Ivan the Terrible, Part 1

What I found most fascinating about Eisenstein's Ivan was how the director, Eisenstien (who became famous for his work in silent cinema) transitioned into talking pictures. It was as though the film held fast to the most prominent elements of silent film and adapted them to a film with sound. Take for instance the scene in which we are to believe that Ivan is on his death bed, the movements of his eyes and the expression of his face make words almost superfluous, and this type of acting and staging will continue throughout the film.
Eisenstein does use his signature symbolism in this film when he shoots large seemingly endless lines of people walking and trademark shots of cannons, but my personal favorite bit of symbolism was by far the chess theme. A chess board only appears once in the film while Ivan contemplates his strategy alone with his shadow cast over the room, but the idea of chess is recurrent. Returning to the scene of Ivan's deathbed we can see through the coloring of clothing (even though the film is black and white) how Anastasia, in white, defends Ivan while the matriarch of the Boyars, in black, stands menacingly. As though it were a face off, white queen versus black queen. Its is also interesting to note in this scene that Kurbsky wears white. Some interpretations suggest that he is against Ivan from the beginning, but if he is wearing white in this scene, it suggest that he is on Ivan's side, making the betrayal of the white knight all the more poignant.