Andrei Tarkovsky: POO

I just saw The Mirror the other day at the ICA. I never really enjoyed Solaris as a whole - it had some great moments, visuals, and ideas, but all of these seemed to fleeting to justify the whole exercise. The Mirror is just moments of genius, wall-to-wall - I don't claim to understand it, but I view it more as a toolkit of scenes that the viewer must put together in their own way to form a unique emotional response. (That sounds rather cold and technical, but that's how it worked for me.)

I also like The Sacrifice a lot and Solaris but Andrei Rublev required too much from me the weekend I tried to watch it. I shall try againe.

I like the scene in Andrei Rublev where they make the bell.

Pashmina OTM, and to follow on from him and flesh out my answer -- the reason I prefer Stalker is how expertly he creates the world of 'the zone' without resorting to any kind of cheap special effects, relying instead on more subtle effects of lighting and color to create that sense of foreboding. The shots of the undulating grass, the close-ups of the water with the submerged industrial detritus, the characters' physical disorientation and circular travels while in the zone, the encounter with the telephone -- all add up to one of the more eerie and unsettling films where nothing really overtly *scary* ever happens.

sokurov's whispering pages is a fascinating spinoff of the mise en scene of stalker, but NOT a film for all tastes

A guy on this Antonioni mailing-list I am on detailed how, on a recent trip to London, he made a point to visit the park from Blow Up (photographer sees Redgrave/dead guy etc.) He said it was really remote and desolate, but he still felt the thrill of recognition while there.

An anonymous young man wanders through a dreamlike, decaying, 19th century urban labyrinth; he has a series of encounters, like fragments from some long-obliterated narrative (the incidents are in fact derived from Crime and Punishment and Gogol). In the film's most memorable sequence, he looks on as a series of people inexplicably launch themselves into a mysterious, bottomless abyss--it could almost be an image of Sokurov's own brand of cinematic black hole.

Charged with supernatural and psychic suggestiveness, Whispering Pages' narrative doesn't so much move as insinuate, accompanied by the haunting strains of Mahler's "Kindertotenmusik" and a faint cacophony of distant voices and sounds on the soundtrack. In long takes Sokurov's camera creeps insidiously through this timeless, spectral underworld, more attentive to atmosphere and texture than action. The sparse dialogue scenes might as well be the fill between the real action--Sokurov's uncanny extended transitions. Employing a vocabulary of mournful pans, slow-as-molasses dissolves, radically desaturated color, degraded, murky textures, speed shifts within shots, and warped perspectives and compositions care of a custom-built anamorphic lens, Sokurov takes the cinematic atavism he shares with Guy Maddin and the Brothers Quay to new extremes of dreamlike suspension. This formal archaism conspires with the trancelike acting, and the absurd gravity of the action to produce a genuinely mysterious, mesmerizing effect. Mainly filmed in a disused St. Petersburg factory, Sokurov's masterly film is an Industrial Gothic epitaph for a civilization in the throes of slow death.

er, that's "kindertotenlieder," but anyway

http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/antonioni/

xpost

i don't think i'd actually look forward to a new antonioni movie, but the short that played twice at the landmark century ("the gaze of michelangelo") was supposedly pretty interesting

It should be.

Anyway, Tarkovsky.. Nostalghia. Doesn't make sense, but I love it. I like that the woman just gets fed up and disappears from the film. Also, I am kind of disturbed yet fascinated by the fact that there's a reference (almost the same room, same bed) in Takashi Miike's Audition to this film. I don't know what to make of it. A very close second for me would be Andrei Rublev.

but yeah after that the bell chapter of rublev is killer.

re: tarkovksy refs, loved the scene in uzak where the guy was flicking between stalker and porn!

wow, really? it struck me as a poor 'cover' of tarkovsky's original, with anything that would confuse americans removed. but maybe i'll re-read the book and watch it again.

"stalker" is my favorite. i was half-awake when i started watching it, which seemed to help me pay attention, oddly. dream logic!

i thought it was brilliantly filmed and concise. 90 minutes happens to be the perfect
length for most stories, imho.

it was definitely not as (willfully) obscure as the original. but who cares? i'm all
for more clarity where possible. leave it to umberto eco adaptations or misbegotten
thomas pynchon television pilots to leave people with brains agape,

and i've never seen a movie that justified four hours running time (re: the original).

http://www.ruscico.com/eng/films/105

Now is this the only current version available, or is there a Stateside version?

http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/

http://dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDCompare5/andreirublev.htm

http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/DVD_Recommendations.html

Nostalgia for the scene when he's trying to walk across the bottom of the swimming pool again and again.

