Xixax Film Forum

The Director's Chair => The Director's Chair => Topic started by: rustinglass on April 30, 2003, 03:35:22 PM

Title: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: rustinglass on April 30, 2003, 03:35:22 PM
I think that, along with bergman, he is one of the major influences in modern european cinema.
His films are amazing. Maybe he should have his own category.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: (kelvin) on May 02, 2003, 09:40:46 AM
Ditto. I can't think of any director whose films are more fascinating. He was not only one of the greatest filmmakers ever, but also a poet and a philosopher.
"Andrei Rublev" might be his best film, but "Stalker" and "Solaris" are also real masterpieces.

Besides, I would like to ask why only american directors get their own category?
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: cachilders on May 02, 2003, 12:09:20 PM
Stalker is one of the best movies I've ever seen.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: (kelvin) on May 02, 2003, 01:36:07 PM
It hypnotized me. Those dialogues...
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: godardian on May 14, 2003, 09:40:22 PM
The first Tarkovsky film I ever saw was The Sacrifice. The Sven Nyvkist cinematography... and a little known-fact: Claire Denis (future director of Beau Travail was the casting director or some such thing way back then.

It's still my favorite. I pull it out a few times a year and just settle in and immerse myself.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: (kelvin) on May 15, 2003, 01:05:06 PM
Have you ever seen "Andrei Rublev"? I saw it recently and it has become one of my favourite films. Tarkovsky's movies create an atmosphere that is completely unique and can't be explained in words. It's visual poetry, visual philosophy and beyond conventional communication. Something between words and feelings, I would say.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: godardian on May 15, 2003, 01:21:35 PM
Oh, yes, I have my own copy of Rublev.

I've seen all of his except Ivan's Childhood, Stalker (I hear the DVD does not do the film justice, so I'm waiting for a revival or a better DVD), and his student film of The Killers.

Everything else I've seen at least twice.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: rustinglass on May 15, 2003, 01:44:46 PM
I'm sorry to say that I haven't seen Rublev or the Sacrifice.
I saw: Ivan's childhood (I strongly recommend it, godardian);The mirror - his most beautiful in my opinion; Solaris and Stalker(I also strongly recommend).
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: meatwad on May 15, 2003, 02:41:59 PM
I have to agree with rustinglass that The Mirror is his most beautiful. When people bring up the argument about film not being an art form, i just tell them to watch this film.






//www.thestate22.com
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: Ernie on May 15, 2003, 09:20:08 PM
Were you guys pissed that Soderbergh remade Solaris? Haven't seen either of them or anything...just wondered what you thought with you guys being devout fans and everything.

Yeah, Tarkovsky is definitely on my "directors-to-catch-up-on" list. Haven't seen anything by him yet I'm ashamed to say. Is there one that is better to start with or does it matter?
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: godardian on May 15, 2003, 10:59:05 PM
I wasn't pissed, but it was too much like when Gus van Sant remade Psycho. I wasn't pissed about that, either. I don't think either are really bad movies. I think when most people say they're "bad," they mean they're a waste of time because the previous versions are so much better.

The difference, though, is that Soderbergh seems to have gone back to the novel and really made his own interpretation. The plot is sort of the same, but nothing else is. Obviously, Soderbergh's has nothing on Tarkovsky's for visuals.

His was actually a safer choice than Psycho in a way, because virtually nobody has seen the original Solaris to compare it to, while everyone had seen Psycho and were chomping at the bit to proclaim how inferior it was.

Soderbergh's Solaris worked for me as a sort of curiosity. It wasn't unwatchable or embarrassing by any means, and I wasn't entirely averse to seeing a naked George Clooney, either. But it really can't compare favorably to Tarkovsky's in most ways. I mean, really, what could??
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: Ghostboy on May 15, 2003, 11:09:42 PM
I thought both versions were equally interesting takes on the same story. Soderbergh focused much more on the love story element, while Tarkovsky took a more philosophic approach. I can't really say I like one more than the other....I think they're both really great. I think the only thing Soderbergh took directly from Tarkovsky was the 360 degree shot where Rhea seems to be all around him. I was kinda hoping he'd also recreate the thirty seconds of zero gravity sequence from the original, too. But I don't think he could have topped it, so maybe it's better without it.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: (kelvin) on May 16, 2003, 08:14:38 AM
I was really surprised that Soderbergh's version was indeed  a very interesting movie focussing on different aspects than the 1972 version, but profound and beautiful nonetheless. I liked the subtle references to 2001 and Blade Runner and the way the story was treated: with respect and idealism. And I was glad I didn't have to watch a George Lucas version.

Concerning Tarkovsky, has anyone read one of his books?

