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The Arrival of SoundFilm 11 of 12
Alexander Nevsky
Александр Невский
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Sergei Eisenstein and Dmitri Vasilyev, Mosfilm, 1938. Prince Alexander (Nikolai Cherkasov) is called to meet the Teutonic knights on the ice of Lake Peipus. Sergei Prokofiev wrote the cantata-like score in close timing with the cutting. The battle was shot in summer: melted glass, chalk, and trees stripped of leaves stand in for winter. After the 1939 German-Soviet pact the film was pulled; it returned in 1941. Eisenstein, back in favor after the halted Bezhin Meadow, treats the charge as music and geometry, and the last reel is the point: the ice.
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Eisenstein and Prokofiev built the battle on the ice together, cutting to music and composing to cuts. Counterpoint, not accompaniment: sound and image made to collide the way his shots once did. The winter is melted glass and chalk. The score is the weather.
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