Mirror for the mother washing hair dream sequence.

Didn't like The Sacrifice much.

And while the animal stuff is unpleasant, the cow didn't actually get hurt - it was asbestos burning, not its skin. The horse did actually die, but at least it was shot and already dead by the time it fell down the stairs. It was also supposed to be killed anyway (not by the filmmakers, though I can't remember the exact situation), which doesn't excuse the violence or anything but is worth noting nonetheless.

My Name is Ivan/Ivan's Childhood is really, really fantastic, and you should see it if you've got the chance. It's harrowing, but there are so many amazing parts - it has a few scenes shot in a birch forest that are really a treat for yr eye. And Nikolai Burlyayev fucking owns Ivan. By the time he became the bellmaker in Rublev Tarkovsky said he was a real pain in the ass to work with (and you can tell in his acting) because he thought of himself as a big star after Ivan.

yes

Sacrifice has some lovely scenes but doesn't work at all.. a shame. I have no idea what it was trying to do.

stalker is my favorite of them all... such a well sustained air of magic and intrigue. it makes me happy to hope for the chance to work in a creative field. as far as the hope it instills with me, it is maybe second only to 'la jetee'.

no one seems to have said this yet, but i... ummm... prefer the soderbergh 'solaris'. it warms me.

the reason i like tarkovsky films is that they are really good to fall asleep too. i cant understand it bein g a criticism of a film "i wanted to fall asleep". thats a really good thing for me!

anyone seen any larrisa shepitko films? she was a friend of tarkovskys and her films have a similar quality although they are more brutal. i only saw "the ascent" and "proshanie (farewell?)" but they were both really good. i think they were on at the ica and in leeds a while back. also, on the subject of soviet filmakers, the paradjanov season is coming to leeds soon too! good job i moved to sheffield :(

Rublev for me, from the ones I've seen -- really gotta serach some medieval Russian choral music

Tarkovsky related, innit? Can't wait!

paradjanov! it's really beautiful.

also ripped off in a number of MTV videos of the late 90's, so if something looks familiar to you, that's why.

ones I've seen, ranked:

1) andrei rublev (186 minute version) - I prefer the 186 minute version. the 205 minute version gets called a "director's cut", but that's not really accurate. it's closer to being a workprint. the "director's cut" label is criterion collection marketing speak.

don't get me wrong, it was a real coup for criterion to release a smuggled copy of the longest version extant. but the 205 minute version was shown once, at a screening for the film industry in 1966. it's not clear that tarkovsky considered it "complete" at that point, but it caused such a outcry that it wasn't officially released for years. during that time, tarkovsky kept tinkering with it; reworking scenes, dropping some excess flab, inserting completely new shots.

andrei rublev is a barely-veiled middle finger to the soviet state's persecution of artists. it's probable that the authorities made demands for cuts, too, but the 186 minute version is just as critical of state oppression as the 205 minute version is. kirill tells andrei, "[the emperor] doesn't care a thing about your life. he's calling you because he wants to strengthen and glorify his power with your talent." if the censors were truly pressuring tarkovsky for content, I think that line would've been the first to get dropped.

most sequences in the 186 version benefit from the cuts and re-edits; the pagan celebration, the blinding of the masons in the wood, the tatar siege, the bell ringing. some don't, the most notable being the jester sequence, in which both a 360 degree pan around the barn and the punchline to the jester's joke are truncated. the latter involves the jester's bare buttocks, so one could claim it was prudish editing - but the persecution of the pagans sequence contains *more* nudity than the 205 minute version, undermining the allegation that the cuts were made merely to reduce sex/violence.

in addition, the 186 minute version also removes all of the reprehensible animal violence, something tarkovsky himself touched on in this 1969 interview:
Nobody has ever cut anything from Andrei Rublov. Nobody except me. I made some cuts myself. In the first version the film was 3 hours 20 minutes long. In the second - 3 hours 15 minutes. I shortened the final version to 3 hours 6 minutes. I am convinced the latest version is the best, the most successful. And I only cut certain overly long scenes. The viewer doesn’t even notice their absence. The cuts have in no way changed neither the subject matter nor what was for us important in the film. In other words, we removed overly long scenes which had no significance.

We shortened certain scenes of brutality in order to induce psychological shock in viewers rather than mere unpleasant impression which would only destroy our intent. All my friends and colleagues who during long discussions were advising me to make those cuts turned out
right in the end. It took me some time to understand it. At first I got the impression they were attempting to pressure my creative individuality. Later I understood that this final version of the film more than fulfils my requirements for it. And I do not regret at all that the film has been shortened to its present length...

