Alexander Nevsky

Sergei Eisenstein is justly acclaimed as one of the most influential directors in history. Unfortunately, I must take issue with one of his most lauded films, "Alexander Nevsky."

The plot of "Nevsky" could not be any more straightforward. The Germans invade 13th-century Russia. Prince Alexander must lead his countrymen against them. Since the film was funded by the Soviets, you can guess who wins.

Most of the film is very stiff and wooden. It feels like a silent movie with spoken dialogue put in--which makes sense, since Eisenstein started in the silent era. Each time a different character must speak, there is a brief pause as the camera cuts to that character.

This sort of filmmaking was necessary, even preferable, in the silent era because we couldn't hear any of the dialogue, and we needed to know who was speaking. But by 1938, film had advanced quite a bit; "Nevsky" was made the year after "Grand Illusion" and the year before "Gone With the Wind." Yet we still get shot after static shot of one character, delivering dialogue.

However, the film is mostly praised not for these sequences but for the "Battle on the Ice" scene. This scene was extremely influential, but it's not particularly effective.

The scene fails for the same reason that most battle scenes fail: we can't get a good grasp on what's happening. There are thousands of things happening on a battle field at any one time. It's impossible to capture all of them, so instead Eisenstein does the only thing he can: he gives us lots of shots of people swinging swords, interspersed with shots of people running around. After a half an hour, we're told the Russians won. But since we couldn't really understand what was going on, there was no sense of suspense or urgency.

Contrast this with, say, the "Odessa Staircase" sequence in Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin." Here, we see the Tsar's men chasing civilians down a staircase. There is a real sense of terror here, since we can actually comprehend what we're seeing.

Again, this isn't Eisenstein's fault. The challenges of filming a good battle scene have still only partially been overcome. Some things just don't work well on film. We'd be better off if directors stuck to action sequences that the audience can get a handle on.