Robert Massie's _Nicholas and Alexandra_, basis of this film, appeared to acclaim in 1968. Massie gave the first straightforward look at Nicholas II and Alexandra, last sovereigns of Old Russia. Most people knew only outlines of their tragedy--their son was hemophiliac, victim of a condition hereditary in Alexandra's family: the boy might bleed to death from any injury. His poor health left Alexandra vulnerable to a charlatan, Rasputin, who gained unchallenged influence over her. Massie put flesh and blood on these bones. But his own son was hemophiliac, and his outlook blinkered by personal knowledge of his wife's agony as a mother responsible for her son's sufferings. Inescapably, Massie's book is sympathetic to Alexandra and until the 1990s, most accounts of the Romanovs echoed him: the empress' excesses were excused as those of a distraught mother in the grip of guilt and grief.
After 1989, Russian archival material radically changed this picture. Letters and diaries by politicians and the Romanov family prove that Alexandra was strongly disliked and distrusted. Her uninformed political meddling arose from undue confidence in her own limited abilities and was a main factor in the events of 1917-18. Domestically she was a hypochondriac tyrant, emotionally distant from her daughters and smotheringly watchful over Alexei who, like his sisters, never developed social skills appropriate to his age.
Against these revised views on the Tsar and his wife, "Nicholas and Alexandra" seems almost quaint today. It is nonetheless visually glorious cinema; sumptuous interiors, beautiful uniforms and gowns, and staggering wealth displayed in jewels, delight the eye and visualize the isolated world these people inhabited. The contrast between imperial wealth and urban poverty is, however, too sharply drawn. We see how factory workers lived, but the film ignores Russia's growing middle class when increasing wealth and education favored a flourishing cultural life--the works of such men as Tchaikovsky and Gorky. Massie's book dealt with such developments; but the film ignores them, so viewers' image of late Tsarist Russia is skewed.
Dramatically, "Nicholas and Alexandra" is rarely anything but turgid. In only one scene did James Goldman, a gifted screenwriter, rise to the level he achieved in "The Lion in Winter"--the dialogue between Nicholas and Alexei after the boy races his sled downstairs into a closed door: Goldman sensitively develops their words into a dialogue between the disgraced Tsar and Russia itself. With one brief exception(see below) the film doesn't sustain that level.
We rarely get a satisfying sense of the relationship between Tsar and empress, who either express undying love for each other or quarrel over Rasputin and how Nicholas should run his government. One of the clearest glimpses of the relationship comes late in the film, as Nicholas argues not with his wife but with his mother over Alexandra's influence. The film more successfully maps Alexandra's relationship with Rasputin, as witness the first scene between them at the dowager empress' birthday party. Here we see how deftly the pseudo-monk played on Alexandra's fears.
Goldman alters chronology for dramatic effect even when the historical record is dramatic enough. The film has Alexei's near-fatal illness at Spala followed by celebrations for the Romanovs' 300th anniversary, and the shooting of Prime Minister Stolypin. In fact Stolypin died in 1911, Alexei's illness was in 1912 and the Romanov tercentenary in 1913. What Goldman hoped to achieve by shuffling these events is unclear. Possibly it was to juxtapose Alexei's recovery at Spala, and Rasputin's consequent vindication, with the outbreak of World War I, when Alexandra, acting for an absent Nicholas, appointed hopelessly unqualified ministers Rasputin recommended, men in whose hands the Tsar's government collapsed in 1917. But if this was Goldman's intent, he failed to make his meaning clear.
Many scenes are sanitized, especially the last. We know they'll be shot. The director's endless delay of that moment as the family sits in that basement room is unbearable, if not inexcusable. The shooting itself is so brisk that but for the guns, we would hardly know what was happening. That said, I hope no film ever recreates the family's last minutes as Greg King and Penny Wilson reconstruct them in excruciating detail, using archival accounts by members of the firing squad and the forensic evidence of the bones recovered in 1979 (King and Wilson, _The Fate of the Romanovs_ Hoboken, 2003, chapter 12.)
Reviewers here criticize the scene, invented by Goldman, in which Tatiana disrobes before a young guard. Astoundingly, however, King and Wilson found documentary proof that during a snap inspection of the Ipatiev house on June 27, 1918, Grand Duchess Marie was found in a compromising "situation" with a guard named Ivan Skorokhodov (King and Wilson, _Fate of the Romanovs_, pp. 243-47). Documents proving this were still hidden away in Goldman's day. His invention of Tatiana's self-exposure thus reveals that he did have a dramatic sense of, and made an effort to portray, the feelings he realized these tragic young women experienced as they endured confinement and faced death. The documents do not reveal details of Marie's "situation," but the event proved that security at the house was unreliable. With the White Army approaching Ekaterinburg, Marie's peccadillo led to the local Soviet's decision to execute the entire family three weeks later.
