To be a director in Soviet Union time must have been a difficult job, even more if the dictator at the time was Stalin. The movie came out a year before the pact between Stalin and Hitler, the relations at the time were not optimal between both countries. This is why the movie is such an attack on Germany. The Soviet Union and every dictatorship in modern time always used propaganda to promote their agenda. Every media was used to this effect.
Sergei M. Eisenstein was a very famous man. He is seen as a great director who directed some of Russia’s best films. But at the time, Eisenstein needed to save face because his allegiance was not certain. 8 years after his last film: “Que Viva Mexico!” he needed to direct again and so he did with a film about patriotism, heroism and victory against the Germans.
In 1242, the German Teutonic Knights are a terrible force to be reckoned with. And when they attack a weakened Russia (a few years after the invasion by the Mongols), they encounter little resistance. The city of Novgorod is the last remaining free city in Russia and the citizens decide to ask the help of Prince Alexander to protect their city. Alexander Nevsky was a hero; he had recently defeated the Swedes and feared by the Mongols. He agrees and forms a unity army of peasants to attack the Germans.
Eisenstein was forced to make the film in association with Dmitri Vasilyev and with a script co-written with Pyotr Pavlenko. But the film is a definite film by the hand of Eisenstein. Forced to work on this film, the director decided to create a masterpiece. He used the most advanced special effects and cinematography at the time and created a more straight forward film then his previous endeavor. The film acclaims a hero, but a hero that didn’t fear his opponent and the help of the peasants to defeat the bourgeoisie and the church. The symbolic and the metaphors are very present in the film which is very interesting because we can compare the content to the Soviet Union. It would have been easy for Eisenstein to just see the picture as an easy commissioned job, but the man was a genius and used the context to his advantage to create a very modern film behind the façade of the historical battle. His action scenes for example were used as a model for many films to come with the famous battle scene on the frozen river as great example.
Eisenstein great ally in making the film was the film’s score composed by Sergei Prokofiev, one of the major composers of the 20th century. After a long career in the West, he used the movie to become a star in the Soviet Union. The creation of Alexander Nevsky was a collaboration between both men in the fullest sense of the word: Eisenstein shot some of the film to Prokofiev’s music and some of Prokofiev’s music was composed to Eisenstein’s footage. Valery Gergiev, the principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, has stated his opinion that Prokofiev’s music for this film is “the best ever composed for the cinema“.
The movie saved the career of Eisentein and was a huge success in the Soviet Union and the West.