I would also strongly recommend Stalker, I don't know any film that is comparable to it. I own the Artificial Eye UK version, which is not bad, except for the fact that the film has been split up on two DVDs. Idem for Solaris. What sick mind gets such ideas...?
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: Seraphim on August 30, 2003, 11:14:48 AM
My first "real" post (after my "say hello"- post) is dedicated to Tarkovsky!

Why not?
I think he is my favourite director (I'm not really director-minded, but like everybody I have my favourites).

I've seen six of his films.
Only Stalker is still waiting for me to roll over me like a dark poem.

Zerkalo (The Mirror) is maybe my favourite: it's his most difficult film, yes- but the cinematography is SUPERB. You can't get a more/ better fotography. Rembrandt/ Vermeer-like, some people say.
And I'm not saying that because I'm Dutch!  :)

Nostalghia and Offret (The Sacrifice) are also VERY beautiful!
The atmospheres, emotions in those films...BRILLIANT!

Solyaris is less a favourite of mine. It's stiil good.
His first film, Ivanovo Detstvo (Ivan's Childhood) was already very good- An emotional war-movie (different than most war-movies, BTW).

Andreu Rublov is my least favourite film, but I'm stiil give that film a second chance (and a third, and...).

I'm afraid to watch Stalker now.
Why?
Simple: I think, considering my taste, that Stalker will be my favourite films of all time, if I'm lokking at my taste for superb cinematography AND filosophy.
If I watch Stalker, I think that I've watched the (for me) best film ever...so after that it can only get worse.  :-D

No, serious now, sometimes I really think like that.

But of course there;s stiil much for me to explore:
Fellini, Wenders (German films!), Bergman, Kurosawa...
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: rustinglass on August 30, 2003, 01:29:59 PM
Are you familiar with kusturica's work, seraphim?
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: Seraphim on August 31, 2003, 06:15:50 AM
Kusturica- the Yugoslav director?

Yes, I've seen one or two of his films.

Black Cat, White Cat being the first (of that I'm sure), about the second I'm not sure.... :)

Why that question, if I my ask?

Do you see any comparisons with Tarkovsky's work, for instance?
Or is it something I said... :wink:
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: Seraphim on August 31, 2003, 06:17:51 AM
Ahum.....

I'm talking to Underground...  :roll:

I see.... :-D

I can't remember having seen that film... :oops:
(And I say: I can;t remember it...) :lol:

AND you also see Zerkalo as (maybe) Tarkovsky's most beautiful peace of art work. Great thing!
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: rustinglass on August 31, 2003, 06:35:36 AM
I don't think you've seen underground, otherwise I believe you would remember it.
I think you should add emir kusturica to your directors-to-explore list. I'd say he has three main influences to his work: fellini, renoir and tarkovsky (imo, maybe i'm way off). his films are to me the funniest and at the same time the most tragic, of course you seem to have only seen black cat white cat, which is his exception, and my favourite comedy of all time.
I think you'll find his films to be equally if not more beatiful than tarkovsky's work.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: Seraphim on October 22, 2003, 07:52:26 AM
Underground,
I haven't seen Underground, but I've put that on my to-see list.

I don't think I will like that more than tarkovsky's work, which is really highly magnificent to me.

Yeah, Black Cat, White Cat looked like Fellini's world, but Tarkovsky-influences? Hmm, not so much in that film, as I remember. Maybe in Underground (let's hope so).

I've seen some other Yugoslavian films, as well as some work from Poland (try Edi!) and Rumania.

I stll have to see Stalker, by the way.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: Seraphim on October 23, 2003, 07:45:28 AM
I recently saw Mother and Son (Mat i Syn) from Alexander Sokurov.

HIGHLY recommended to fans of Tarkovsky, Bergman, etcetera!!!

Slowest camera-movements ever, maybe. Superb intensity, highly transcendental...
Mat is Syn (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0119711/)

By the way:
in about a few weeks you can buy two films of Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr, which I think are recommended also to fans of the heavier stuff. Brought to you by Artificial Eye!

Check out Werckmeister Harmoniak and Karhozat (damnation)!!!
Werckmeister harmóniák (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0249241/)
Kárhozat (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0095475/)

2-Disc SetArtificial Eye (http://play.com/play247.asp?page=search&adudisc=y)

Tarkovsky-fans, grab them!
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: SoNowThen on February 20, 2004, 03:03:58 PM
I seem to hear decent things about the current r1 version of Stalker (the 2 disc one).

Has anybody seen it (or does anybody own it), that can give me any idea whether or not it's worth buying (not for the movie -- I already know I like it -- but for dvd quality)?
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: Stefen on February 23, 2004, 12:57:52 AM
I watched the mirror on painkillers right after surgery. What a crazy experience. It just isn't the same when i try to watch it again. Solaris rocks also. I didn't mind the Soderbergh remake, I had fun with it. And the actress that played Gordon (Viola Davis??) was awesome. I became a big fan of hers after watching it.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: godardian on February 23, 2004, 01:25:42 AM
Quote from: StefenI watched the mirror on painkillers right after surgery. What a crazy experience. It just isn't the same when i try to watch it again. Solaris rocks also. I didn't mind the Soderbergh remake, I had fun with it. And the actress that played Gordon (Viola Davis??) was awesome. I became a big fan of hers after watching it.