After 1989, Russian archival material radically changed this picture. Letters and diaries by politicians and the Romanov family prove that Alexandra was strongly disliked and distrusted. Her uninformed political meddling arose from undue confidence in her own limited abilities and was a main factor in the events of 1917-18. Domestically she was a hypochondriac tyrant, emotionally distant from her daughters and smotheringly watchful over Alexei who, like his sisters, never developed social skills appropriate to his age.
Against these revised views on the Tsar and his wife, "Nicholas and Alexandra" seems almost quaint today. It is nonetheless visually glorious cinema; sumptuous interiors, beautiful uniforms and gowns, and staggering wealth displayed in jewels, delight the eye and visualize the isolated world these people inhabited. The contrast between imperial wealth and urban poverty is, however, too sharply drawn. We see how factory workers lived, but the film ignores Russia's growing middle class when increasing wealth and education favored a flourishing cultural life--the works of such men as Tchaikovsky and Gorky. Massie's book dealt with such developments; but the film ignores them, so viewers' image of late Tsarist Russia is skewed.
Dramatically, "Nicholas and Alexandra" is rarely anything but turgid. In only one scene did James Goldman, a gifted screenwriter, rise to the level he achieved in "The Lion in Winter"--the dialogue between Nicholas and Alexei after the boy races his sled downstairs into a closed door: Goldman sensitively develops their words into a dialogue between the disgraced Tsar and Russia itself. With one brief exception(see below) the film doesn't sustain that level.
We rarely get a satisfying sense of the relationship between Tsar and empress, who either express undying love for each other or quarrel over Rasputin and how Nicholas should run his government. One of the clearest glimpses of the relationship comes late in the film, as Nicholas argues not with his wife but with his mother over Alexandra's influence. The film more successfully maps Alexandra's relationship with Rasputin, as witness the first scene between them at the dowager empress' birthday party. Here we see how deftly the pseudo-monk played on Alexandra's fears.
Goldman alters chronology for dramatic effect even when the historical record is dramatic enough. The film has Alexei's near-fatal illness at Spala followed by celebrations for the Romanovs' 300th anniversary, and the shooting of Prime Minister Stolypin. In fact Stolypin died in 1911, Alexei's illness was in 1912 and the Romanov tercentenary in 1913. What Goldman hoped to achieve by shuffling these events is unclear. Possibly it was to juxtapose Alexei's recovery at Spala, and Rasputin's consequent vindication, with the outbreak of World War I, when Alexandra, acting for an absent Nicholas, appointed hopelessly unqualified ministers Rasputin recommended, men in whose hands the Tsar's government collapsed in 1917. But if this was Goldman's intent, he failed to make his meaning clear.
Many scenes are sanitized, especially the last. We know they'll be shot. The director's endless delay of that moment as the family sits in that basement room is unbearable, if not inexcusable. The shooting itself is so brisk that but for the guns, we would hardly know what was happening. That said, I hope no film ever recreates the family's last minutes as Greg King and Penny Wilson reconstruct them in excruciating detail, using archival accounts by members of the firing squad and the forensic evidence of the bones recovered in 1979 (King and Wilson, _The Fate of the Romanovs_ Hoboken, 2003, chapter 12.)
Reviewers here criticize the scene, invented by Goldman, in which Tatiana disrobes before a young guard. Astoundingly, however, King and Wilson found documentary proof that during a snap inspection of the Ipatiev house on June 27, 1918, Grand Duchess Marie was found in a compromising "situation" with a guard named Ivan Skorokhodov (King and Wilson, _Fate of the Romanovs_, pp. 243-47). Documents proving this were still hidden away in Goldman's day. His invention of Tatiana's self-exposure thus reveals that he did have a dramatic sense of, and made an effort to portray, the feelings he realized these tragic young women experienced as they endured confinement and faced death. The documents do not reveal details of Marie's "situation," but the event proved that security at the house was unreliable. With the White Army approaching Ekaterinburg, Marie's peccadillo led to the local Soviet's decision to execute the entire family three weeks later.