I think I must have been about 12 when I asked my parents if I could stay up late to watch Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible on television. I don’t know quite why it appealed; I think it may have been because I’d had a book of Russian folk tales that I’d enjoyed, and wanted to find out more about Russia.
Whatever the reason, I found the film – or rather, films – overwhelming. The colossally dramatic composition of scenes (which I much later recognised as influenced by the tradition of icon-painting as much as by 20th-century expressionism), the intensity of Nikolay Cherkasov’s operatic acting style, the sombre narrative of a ruler’s gradual descent into corruption and paranoia – I certainly couldn’t have articulated much of this at 12, but the impression was lasting and transforming, the start of a lifelong fascination with Russian history, culture and religion.
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