You catch her in Far from Heaven?

My favorite Tarkovsky is The Sacrifice. It was also his last film.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: SoNowThen on March 02, 2004, 01:19:22 PM
I went out and got Stalker on ebay fer pretty cheap. Yay. Hope it's good condition, w/ mono soundtrack.


Recently saw Mirror and Nostalghia. Mirror, though I couldn't barely follow any of it, had a profound effect on me. Truly a haunting, amazing movie. Will need to be watched and rewatched. Nostalghia, okay, didn't love it. Loved a few parts individually.

Anyway, I was reading some stuff on Tarkovsky on this other website. They had lots of great articles. Two things in particular were very interesting to me:

Repeatedly during my work I have encountered actors that never completely dared trust my conception of the role. They have for some reason not been able to avoid interfering, as they considered my approach to be unprofessional. In such cases I have considered them to be unprofessional actors, and I still do. My opinion is actually that a professional actor easily and naturally, without any noticeably effort, at any turn ought to be able to receive and accept any instruction, and to be spontaneous in his individual reactions within every improvised situation.

***


I don't believe that there exists any form of art film that can be understood by everyone. Consequently, it is almost impossible to make a film that works for everyone watching it, and if it did it wouldn't be a work of art at all. Irregardless, a work of Art is never accepted without objections.

A director like Spielberg has an enormous audience and earns enormous sums and everybody is happy about that, but he is no artist and his films are not art. If I made films like him — and I don't believe I can — I would die from sheer terror. Art is as a mountain: there is a peak and surrounding it there are foothills. What exists at the summit cannot by definition be understood by everyone.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: godardian on March 02, 2004, 01:53:20 PM
You really have to see The Sacrifice. It's a perfection of the style of Nostalghia- really, it's the the single most perfect example of Tarkovsky's style- and it's more far-reaching. And with cinematography by Sven Nykvist! This was one of a small handful of films in my life that caught me at the time and place to feel like a complete, radical revelation (Safe and Husbands and Wives being up there in that category, too). I love all of Tarkovsky, but this is the one, for me.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: SoNowThen on March 02, 2004, 01:55:23 PM
Yeah, I've got it requested at the library.

Next up is probably Solaris, which I'll be bb-ing. If I love it, then Andrei Rublev..
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: godardian on March 02, 2004, 01:57:36 PM
Quote from: SoNowThenYeah, I've got it requested at the library.

Next up is probably Solaris, which I'll be bb-ing. If I love it, then Andrei Rublev..

I actually think Rublev is slightly better than Solaris, but they're both wondrous and unique. You can't really go wrong either way. Solaris is less medieval-ish, I guess.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: Ordet on March 19, 2004, 01:11:07 PM
A glimpse of the film poet's The Mirror
<---------------------
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: SoNowThen on May 13, 2004, 01:48:51 PM
I've since seen Sacrifice and Andrei Rublev.

Sacrifice I will need to see again, and not on a crap-hole dvd that boosts the brightness and contrast, and makes it look like shitty video.

Godardian, there's a really really really good article on nostalghia.com by the DP, that you should check out.


As to Rublev, I don't even wanna say anything. I'm floored. I will now buy this and watch it once a year to get my head all jumbled up, and my guts ripped out.

But I have to agree with Seraphim -- the Mirror is AT's best.

I still need to see Solaris.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: LostEraser on July 06, 2004, 08:26:25 PM
I agree that The Sacrifice is his best film. In my opinion his films get better as they go along with that and Nostalghia being his two best and then Stalker and Mirror. Though all four of those are some of the best films of all time. If some one twisted my arm and forced me to pick the one single greatest filmmaker who ever lived, I might actually pick him. Either him or Carl Theodor Dreyer (though I of course, wouldn't be basing that on how big of an impact the films themselves had, but rather how much emotion and honesty I think was expressed in them... that is to say, how deep I think the filmmaker went exploring the sense of... oh nevermind. You know what I mean).
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: The Perineum Falcon on July 06, 2004, 09:48:07 PM
I blind bought Solaris thanks to you guys! It was FAAAANTASTIC!
Since then I've wanted to know more about Tarkovsky, see all of his films and read the things he written (speaking of which, how is that book that he wrote, Sculpting in Time?). I know that all of his movies have had an R1 release at some point in time and was wondering if maybe I should buy them if I could get my hands on them or if I should wait for something better to come along (I'm assuming that Sacrifice is one that I should ultimately hold out on)?