I hope that someday criterion will release an edition that combines an improved anamorphic restoration of the 205 version together with the 186 minute version (a version available almost everywhere on DVD except in the US).

2) mirror - the term "poetic" gets thrown at films all the time, but this one earns it. tarkovsky uses snippets of his father's poetry and echoes and answers them with dreamy autobiographical renderings.

3) solaris - this film would be much stronger if the earlier sequences on earth were trimmed by about 30 minutes. but once the space station sequence starts, the subjects he tackles within the sci-fi framework are so rich; memory, identity, mortality, morality, a demonstration of how getting everything you want can turn you into a slave to your own desires and suspend you in the past.

4) stalker - I need to watch this again. I saw part of it once, and really enjoyed it, then watched the entire thing and found the character epiphanies to be overly schematic and stilted. some really haunting moments though - that final scene!

5) my name is ivan / ivan's childhood - criterion is releasing this next month. it's good for a '63 paste on bergman, but his later works are on a whole other level.

still need to see nostalghia and sacrifice. been waiting for decent dvd releases of both.

one of the most impressive things I've seen by tarkovsky is the set of indescribably beautiful pictures taken with a polaroid land camera, proving that not even cheap consumer products could blunt his eye for shot composition.

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/gallery/2004/05/27/tark333pag.jpg

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Film/Pix/gallery/2004/05/27/tarjk27344pag.jpg

sorry for the long post, but I could write a book on andrei rublev. probably why it's my favorite film.

someone please post the second half of that joke

paradjanov's colour of pomegranates is beautiful. needs a transfer, the current one is a little blind, but the film's strong enough to watch even in the current edition. the soundtrack of subtly concréte / layered armenian music, going to have to rip that to CD sometime, especially the choral section in the final scene.

"also ripped off in a number of MTV videos of the late 90's, so if something looks familiar to you, that's why."

Like this, you mean? Looks really great.

the mirror

Well, that ws fantastic -- Paradjanov has little in common with Tarkovsky. I see the phrase 'cinema as poetry' is often talked about re: Tarkovsky, but as far as something like "Colour of Pomegranates" goes it ws more like watching a 'happening' unfold right in front of you -- rich colour, clothing, fairly precise balletic dance and movement, with music (from 10 monks munching trough fruit to actual choral pieces)* holding it all together. It ws quite pulp, everything happening with a pace of a thriller, which I also liked a lot. All over in just under 75 mins => perfect length!

A high (very emotional) point for me ws that of Sayat wife's funeral.

Has anyone read Sayat's poetry (I suppose it poetry cannot be translated as one of Tarkovsky's characters would point out)? Really love to see anymore more of P's others films.

* Ripping that is worth it, some amazing pieces on their own, but the whole array of sounds fit so well with the image.

yes, The Mirror

So I see that The Legend of the Suram Fortress is getting a new release on DVD. Can't wait!

I love watching Tarkovsky when I'm home sick.
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, September 23, 2005 6:13 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark

ha, this is how i watched andrei rublev over the past few days. the pacing and mood of it sort of suited my low-grade fever. and like someone says upthread, i really found it better to watch in three separate pieces, i think it would have exhausted me all in one go. (would definitely help to see it on a big screen.) but because it's structured episodically, it has natural breaks, and watching it serially gave me time to absorb each of them and let them build on each other.

great, stunning film, obviously. still sorting it.

Any Tarkovsky fans should see Andrei Koncharlovsky's (wrote the screenplay for Rublev) Siberiade. The only other time I've felt five hours slip by so quickly is while watching Bernard's Les Misérables.

i watched this last night, the first time i've managed to watch it all in one sitting and it really is stunning, isn't it?

solaris - this film would be much stronger if the earlier sequences on earth were trimmed by about 30 minutes.

solaris ...has patchy parts, esp. toward the beginning.

i have to disagree with this. i think the first hour of solaris is the best thing about the film and possibly the best thing in all of tarkovsky (all that i've seen so far, that is, i haven't seen the last two yet).

