Hacker Cinema
Alexander Nevsky
Александр Невский
1938 · Film · 109 min
Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, Dmitriy Vasilev
When German knights invade Russia, Prince Alexander Nevsky must rally his people to resist the formidable force. After the Teutonic soldiers take over an eastern Russian city, Alexander stages his stand at Novgorod, where a major battle is fought on the ice of frozen Lake Chudskoe. While Alexander leads his outnumbered troops, two of their number, Vasili and Gavrilo, begin a contest of bravery to win the hand of a local maiden.
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Alexander Nevsky is another great movie that he directed. The Battle of the Ice was the prototype for a lot of epic movie battles.
My favourite is the "battle on the ice" sequence from Alexander Nevsky, by Eisenstein:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKZPgGbUuX0
... well because it's epic! But also because it has a kind of comic-book or perhaps theatric aesthetic. I'm talking particularly of this scene:
https://youtu.be/vKZPgGbUuX0?t=267
Where you see the Great Magisters of the Teutonic knights riding on as their oriflames pass by (edit: also, Prokoviev). The most epic scene I've watched outside of the final battle in the original Conan movie. And while you can clearly see how it was shot, that doesn't detract from how badass it all looks.
I don't think it's possible to create experiences like these with modern techniques, perhaps because the latter are so perfect they leave nothing to the imagination and the emotions of the viewer. I don't think modern audiences can even parse that kind of language anymore :(