Also, Tarkovsky took some 60 odd Polaroids which are FAAAANTASTIC!! I think it just got published in the UK:
http://film.guardian.co.uk/gall/0,8544,1226197,00.html
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: Two Lane Blacktop on January 01, 2005, 04:01:16 PM
I onwed the 2-VHS tape Fox Lorber edition of "Solaris" for many years, and just recently bought the Criterion DVD and watched it-  the improvement of the video quality was AMAZING.   I'd love to see it on a really big screen.

I enjoyed Solaris so much I picked up "Stalker," but haven't had time to watch it yet.  It sounds mesmerising, from all the descriptions I've read.

I wouldn't mind checking out the Soderberg "Solaris" remake, but I'm in no particular hurry about it.  

2LB
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: krakpot on January 09, 2005, 03:12:59 PM
Stalker is simply amazing. Have you seen Andrei Rublev? That is my favorite Tarkovsky film. But, Solaris is very close. I watched the Tarkovsky's student re-make of The Killers. Ehh... it wasn't so good, but you can see where he develops as a film maker. Also, a funny note is instead of casting a real black man for the cook, Tarkovsky took some white Russian fellow and painted him black. It's fantastic.

Tarkovsky is truely one of the best film makers of all time.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: socketlevel on January 09, 2005, 03:37:37 PM
Quote from: krakpotAlso, a funny note is instead of casting a real black man for the cook, Tarkovsky took some white Russian fellow and painted him black. It's fantastic.

Tarkovsky is truely one of the best film makers of all time.

Funny?  Fantastic?

go rent bamboozled.

he is one of the greatest though.  check out Zerkalo (the mirror), it should be available kino styles.

-sl-
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: wilder on November 06, 2012, 07:47:11 PM
Andrei Tarkovsky archive to go up for auction
via The Guardian

Collection of Russian film-maker's letters, audio tapes and photographs expected to fetch up to £100,000 at Sotheby's

An extensive archive of letters, book drafts, audio tapes and photographs relating to the film director Andrei Tarkovsky is to appear at auction in London.

Sotheby's has announced it is to sell an archive of one of the most revered figures in cinema, a man whom Ingmar Bergman called "the greatest ... the one who invented a new language of film."

Tarkovsky's films, always intellectually stimulating and usually long and slow-moving, routinely come top or very high in film lists. The Guardian named his 205-minute Andrei Rublev as the best arthouse film of all time, and the BFI's once-a-decade greatest film poll put three Tarkovsky creations in the top 30 – Mirror at 19, Andrei Rublev at 26 and Stalker at 29. Mirror came ninth in a parallel BFI list decided by 358 directors.

Sotheby's head of books and manuscripts, Stephen Roe, said the archive gave fascinating insights into Tarkovsky's approach to cinema. "It is probably the only papers relating to Tarkovsky that are ever likely to come on the market in the near future," he said.

The archive is being sold by Olga Surkova, who was Tarkovsky's pupil, amanuensis and friend as well as co-author of the book Sculpting in Time, in which the director sets out his theories on cinema.

The archive covers his life as well as his work. One of the most poignant items is a draft of a letter he wrote to President Leonid Brezhnev in which he argues that he be allowed to work in the Soviet Union and calls for his films – banned by the authorities – to be released.

"For three and a half years the film has been kept away from the screen ... Andrei Rublev was not and could not have been used for any kind of anti-Soviet propaganda ... I do not have any opportunity to exercise my creative ideas," he wrote.

The situation was having a profound effect on Tarkovsky. "If I do not have any work, I cannot make a living, though I have a wife and a child. I do not feel comfortable talking about that, but my situation has been unchanged for so long that I cannot keep silence any longer."

The letter had little effect and in 1984 he vowed to never again return to the Soviet Union. He died of lung cancer in Paris in 1986 at the age of 54.

Also in the sale are notebooks with shot-by-shot analysis of his films; printed scripts for films, containing significant differences to the final versions; and a collection of 32 audio tapes and 13 MiniDiscs from his final years on which he talks about his films and cinema.

here are photo albums of Tarkovsky and his family on holiday in places such as the Grand Canyon in the US, Italy and Stonehenge in the UK, as well as pictures of the director with other Russian luminaries such as the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.

Tarkovsky made seven feature films, including Solaris, Nostalghia, and The Sacrifice. "He is regarded as, after [Sergei] Eisenstein, the most important Russian film director of the 20th century and one of the greatest of all time," Roe said.

Tarkovsky has influenced a legion of film-makers. Explaining why he dedicated his film Antichrist to Tarkovsky, the director Lars von Trier told one interviewer: "Have you ever seen a film called Mirror? I was hypnotised! I've seen it 20 times. It's the closest I've got to a religion – to me he is God."

Steven Soderbergh, who remade Solaris with George Clooney in the lead role, once said: "I'm a big fan of Tarkovsky. I think he's an actual poet, which is very rare in the cinema, and the fact that he had such an impact with only seven features I think is a testament to his genius."