Stalker, on the other hand, is pretty patchy towards the beginning. there's a lot of unnecessary action some of which is confusing or unconvincing. once they get into the zone, of course, it's next level. the scene where the phone rings is one of the greatest film moments ever.

nostalgia or the sacrafice next?

the sacrifice

I saw that one movie that he shot outside of russia recently, and I fell asleep in the first 20 mins. I really didn't want to fall asleep too. It just made me.

the opening scene of Stalker, where everything in the house vibrates, is similarly great.

the only thing that was funny was sometimes I would wake up (before I walked out) and some character would say something completely innocuous and the audience would burst out laughing

was that the sacrifice or nostalgia? both were made outside russia.

ok cozen

been a wee while since I watched the sacrifice

might dig out solaris tonight

the scene where the phone rings is one of the greatest film moments ever.

that might be my least favorite part of the movie, but i love stalker (including the opening & run-up to the zone). i love 'roadside picnic' more, though.

The Sacrifice is no good!

Film Four showed Mirror at 11am two Thursdays ago. Luckily enough I was ill to stay and watch.

This one was actually more Paradjanov-like, the readings really come off on screen, looks fantastic, the pacing is so awkward but that is because his way with movement is unlike anyone. In the end, you had to wonder as to whether his greatest achievement was to inspire advertising (not an awful as that could imply if I hadn't opened a fresh new set of brackets).

The NFT are running a Paradjanov mini-fest next month.

what about a Tarkovsky poll?

why is is no good, julio?

yeah, it's rubbish but you did ask

booooring

No its not boring in a straightforward manner (wouldn't be watching T if I didn't like boredom in some way), and anyway I don't mind sitting through something dull - some of my favourite bits have been found amongst boring bits.

To take a stab at it: in The Sacrifice I can never completely get behind the pacing of it, which rubs totally against an attempt at a plot...whereas in Mirror it totally feels erm naturally awkward, and there is thankfully almost no plot. A lot more timing to how long to keep the camera and when to cut away to the next image.

The camera work is nice but not as good as the Soviet era stuff. Think those guys were pulling miracles back then.

i know it's juvenalia of a sort, but some moments of ivan's childhood have really stuck with me

was that the sacrifice or nostalgia? both were made outside russia.

― jed_, Friday, 5 February 2010 17:00 (5 hours ago)

I think it was nostalgia. Didn't know it was so funny (still don't)

never seen nostalgia or the sacrifice (or steamroller...) but stalker, rublev, and mirror are in my top ten movies. used to call rublev my favorite movie, but right now, im givin it to stalker.

OH DARN:

http://www.openculture.com/2010/07/tarkovksy.html

I want Criterion to release a blu-ray version of Solaris. I know it's not at all necessary, I just want it.

Ned, that's a real treasure trove - thanks for linking.

Why do people hate The Sacrifice? Saw it recently and thought it was pretty great. Don't really get the dull or poorly paced arguments. This felt rather accessible for Tarkovsky and I fell into it really easily.

Photography is better than just "nice", too.

Better than "nice", sure, but compared to Mirror it does seem a step down from that..

RIP Erland Josephson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr5cYiRPf3E

:(

OH DARN:

http://www.openculture.com/2010/07/tarkovksy.html

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, July 13, 2010 5:15 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also don't how I missed this but it's great that you can watch the mosfilm transfer of andrei rublev in 1080p w/ english subtitles on youtube, beats the pants off the criterion imo

I don't think the New York Times should put its obits behind the paywall. I can bypass the paywall regardless, but it's rude.

RIP

I bleeve if you're registered (as I am, for free) you can see the obits (as long as yr article limit isn't up).

why would you register for free

esp if you get the same 20-article/per month limit as you would unregistered

I dunno, if elan can't see em there must be a problem. Before the paywall you had to register to see it all.

Polaroids by A.T.

http://www.gwarlingo.com/2013/the-polaroids-of-andrei-tarkovsky-the-mystery-of-everyday-life/

The only film of his that was available through my local library was Solaris. By chance I checked it out a few days ago, before this thread revival, but I haven't watched it yet.

cool behind the scenes colour footage of Rublev. cool huh?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYhuaht1oQ0

Polaroids by A.T.

http://www.gwarlingo.com/2013/the-polaroids-of-andrei-tarkovsky-the-mystery-of-everyday-life/

― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Sunday, May 12, 2013 11:35 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This looks cool as shit, and it's like $17 on amazon. Is the print quality nice?

instant light has been sitting in my amazon wish list for 10 years

wish I'd bought the hardcover european edition when it was still in print

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kos8P1OHvGw

I need to see Stalker on a big screen before I die, because it is too good for television screenings.

True. Saw it on celluloid recently, a completely different film. Went from being my least favorite Tarkovsky - it's just three men in a power plant! - to top three, I think. But I'd still pick The Mirror, easily.

