Revealing facts or constructing plausible fictions?.
In both Ivan the Terrible and Alexander Nevsky Eisenstein attempted to reconstruct the historical narrative of events, even while taking the necessary liberties … Even if they are not a species of overt national propaganda, such works aim to provide a ‘historical map’ of the national past in order to bind the spectator more firmly to the present national identity….(Anthony Smith, 2000: 52)
‘Cinema and historical film specialised in the construction of ethnoscapes … Eisenstein was such a perfectionist in matters of archaeological verisimilitude that he had the sets for the Pskov and Novgorod scenes in Alexander Nevsky rebuilt in the studio according to their original proportions, because the old palaces and churches had sunk several feet into the ground… P55)