The archive will be sold by Sotheby's on 28 November and has an estimate of £80,000-£100,000. Strong Russian interest is expected. "Russians ought to be interested in it because it is so fundamental to their artistic history," Roe said.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's hoping Taschen gets access to this.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: wilder on December 19, 2012, 05:20:30 PM
Andrei Tarkovsky directed Ernest Hemingway's The Killers in the form of a 20 minute short while at the State Institute of Cinematography:



Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: wilder on January 16, 2013, 06:57:39 AM
Essay from the book Tarkovsky edited by Nathan Dunne, which is out of print but to be republished in a paperback edition in April 2013.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FTBY01.jpg&hash=675ade82fb7f963d5e14ddad9050c40715575095)

Over a 25 year period, Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky made just seven feature films and three student shorts, yet his cinematic work stands out as one of the most significant contributions to moving image history. In films such as Solaris, Mirror and Andrei Rublev, Tarkovsky dealt thematically with the notion of memory, childhood and dreams and became a master of the long, unedited shot and distinct formalistic approach to filmmaking. Many studies of his work have also observed the links between his films and the visual arts. Black Dog Publishing is behind a new, comprehensive volume dedicated to his life's work and we have an exclusive extract to present here on the CR blog. The following essay, by Mikhail Romadin (the art director on Solaris), looks at the relationship between Tarkovsky's films and painting.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fx7MrL.jpg&hash=b8c68f7d0159e289de76bee1d8cf413deebe8d7d)
Still from Andrei Rublev

Film and Painting by Mikhail Romadin (translated by Maureen Ryley).

Every time Tarkovsky came to visit us I would spread out a heap of books in front of him, monographs on various artists. At that time, after a prolonged nomadic existence in rented rooms we finally moved into our own apartment. We had hardly any furniture. Our books were stacked on the floor or on shelves which I had put together with my own hands from frames for stretching canvas and boards which I found in the courtyard. Our walls were hung with my paintings. We had no money and therefore each monograph was very highly valued. It was pure ecstasy to be able to buy a new volume from the Skira publishers, and if we managed to get hold of a monograph on Salvador Dali or René Magritte, the news made the rounds of all our friends. Each new book was scrupulously examined and then the reproductions were each covered, in turn, with a sheet of paper with a one and one-half centimetre opening cut in the centre. We then tried to guess who the artist was "by his stroke". Andrei loved to play this game.

At one time he had studied in that art school which in the 1950s was located on Bolshoi Chudov Lane. I later studied there with the same instructors. Tarkovsky considered the painter's profession to be a happy one since it was the only profession where the artist was one with his work in his studio and wasn't tied to a film studio, a publishers or a concert hall.

Tarkovsky's interest in painting was quite broad but not without limits. It included Russian icons, Giuseppi Arcimboldo, Georges de Latour and even the Surrealists and Saul Steinberg's cartoons. Preference was given to the classical traditions over romantic ones. In terms of contemporary art, he liked those artists who, in their works conduct a sort of dialogue with the old masters: Salvador Dali, René Magritte, Henri Moore and Ignazio Jacometti.


(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FFnGFH.jpg&hash=daad8db1b2447cdeda37480663e74198a60d4507)
Mikhail Romadin's graphic illustration of the set design in Solaris, featuring the interior of the dacha on Earth


And still, in spite of the fact that Tarkovsky considered painting with great interest and knew it well, he felt its influence only indirectly. He avoided drawing parallels between art forms and attempted to isolate the language of film. He didn't believe that this language was somehow secondary to that of either literature or painting. He never considered that filmmaking was a synthesis of various art forms. He intensely disliked the term "poetic film" which the critics had attached to his early pictures.

It is here that we find the basic difference and juxtaposition between his film aesthetics and those of Pasolini and Fellini. Pasolini raises the language of film to that of literature, writing, with its syntax, semiotics, etc. Fellini's method, where each scene is put together in the same way as a painting is on canvas, was even more unacceptable to Tarkovsky. What will you have if, instead of a figure drawn on canvas by the artist we see a live actor? This is a surrogate painting, a "live picture".

When, together with the cameraman Yusov, Tarkovsky and I had just begun work on Solaris, we had a chance to see Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. We suddenly wanted to do something completely contradictory to it. After all, each scene in Kubrick's film is an illustration from a science-fiction magazine. That is, that very same graphic art which has been transferred to the screen. And it isn't even good quality graphic art.