As Tarkovsky, his wife Larisa Tarkovskaya and actor Anatoli Solonitsyn all died from the very same type of lung cancer, Vladimir Sharun, sound designer in Stalker, is convinced that they were all poisoned when shooting the film near a chemical plant

So, what is a dinosaur's favourite Tarkovsky film?

Solaurus?

Oh, okay. That kind of works.

Lol I just googled Barney Rublev and this came up.

rejected JBR screen names - ilXor.com
www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?showall...
2 Jun 2008 - 50 posts - ‎16 authors
barney rublev. ― James Redd and the Blecchs, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 17:38 (5 years ago) Permalink. a clockwork orangutan. ― Roz, Tuesday ...

Ha, forgot about that, thanks.

Meanwhile here is the answer to dowd's question: Better pay attention to this thread.

Where you would see http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/kenjuggle3/stalker.gif

haha, okay.

finally watched Stalker over the weekend. i feel like this movie spoke some kind-of secret language with my soul. i know it's corny and lame to express your actual thoughts and feelings, and since i can't think of a cynical or jokey way of putting it, i'll just leave it at that.

http://gwarlingo.gwarlingo.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Polaroid-1-Dog.jpg

this film's beauty is a spiritual experience in and of itself. i can see why tarkovsky loved nature so much. i think i caught this movie at the right time in my life. i used to be incredibly spiritual, and eventually turned into one of the bitter, cynical, materialistic archetypes in the movie. i can understand why the Writer attacked the Stalker at the end, i've been doing that for years now, pissed off that i can't believe in anything anymore. oh well, i love this guy's movies, he always manages to say things that hit right at the heart of life for me. that probably makes me a corny fuck, but whatever.

own it man. life is too important to let fear of corn get in the way.

i feel like this movie spoke some kind-of secret language with my soul.

exactly how i felt on first seeing it, more than 15 years ago now (yikes). beautiful movie, could go on and on abt the imagery, philosophy, occlusion, etc, but at the time it ~spoke to me~ in an indescribable, almost embarrassingly profound manner. have since avoided rewatching it out of a desire to preserve the experience intact.

yeah i have been saving a Stalker rewatch for a long time now, waiting for the right conjunction.

on an otherwise ordinary day in high school my friend handed me a dubbed video tape like it was an artifact

since then i have been in the zone

the shallow water flowing over the grasses and weeds

There is a lot of trickling water imagery throughout Tarvosky's movies. I read a quote where he says he likes to portray infinite beauty in small shots, microcosm not macrocosm. I want to see Stalker on the big screen one day, that would be an experience.

35 mm, guys. last may. i may have spoken about it before. it was transcendent!

almost, but I feel this way about The Mirror

Amused to see The Colour of Pomegranates also mentioned on this thread, as I first saw Stalker on a double bill w/ C.O.P. at the Scala Cinema in London. Those were the days. In Europe Tarkovsky's films are not esp well served by the shoddy prints on Artificial Eye's Region 2 DVDs. It needs the BFI etc to fund new restorations of all his films, tho' I'm certain it would be a digital restoration these days, regardless of all the Kodak 35mm that Tarantino is apparently saving from the scrapheap. I certainly saw Andrei Rublev as a restored film maybe 15 years ago, so that at least prob still exists in a decent print, somewhere.

The Mirror is the best film ever, but I don't think it's as 35mm-specific as Stalker. I've seen The Mirror on celluloid, and I've seen The Mirror on a small computer-screen, and it's genius both places.

saw The Sacrifice again in 35mm. I understand the prosaic types finding it "no good," I guess, but not why they are watching Tarkovsky.

I must've just been in really receptive mood when I saw The Sacrifice, because it blew me away. More so than some of his other, more widely regarded work. Suppose a rewatch is in order.

after having seen stalker and solaris in one week, i came to this thread looking for a recommendation on my next selection. i can only conclude that i must enter straight up chronological obsessive mode. can't wait! me and tarkovsky are like *THIS* right now

Andrei Rublev + The Sacrifice + The Mirror still to watch for the first time = jealous.

and Ivan's Childhood.

what is the best way to see stalker these days --- i had some rip a few years ago, but i never got past the first 30min due to cares, and would like to see the best print i can

also have not seen p much anything else

I am not one of those people who normally says celluloid or nothing - I'll watch a film on youtube if I want to check it out enough - but Stalker is one of those very few film where that kind of talk is kinda warranted. I got nearly nothing out of it when I watched a rip of it years ago on my computer, but rewatching it on 35mm at a repertory theater, it was sublime! It needs to be magical, otherwise it really is only three men walking round a ruin, spouting bad poesy. Apparantly, Artificial Eye will release it on blu-ray this year, that would be second-best, then. But celluloid, that was one of the best filmic experiences I had in 2014.

otherwise it really is only three men walking round a ruin, spouting bad poesy.

erm, it is at base not much more than that. I watched it on DVD on a tiny screen and the experience of three men exploring not very much, seeing nothing, saying nothing of substance, when there was nothing to be said because there was nothing they could say.

