Russian Flick

The Alexander Nevsky movie/concert was pretty neat. They played the movie (black and white, of course, with subtitles) and lowered the volume whenever the symphony provided the score. It worked really well and sometimes you forgot that you had live music--even though you could see the orchestra underneath the screen.

I haven't seen an old movie in quite some time and I've never really given much thoughts to how much they have evolved. In this film, all the scenes were shot from a stationary camera and without any zooming whatsoever. I noticed only two scenes where the camera panned--after the final battle it moved over the bodies of the fallen warriors--and in those scenes it was quite effective. Still, the story was told evocatively, even without the smooth and grandiose came flyovers and special effects that we've grown accustomed to. It was rather like watching a play and the characters were quite Shakespearean (including Vasili the comedic relief).