Ivan the Terrible, Parts I (1944) and II (1958)
Ivan the Terrible is the perfect example that a movie is not made in a vacuum, being shaped instead as the result of its director's handling of external pressures. In the case of Sergei Eisenstein , even though he had to struggle with having his revolutionary ideals crushed by the power of Joseph Stalin and his creative process restricted by the draconian rules of Socialist Realism , he still managed to create (albeit not to finish) a daring story about a paranoiac leader in a a diseased surveillance state while living in Stalin's USSR. The trilogy chronicles the life of Czar Ivan IV ( Nikolai Cherkasov ) from his ascension to power, in Part I, going through his confrontation with the aristocracy, in Part II, up until his acquisition of absolute power over a unified Russian state, in Part III. As friends and family plot against him, he grows increasingly paranoiac, being ultimately forced to become the tyrant he is now known for, learning that with great power comes not