It is a nothing AND YET...type of film.

Apparantly, Artificial Eye will release it on blu-ray this year

Artificial Eye's Tarkovsky DVDs are notoriously pisspoor - for example, the print they use for Nostalgia is deformed by a loud soundtrack crackle for something like the first 40 minutes - so unless they go back and remaster/use a new source print(very unlikely for them) then I would've thought that watching their Blu of Stalker would be an even worse way of screening it.

when I saw Stalker it was at the local art museum, but they were just projecting that not-so-great DVD release that's commonly available :/

I think the versions of a bunch of russian films on youtube that their arts people uploaded are as good, if not better, than many of the NA releases

hang on tight for a retro, gbx, imo
something weirdly reassuring to me about having already left it so long to see some things that waiting another couple years won't hurt

three men walking round a ruin

35mm showing of Rublev yesterday in Brooklyn, packed. I'd forgotten how 'experimental' it is narratively, w/ AR as sort of a 'decentralized' protagonist.

So jealous of you metropolitan types.

nostalghia for me. The pool and candle scene is such an extraordinary image in my mind, and I made the journey to Bagno Vignoni to try it out for myself!! Its closed off to the public these days, but I think this is the only movie pilgrimage I have ever made! While others, such as Mirror and Stalker, contain some stunning water effects, I think nostalghiaa is the one in which he uses his water obsession to greatest effect.
― Japanese Giraffe (Japanese Giraffe), Thursday, September 2, 2004 4:15 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark

this person should come back and tell us more about their pilgrimage

http://i.imgur.com/5IMu1NZ.png

If we're just talking about Tarkovsky for a bit, I rewatched Ivan's Childhood a few days ago. Not really peak Tarkovsky, but that scene among the birches. Is that the best filmscene ever that has absolutely nothing to do with the film it's in?

Nostalghia screening in NY tonight

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/10-great-films-inspired-andrei-tarkovsky

Thanks. Massive LOLs @:

He even commended James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984) saying its “vision of the future and the relation between man and its destiny is pushing the frontier of cinema as an art”. However, remained critical of the film’s “brutality and low acting skills”.

Wonder who could he mean here?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51wdzjFe7tL._SX322_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Saw Mirror for the first time in about ten years, and back then it was on a DVD played in a small screen at home, as oposed to Sunday at the BFI.

Really the right time - I absorbed a lot from it, or certain scenes had more of an impact just because of the particular knowledge I bought to it. Having read Nadeszha Mandelstam's diaries the scene where the woman is looking for her ex-husband's texts felt a lot more charged and gripping than how it was presented - if you didn't know much about the repression of writers in the Soviet Union in the 30s you may think its someone looking for a book lost by someone she still loves. Tarkovsky didn't (probably because his every move was being watched by the censor) elucidate further.

But that approach of not explaining, letting the image speak (and as I said to the friend I went with - it was her first viewing of a Tarkovsky film - he does film grass like its a cathedral) and its symbols multiply is what Tarkovsky does anyway. And it probably helped not to talk through the ennui and mummy and daddy issues, which I might not have had any patience for.

Helps also to read Arseny Tarkovsky's poetry - not that many try but combining image with three powerful readings of his poetry is an experience.

Given all that it was jarring to see all the documentary footage segment of WWII - Mao - Hiroshima, whose sudden insertion just left us with little clue. This is a film that doesn't give you straightforward narrative answers - and there probably aren't any. Looking back though there were numerous dream sequences that 1) did seem to clash with any scripted scenarios and 2) put all of us who try and capture an image - whether in words or photographs - in a difficult position. As in: why bother after this?

Despite all the clashes they actually felt like something normalised. I was concious that certain things weren't following another in what you'd say was a coherent manner but I really don't recall switching off - just about the perfect sunday afternoon screening. Really fascinated by what the script might look like and what the process around the making of this film might have been.

I saw it last week, the person I was with thought it was (quote) "the greatest thing they'd ever seen", I'm a bit more of a sceptic!

35mm showing of Rublev yesterday in Brooklyn, packed. I'd forgotten how 'experimental' it is narratively, w/ AR as sort of a 'decentralized' protagonist.

― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Monday, June 1, 2015 11:50 AM (7 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea this surprised me abt it, just watched

Just watched "Mirror" on the big screen tonight. The first Tarkovsky I've seen (Ok I watched "Solaris" when I was a teen on TV but I didnt watch the whole lot). Its very much an impressionistic picture of his mother. I found it better when I just let the images wash over me. Like we live through troubled times right now but it puts things into perspective when you watch footage of the Spanish Civil War and Maoist China. I suppose there was a puzzle aspect to it too which kept making me trying to decipher what was happening on screen which was frustrating at times though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeUvB-KXQZk

Solaris, it's not even close. but I'm very excited to see The Sacrifice for the first time at a theater here next month.

reading through Sculpting in Time again, and came across a passage (about The Mirror, but also about his creative process) that I thought others might enjoy. Was about to type it all out, but the whole book is (currently) online at: https://monoskop.org/images/d/dd/Tarkovsky_Andrey_Sculpting_in_Time_Reflections_on_the_Cinema.pdf.

https://i.imgur.com/ivrTkCp.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/kleXE6u.jpg

ha. was just reading this over lunch, though i might be about 50 pages ahead of you.

I need to rewatch Mirror having read that Geoff Dyer book.

whoops, sorry, brain fart: I obviously meant Stalker

what do you think of it, circa? like his movies, at times i find myself drifting off and kind of forget what he's even talking about, and then suddenly he'll switch into something tangentially related that is somehow much more gripping and personal, and i'm sucked right back in again.

Feel similarly. It’s not something I’m finding myself desperately itching to pick up, but whenever I do, there are always insights amongst the drifting (and occasional repetition) that hit. It’s good. And I’ll probably want to go through his films again after this.

How do people who rate The Mirror rate Malick’s Tree of Life?

I rate both tbh

They are quite different? I like both, but The Mirror is obviously better.

They’re different, absolutely, but undeniably shared ground there. A lot of things in Tarkovsky’s book align with Malick’s MO. Would be surprised if The Mirror wasn’t an inspiration.

I love them both.

hbd

Interviewer: What animal would you wanna be? 😜

Andrei Tarkovsky: I have a dog named Dark, bearing a human soul, that no longer respects me pic.twitter.com/L3AUS8ipvS

— Eric Allen Hatch (@ericallenhatch) April 9, 2017

https://i.imgur.com/ttV63eR.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Q5fIQeu.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/kQRaO6g.png

many dozens more of these at: http://www.graphicine.com/andrei-tarkovskys-polaroids-instant-light

those are amazing! there is a painting-like quality about polaroids that is unlike any other kind of film

I wonder what kind of camera made those. they don't have the nearly-square image size (or basic resolution) of standard SX-70/SX-680 integral film and they don't appear to have the 8x10 ratio of the larger polaroids.

they look like 20x24 images to me

WHENNNNNN is mirror getting re-released

About 3 years ago?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mirror-Blu-ray-Anatoli-Solonitsyn/dp/B01BFH7QT4/

Re the Polaroids - Polaroid sold a lot of the 635 CL in Russia and the image dimensions and aesthetic seem very similar:
https://www.lomography.com/magazine/192280-getting-instant-with-the-polaroid-635-cl

also - hard to see details and may have a sticker on it:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5a/ce/45/5ace4568c7e28a8e02750ae28ba5633a.jpg

not looking for PAL pal

Makes no difference unless you have a 20 year old TV - the blu ray is 1080p / 24p which any blu ray player can output as PAL or NTSC or (more likely) send to the TV as 24p for display at 24fps, if it's a recent or higher end TV.
I'm not sure if it's zone B tho - in the US that would require a multi region bluray player.

I love those polaroids, they come up now and then on twitter its good to see a stack of them.

me too.

isn't there a book? it comes up on amazon when searching for the films

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Instant-Tarkovsky-Polaroids-Giovanni-Chiaramonte/dp/0500286140 (£120)

(that's from 2006. there are two others, with essays, from 2012 and 2019)

That’s a great book. It wasn’t anywhere near £120 when I bought it, must be out of print

The book of interviews is quite good as well. I especially enjoyed the one with Irina Brezna from 1984: she directly calls him out on his archaic treatment of female figures.

It's the one aspect of his work I've never been able to tune out.

I have that book too. Haven't seen the ones with essays.

