A Latin Angel
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2317-4765.rus.2025.241681Keywords:
Eisenstein, Saint Michael the Archangel, Mexican Muralists, Ivan, the TerribleAbstract
In Ivan the Terrible (Parts I and II), directed by Sergei Eisenstein (1943 and 1945), the figure of Saint Michael the Archangel – with his face set in a flaming sun—appears in the tsar’s reception hall, a design created by Eisenstein himself. Strikingly, it echoes the long-standing iconographic tradition of the same angel that has been depicted for centuries across Latin America. Likewise, the layout of the drawing on the ceiling and walls recalls graphic solutions explored by Mexican muralists, whom Eisenstein admired so deeply that he saw them as his artistic forebears. These affinities point to the complex kind of (international) nationalism that shaped the film’s conception. The (Latin) angel who at once threatened and empowered Ivan resists any simplistic reading of the film as mere Stalinist propaganda.
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