Eisenstein is famous for intellectual montage, but that was only one of several modes of montage he conceived of. In his writings he talks a great deal about exciting the audience, and the highly kinetic images spliced together in the montages of Battleship Potemkin and Alexander Nevsky reflect this goal. He'll put images of crowds on the move next to rapidly undulating flames or boats racing along the surface of the water with their sails shaking in the wind. When you've seen enough of Eisenstein's films, you can tell that he didn't use images of crowds just to intellectually connect them to other ideas, he found them beautiful and exciting. He didn't have the anxiety many other filmmakers have about the mystery of other minds. Tarkovsky was probably the best of the filmmakers who did, which would explain why he said he could not appreciate Eisenstein's work. Eisenstein is interested in those rare moments where many people are of one mind, historical breaking points and collective rituals.
Kinetic excitement isn't enough for some people. Even if you can recognize that his films have goals beyond explicitly laying out arguments, you might still side with the people who see fit to call his films "soulless" or even "inhumane." They don't like being lectured to, and they want to feel more than the sensation of rousing movement, the cinematic equivalent of music you would listen to while running. But then there's the bit in Potemkin with the three lion statues in sequence, montage as stop-motion animation for a visual joke. The way it depicts the harbor at morning is clearly more about drinking in the atmosphere than excitement or intellection.
You will rarely if ever see another movie that resembles Ivan the Terrible. Maybe certain elements are repeated elsewhere, but that wouldn't show you how they fit into this film's patchwork of extravagance. The screen is almost always extremely busy, and the costumes are the most varied and most complicated I've seen in any film. The way the actors emote is exaggerated but mannered, as if seeking to symbolize emotions in sculptural poses. On top of that, Nikolay Cherkasov's head has itself been designed with distinct geometry, not least so it can cast recognizable shadows on the walls.
At Ivan's wedding, after everyone ritualistically sips wine, a procession enters the room, each person carrying a large metal vessel shaped like a swan. They circle the table where Ivan and the Tsarina Anastasia are sitting. The film contains many moments like this. Interspersed with them are closer shots of one or more characters staring with wide eyes, sometimes at each other or other characters, sometimes at their surroundings.
And of course they would be staring when such excess is around them. The influence of all the ritual, riches, and effort, the mediation of desire that pulls them to action, comes to them through their eyes. This makes for especially charged moments when two characters' eyes meet. Also when Ivan and his religious friend Fyodor stare at nothing in particular, when they are moved by something that hasn't materialized yet. Fyodor does it when he foresees hardship for Ivan's monarchy, and Ivan does it when pleading with the corrupt Boyars to put the interests of the state ahead of their own enrichment.
It adds to the attraction of what we see, strange as it looks, to know how it moves these people. At the same time, there's something suffocating about the layers of fabric and stone arches, the many carefully-executed steps of each ritual. It can't be easy to be immersed in such formality. And to some extent, it arouses suspicion: can the values the characters profess really be so great if they require such heavy gilding? The Boyars insist on tradition in this film, and it's transparently a ruse to pull one over on the public.
Right after the bit with the swans at Ivan's wedding, a group of commoners forces their way in to confront Ivan and the other nobles. Ivan calms the crowd and rallies them against a new common enemy. For them, it's not ceremony and symbols that inspire, but Cherkasov's performance as Ivan.
Ivan sees more than the Boyars, and it puts him a few steps ahead
among people driven by symbolic objects and gestures. At the end of the film, a crowd approaches his castle to support him. For him, it's an early sign of triumph over the Boyars. But the crowd carries banners, effigies, and other cumbersome elements of the sumptuous but uncomfortable world of nobles, and Ivan's angular face hovers over them like a vulture.
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