Makes no difference unless you have a 20 year old TV - the blu ray is 1080p / 24p which any blu ray player can output as PAL or NTSC or (more likely) send to the TV as 24p for display at 24fps, if it's a recent or higher end TV.
I'm not sure if it's zone B tho - in the US that would require a multi region bluray player.

http://www.openculture.com/2010/07/tarkovksy.html?fbclid=IwAR0Q6zqfyO9fW1IHqTtNnOXHV-eoaasZ_CCZ0FfNiee3Mjm0UNh1Pb28E2E

Stalker, Solaris, The Mirror & Andrei Rublev being streamed for free by Mosfilm on youtube.

https://i.redd.it/qu6hhxwnqxa31.jpg

shit, I'm getting video not available.

vpn?

that's something i don't have, if it's not a massive derail which is a good one pls?

That openculture link was first posted on this thread nine years ago when it first went up, btw.

i am no more authoritative than google. if you use opera as a browser it has one built in you can turn on.

love to see andrei dance

opera sounds a good option

xp

lol .. well I'm there for those that missed it! just started reading Last Witnesses so might give Ivan's Childhood another whirl.

yep, works a treat with Opera.

probably the wrong thread for this, but I can't even get the first few pages of Last Witnesses out of my head. It's someone who was a young girl during the invasion talking about her mother's corpse being hastily chucked under some sand before she get's onto a cart loaded with other war orphans.

Looks like the version of Andrei Rublev on youtube is the cut version, which omits the unpleasant killing of a horse (which was carried out for real in the shoot). The UK DVD also omits this due to UK censorship laws. I believe the US DVD is uncut.

Oh, it is

I think the film stands up fine without that horrible scene, so can't argue with that bit of censorship.

I'm sure that's in the BFI version, maybe I have an earlier release or something. Anyway it's a distracting scene (you start wondering if it's as real as it looks and then you're out of the world of the film), so good riddance to it.

another thing is the bit in Ivan's Childhood showing real footage of Goebbels' dead kids is something I can understand in the context of the time, but there is no question that it is absolutely gratuitous and vile as well to say the least.

Good piece:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/15/the-drenching-richness-of-andrei-tarkovsky

As far as the issue of misogyny is concerned – the biggest sticking point in my appreciation of his work – I remember flipping through an English-language volume of Interviews that features a combative encounter with Irena Brežná, who takes him to task in very direct terms. At one point, he shifts the blame from men to 'the Lord', which is such a characteristically patriarchal gesture that I couldn't help but laugh at Ross trying to wrest Tarkovsky away from the clutches of the reactionary, imperialist Russian Orthodox forces that view him as their champion. Yes, Tarkovsky was akin to Dostoevsky in that his unflagging commitment to art attenuated the most backward-looking of his political stances, but his films so clearly aspire towards theological transcendence that his self-described agnosticism is hardly the automatic saving grace Ross makes it out to be.

Anyway, Tarkovsky has left an indelible mark on me, and there is no cinematic oeuvre I value more, but I don't know if I could still subject myself to, say, the bits of Nostalghia where the Italian translator's 'hysterical' unhappiness is revealed to stem from her refusal to be a God-fearing housewife and mother. The Mirror is perhaps the only film of his that treats its female characters with genuine respect yet the mother as (false) exception to one's shameless sexism is a classic trope in and of itself. I also think Ross sells Solaris a bit short: the 'return of the repressed' embodied by the living ghost of Natalya Bondarchuk points towards a kind of self-subversive guilt on the male protagonist's part.

I really liked that Alex Ross piece, wouldn't mind more film writing from him.

Mirror gets Criterioned.

https://www.criterion.com/films/28894-mirror

Saw something about fiftieth anniversary of the premiere of Solaris.

I'll have to drive aimlessly on the freeway for 50 minutes in commemoration.

I’m going to stare at some algae drifting in my pond for this afternoon

gonna go see solaris tomorrow at the IFC

Ah fuuuuuuuuck really? Is it on widescreen (SovScope!)

https://www.ifccenter.com/films/solaris/

never saw it before! or the remake for that matter. i hear soylent green is people.

Mods!

Anyone else read the book review/profile of Stanisław Lem in a recent New Yorker? Interesting life.

I want to, before I die, see both Solaris (the original) and Andrei Rublev on a widescreen. From what I have read they were both filmed in 180 mm.

xp That Lem profile was fascinating. I've only read his Futurological Congress and a few short stories (have only seen the movie of Solaris), but I've been meaning to dig deeper. Lots of science fiction gets called mind-bending, but no other book has bent my mind or made me laugh as hard as The Futurological Congress

i read the lem profile as well, promptly bought a book that is now somewhere in the middle of the pile

Tarkovsky. Dancing. pic.twitter.com/UTckA4qLFi

— Janus Films (@janusfilms) October 28, 2022