It wasn't direct connections between painting and film that Tarkovsky found, but ones that were more remote. For Solaris he suggested creating an atmosphere which would be similar to that which we see in the works of the early Italian Renaissance painter Vittore Carpaccio. The picture is of the embankment of Venice, sailboats. There are many people in the foreground. But the most important thing is that all these figures seem to be wrapped up in themselves. They don't look at each other or at the landscape; they in no way interact with their surroundings. A strange, "metaphysical" atmosphere of non-communication is created. In the film, in order to produce the equivalent of this, the device of "being aloof" was used. For example, the scene where the cosmonaut is bidding the Earth farewell. There is a table in the garden at which the cosmonaut (the actor Donatas Banionis) is seated. It's raining. It pours over the table, the cups filled with tea and down the cosmonaut's face. The latter should not react to the rain, but should act as if he was in another dimension, in order to create an atmosphere of irreality. But Banionis involuntarily shuddered in the rain. "The scene is destroyed. What a shame," said Andrei. This is just one small example of the influence of painting on Tarkovsky's film language. The image, born in painting, had to undergo a powerful metamorphosis before it could become a film image.


(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FpbHAy.jpg&hash=620afc3800a48c70eda86e4cdd8db8dafc066ffd)
Still from Solaris


We were helped in our work on the film, first of all, by those few years of friendship and almost daily contact which preceded our joint efforts. We understood each other without having to spell things out and we didn't have to waste time on long explanations. I am sorry that our paths later diverged. Secondly, we were united by a dislike for science fiction as a genre. Tarkovsky had lots of ideas. He dreamed of doing a film about deserters, or making a film version of Dostoyevsky's An Adolescent. "And imagine how great it would be to shoot a film of all the rumours and stories about Stalin. Imagine what kind of image of the tyrant we would get," he said. But his trips to Goskino with these numerous suggestions got no support at all. Therefore, all our ideas about future films boiled down to talk in an empty Moscow apartment. It's too bad there was no tape recorder around so that we could have recorded all our plans for those future films, with their incredible finds and detailed mise en scènes, that were never made. All that's left of this time are a few amateur photographs.

Goskino turned down Tarkovsky's ideas one after another and only in relation to science fiction was their attitude different. They viewed it as a genre which was hardly serious and intended for youngsters, so it was possible to entrust it to Tarkovsky!

Tarkovsky had yet a second reason for choosing to film Solaris. This was the theme of nostalgia which is present in the novel. All our work on the film turned into a struggle with the genre. Tarkovsky wrote a new, director's script where two-thirds of the action takes place on Earth and the trip to outer space is only a small episode in the film. Stanislav Lem vigorously opposed this idea. We were faced with a choice of either abandoning the picture entirely, or consenting to the basic design of the novel.

I then suggested transferring the Earth's conditions to outer space and creating a space station that looked like a familiar Moscow apartment with square rooms and bookshelves. Instead of portholes it would have windows with fortochkas1 and icicles on the outside of these fortochkas. Both Tarkovsky and Yusov found this idea unacceptable. They were afraid of those comic effects which might arise is such a situation. However, an echo of this idea was preserved in that "Library", which reproduced conditions on Earth.


(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fr5fqX.jpg&hash=466b7dff03b042ff91e871302772285e3ba4398f)
Still from Nostalghia, where Gorchakov delivers a sermon on Western materialism in a sunken cathedral, engaging the curiosity of a young girl, Angela


Tarkovsky was always interested in the theme of nostalgia and it is present in nearly all of his films. He even has one film by that name. In one instance it is a longing for home, and in another, for the homeland. In Solaris it is a nostalgia for earthly civilisation in general.

In Lem's novel, the heroes fly into the planet Solaris which is nothing more than an enormous living being called The Ocean. The Ocean itself is searching for contact with the cosmonauts. And for this reason it materialises their subconscious's and produces doubles, the phantom representations of their dreams, their sins and their fantastic ideas.


(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FoK1Wz.jpg&hash=e7f25555137b14e774f9ad272b9b99bc76e763a7)
Still from Solaris


In order to produce a sense of nostalgia for the Earth, Tarkovsky got the idea for having The Ocean materialise various objects of earthly culture as well. A long empty corridor on the space station, in whose depths there appears the figure of Saint Sebastian, from the painting by Antonello da Messina. In the background the balconies are hung with rugs, as in the picture. Arrows fly and the image is destroyed. To my great disappointment, Tarkovsky himself later refused to use this episode which was reminiscent of the painting because it contradicted the basic concept of his film language. This language of "living pictures" was unacceptable for him.


(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FcczPz.jpg&hash=c1d35612d850900faade4f27b24c77ceaeb8932f)
Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Brueghel the Elder


But realising that here he couldn't get away without painting, he shot the episode in the library with a picture by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, "Hunters in the Snow", as something actually in the space station. This beautiful scene, full of longing for the Earth, is contained within the framework of his aesthetics.


