very black-and-white - poisonous child-murdering invaders who practically have serpents' tongues and cloven feet, but who definitely have some super-cool armor, particularly when it comes to the headgear:

 

We also have a humorous old geezer who tells a "funny" story about a fox chasing a rabbit, only the fox gets stuck and the rabbit... rapes the fox!?!?  He acquits himself well in battle only to be killed by a cheap shot by one of the German head honchos who has surrendered but has a hidden dagger, and our old geezer has chain mail too short to protect his neck (we do get to see some surprisingly graphic - no Hayes Code in the USSR - neck wounds on the dead at the end).  Oh, and there's also a Valkyrie-esque female warrior who is Buslai's consolation when Olga inevitably chooses Gavrilo (to Buslai's mother's great consternation)).  Finally, Alexander's triumphal return (and in contrast to the Germans, the kids love him)

And his last speech to the audience and to the Russian public: "But those who come to us sword in hand will die by the sword! On that Russia stands and forever will we stand!" - a quote so good it is repeated on screen in text right after he says it.  So, overall, if you want an amazing (rather stylized) battle surrounded by various getting-the-gang-together scenes and a good deal of anti-German propaganda, along with a stirring (albeit, on our version, a bit warbly) Sergei Prokoviev score, then look no further!

If Weather Ball be Green...

 ...what does that mean?

For context: the Weather Ball (which has changed hands many times in recent years) is supposed to change colors to match the weather.  Here's the poem that explains it, but no mention of green.