Andrei Tarkovsky

Sean Martin

• Publisher: Kamera Books
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780857304704
• eBook ISBN: 9781842434406
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

A concise study of the work of the most celebrated Russian filmmaker since Eisenstein, and one of the most important directors to have emerged during the 1960s and 1970s

Considering the whole of Tarkovsky's oeuvre, this book covers everything from the classic student film The Steamroller and the Violin, across the full-length films, to the later stage works and Tarkovsky's writings, paintings, and photographs. This study seeks to demystify Tarkovsky as a "difficult" director, while also celebrating his radical aesthetic of long takes and tracking shots, which Tarkovsky was to dub "imprinted" or "sculpted" time, and to make a case for his position not just as an important filmmaker, but also as an artist who speaks directly about the most important spiritual issues of our time. Although he made only seven features, each one was a major landmark in cinema. Since his death in Paris in 1986, his reputation continues to grow.

Endnotes

1 Natasha Synessios, Mirror, IB Tauris, 2001, p.4

2 Peter Green, Andrei Tarkovsky: The Winding Quest, Macmillan, 1993, p.1

3 Synessios, p.118

4 This is possibly due to the fact that North American prints of Tarkovsky’s films were frequently cut by distributors. An uncut version of Solaris, for instance, was not released in the USA until 1990. In Europe, the films were usually distributed uncut, although there were one or two exceptions, the most notorious of which being the Italian Solaris, which was cut so heavily and even re-edited by its distributor, Dino de Laurentiis, that Tarkovsky sued him.

5 Ingmar Bergman, The Magic Lantern, Penguin Books, 1988, p.73

6 Marina Tarkovskaya interview, Vida T Johnson and Graham Petrie, The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue, p.18

7 Mark Le Fanu, The Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky, British Film Institute, 1987, p.16

8 Natalia Baranskaya, About Andrei Tarkovsky (Editor: Marina Tarkovskaya), Progress Publishers, 1990, p.25

9 Johnson & Petrie, p.19

10 Tarkovsky’s sister Marina believes there to be no truth to this legend. Johnson & Petrie, p.20

11 Maya Turovskaya, Tarkovsky: Cinema as Poetry, Faber and Faber, 1989, p.17

12 Alexander Gordon, About Andrei Tarkovsky, pp.39–40

13 Johnson & Petrie, p.21

14 The complete article, originally published in the Italian newspaper L’Unita in 1963, is reproduced on nostalghia.com

15 Ingmar Bergman, The Magic Lantern, Penguin, 1988

16 Wajda quote cited in Johnson & Petrie, p.15

17 Andrei Tarkovsky, Time Within Time: The Diaries 1970–1986, Seagull Books, 1991, diary entry for 10 April 1979, p.180

18 The film did, however, win the FIPRESCI Prize, the Ecumenical Jury Prize, Best Director and shared with Bresson’s L’Argent the Grand Prix de Création

19 Kieślowski on Kieślowski, Danusia Stok (Editor), Faber and Faber, 1993, p.195

20 Diary entry for 3 July 1975, Time Within Time, p.111

21 Sculpting in Time, University of Texas Press, 1989, p.132

22 Sculpting in Time, p.126

23 Johnson & Petrie, p.51

24 Their first script together was the unp...

Table of contents

• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Life and Times
• Theory and Practice
• The Student Films
• Ivan’s Childhood (1962)
• Andrei Rublev (1966/69)
• Solaris (1972)
• Mirror (1974)
• Stalker (1979)
• Nostalgia (1983)
• The Sacrifice (1986)
• Works in Other Media
• Appendix I: Complete Filmography
• Appendix II: Unrealised Scripts and Projects
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• Endnotes
• Also by Sean Martin
• About the Author
• Copyright