Eisenstein and Ivan the Terrible today

2024 marks 80 years since the release of the great Sergei Eisenstein’s final, unfinished masterpiece: Ivan the Terrible. Commissioned by Stalin himself to make a biopic celebrating the bloodthirsty 16th-century tsar, Eisenstein instead produced a complex portrait of paranoia and power that remains relevant to this day.

To get to the heart of Eisenstein’s Ivan, host Sam Goff speaks with Joan Neuberger, Professor Emerita at the University of Texas and the author of This Thing of Darkness: Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible in Stalin’s Russia.

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