Ivan The Terrible, Part I

Sergei Eisenstein - 1944
Iconic imagery is used, that baroque thinness. The verticals throughout accentuate; bodies are often low down on the frame, creating thoughts in the mind of slanting up.
The acting style is expressionist, I'm not sure what this does; I'm really not able to make much of a critique of this film. What I did see was expressionist shadows that seem to leave bodies (affects outside materials is clear here). This adds to the madness theme, Ivan at once powerful, but also going too far.
The montage is often individual face to individual face, that's how the mass is shown. There is also a huge amount of axial cutting, usually from the out in, that deserves study, as I'm unsure of its purposes. Surely any analysis of this film should also discuss, which I'm not really capable of, Prokofiev's score.