(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FSzHRO.jpg&hash=56efa77b59a966a31685fca8560650da42d47f1f)
Still from Solaris


In each of Tarkovsky's films there is, without fail, present a painting which, as it were, in concentrated form expresses the idea of the entire film. In Ivan's Childhood it is Albrecht Dürer's "Apocalypse"; in Andrei Rublev, Rublev's icons; in Solaris, Brueghel's painting and in Nostalghia, the "Madonna" by Piero della Francesca. In his final film The Sacrifice there are paintings by Leonardo Da Vinci and Russian icons.

Thus it is that the film's image, which is so infused with a sense of painting and then transformed into the language of film, returns to the screen in its primary form, that of a painted picture.


Tarkovsky edited by Nathan Dunne - Barnes & Noble Pre-Order (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tarkovsky-nathan-dunne/1102503147?ean=9781907317163)
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: Sleepless on January 16, 2013, 11:18:41 AM
Really enjoyed that, thanks for posting. Where did you get the info on the book being republished? On Amazon the 2012 paperback edition is no longer available, with the older version being resold for $300.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: wilder on January 16, 2013, 03:44:22 PM
I got it from the publisher's website, which actually lists an earlier date, but I think it's safe to say it will be out in a few months.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: Pubrick on January 16, 2013, 05:49:26 PM
Quote from: wilderesque on January 16, 2013, 06:57:39 AM
When, together with the cameraman Yusov, Tarkovsky and I had just begun work on Solaris, we had a chance to see Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. We suddenly wanted to do something completely contradictory to it. After all, each scene in Kubrick's film is an illustration from a science-fiction magazine. That is, that very same graphic art which has been transferred to the screen. And it isn't even good quality graphic art.

Invalidated. What the fuck is he talking about? I couldn't read past that part.

Sorry wilderesque, appreciate the effort you put into bringing some intellectual content to the board but this guy is a fucking idiot.

Let's not mistake the proximity a person had working with a genius for any extraordinary insight into the work of said genius.  What I mean is that just because he was "art director" to a great artist doesn't inherently grant his analysis any special weight. Whether the three parties mentioned in his stupid anecdote actually thought so inanely about the greatest film of all time (at the time) is doubtful, he can only credibly speak for himself. The embarrassing assurance with which he says "after all..." and proceeds to dismiss a film which actually redefined the language of cinema is evidence of his narrowmindedness and the general lack of insight I'm referring to.

When you work with the best, people like Kubrick and Tarkovsky, you are just at their service. They are king Ziegler and you are their ignorant servant. By all means tell of the strange events that occurred in your time with these great men, but you are not them, you are a craftsman, they are the artist.

Do you see Larry Smith writing analyses of Kubrick movies? Does Robert Elswit know anything more than how to point a camera and set up lights? They are skillful and therefore useful people, but ultimately they are sillier than the dancing monkeys they are paid to help.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: wilder on January 16, 2013, 06:02:58 PM
I'm with you there, but aside from the writer's opinion, there's a lot of interesting factual information about Tarkovsky's work process, which is why I thought it was worth posting. The book is a collection of essays by a variety of authors. This is only one of them.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: Frederico Fellini on January 28, 2013, 01:16:38 PM
(https://o.twimg.com/1/proxy.jpg?t=FQQVBBheaHR0cDovLzI0Lm1lZGlhLnR1bWJsci5jb20vMGQ0YWQwMWM0Y2Q0ZTQwZGZjMDI3MmU0ZTA2MjU4NDIvdHVtYmxyX21oNTZ0Y3h0UkwxcWY3cjVsbzFfNTAwLmpwZxQCFgASAA&s=XUIs8fTJ0kdBbNPBmBsoShXPs97f-8ptv-D0p7ogdJg)




On the set of SOLARIS.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: Pubrick on January 28, 2013, 01:49:26 PM
 I'm sure there are a million pictures of him on and off the set,  please don't post everyone of them.

this goes for other directors,  actors,  anyone.

unless it's Terrence Malick,  posting a random picture out of millions available freely to any idiot with access to Google,  without any apparent reason, is completely worthless.
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: wilder on February 17, 2013, 02:19:41 PM
Andrei Tarkovsky: The Collector of Dreams (http://www.glagoslav.com/en/Book/1/53/Andrei-Tarkovsky:-The-Collector-of-Dreams.html) is a book that was published last December.

The Sacrifice is Andrei Tarkovsky's final masterpiece. The film was shot in Sweden, in summer 1985 while Tarkovsky was in exile; it turned out to be his final testament, urging each individual to take personal responsibility for everything that happens in the world.

Day after day, while the film was being made, Layla Alexander-Garrett – Tarkovsky's on-site  interpreter - kept a diary which forms the basis of her book Andrei Tarkovsky: The Collector Of Dreams.

In this book the great director is portrayed as a real, living person: tormented, happy, inexhaustibly kind but at times harsh, unrelenting, conscience-stricken and artistically unfulfilled. "Don't ever be afraid of the pronoun I," Andrei exhorted, "Write only what it is that you feel."


You can preview the book on this website (http://books.glagoslav.com/andrei-tarkovsky/book-preview.html).
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: wilder on April 18, 2014, 03:54:20 PM
BBC Arena's episode on Andrei Tarkovsky



Also, that Tarkovsky book by Nathan Dunne mentioned above will finally be released on May 13, 2014, and is up for pre-order (http://www.amazon.com/Tarkovsky-Nathan-Dunne/dp/1907317163/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397854399&sr=1-3&keywords=tarkovsky)
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: wilder on June 12, 2016, 11:24:34 PM
Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: riotmaterial on January 29, 2018, 01:59:36 PM
Excerpt from The Poetry of Decay: Andrei Tarkovsky's Newly Remastered Stalker
at Riot Material magazine: http://www.riotmaterial.com/the-poetry-of-decay-andrei-tarkovsky-remastered-stalker/

by Alci Rengifo

The year has begun with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists — those rational soothsayers of the global landscape — moving their infamous Doomsday Clock closer to midnight by thirty seconds. As it stands according to the clock, we are but two minutes away from cataclysm. If we are to approach it in messianic terms, we are living two minutes away from apocalypse. Desolation now haunts our daydreams and nightmares, even if the Doomsday Clock adjustment goes unnoticed by the wider populace still marching to the rhythm of a modern world. But the sense of upcoming cataclysm seeps into our pop consciousness, as personified by the sudden rise of dystopian television, young adult and adult fiction, and the return to political discourse of words associated with futuristic struggle (#resistance).

But what would desolation truly look like? Would the collapse of civilization be a scream or a whimper? The Criterion Collection has recently released a beautifully remastered edition of 1979's Stalker, one of the great cinematic meditations on decay of both nature and the soul, by the great Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky. It is set in a quietly apocalyptic future, where cloudy skies hover over landscapes of woods and entangled metal, muddy streams and darkened waters. Its power is unnerving but delivered like a whisper. A poet of the lens, Tarkovsky wishes to immerse the viewer in an environment, instead of appealing to the senses with violence or action. Stalker is about personalities inhabiting a destroyed world. How everything was obliterated is left to the viewer to ponder, but knowing our species we can easily imagine for ourselves countless scenarios.

Based on the novel Roadside Picnic,  by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, the film centers on a rugged man known as a "Stalker," played by Aleksandr Kaidanovsky, who hires himself out to a Writer (Anatoli Solonitsyn) and a Professor (Nikolai Grinko) to trek into a forbidden area known as "the Zone." In the tradition of classic science fiction, we are only given glimpses via narrative as to how this Zone came to be. It could have been a meteorite crash. Government forces have closed it off, but the Stalker is adept at smuggling the curious across. The aim of the journey is to find a mysterious space called "The Room," which is said to grant anyone their deepest desires. It is almost a poetic allegory for our insistence on magical thinking even amid catastrophe, or the seeking of magic as deliverance from a world coming apart. If the original novel was more of a standard science fiction journey, Tarkovsky takes the material and transforms it into a serene experience where below the calm there is subdued chaos.

Read the entire article at Riot Material: http://www.riotmaterial.com/the-poetry-of-decay-andrei-tarkovsky-remastered-stalker/

Title: Re: Andrei Tarkovsky
Post by: jenkins on December 29, 2020, 12:59:22 PM
Quote from: godardian on May 14, 2003, 09:40:22 PM
The first Tarkovsky film I ever saw was The Sacrifice. The Sven Nyvkist cinematography... and a little known-fact: Claire Denis (future director of Beau Travail was the casting director or some such thing way back then.

It's still my favorite. I pull it out a few times a year and just settle in and immerse myself.

Quote from: godardian on February 23, 2004, 01:25:42 AM

My favorite Tarkovsky is The Sacrifice. It was also his last film.

Quote from: godardian on March 02, 2004, 01:53:20 PM
You really have to see The Sacrifice. It's a perfection of the style of Nostalghia- really, it's the the single most perfect example of Tarkovsky's style- and it's more far-reaching. And with cinematography by Sven Nykvist! This was one of a small handful of films in my life that caught me at the time and place to feel like a complete, radical revelation (Safe and Husbands and Wives being up there in that category, too). I love all of Tarkovsky, but this is the one, for me.

s/o to godardian. the ending of The Sacrifice is what got me back into Tarkovsky. I had never seen The Sacrifice. I don't want to spoil the ending but it's amazing and there's humor in it

last night I rewatched Solaris, which Tarkovsky made because he didn't like sci-fi, and he didn't like 2001 (which sends pubrick in a tailspin in this thread). I like how in it they say only sad people wonder about the meaning of life. it says we shouldn't explore space, we should explore ourselves, and of course I agree with that. Love Is Better Than Science. but actually. Love Means More To Humans Than Science. and in other words, Love Is Not Science