The Drenching Richness of Andrei Tarkovsky

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

by drjohnson • 5 years ago

118 79 5 years ago

If you have some time, watch "Stalker". It's pretty amazing this twisted-reality dreamlike film was made in 1979. It feels right out of 2010.

danielodievich2• 5 years ago

And The Roadside Picnic by Strugatsky brothers is an incredible read. The movie is loosely-ish based on that but both stand on their own. The book is tightly written and profound in its exploration of human condition when facing pressure of money and exploitation of something we don't understand.

andrei_says_3• 5 years ago

What is a good translation?

euroderf• 5 years ago

When I try to describe the book to someone, I start with the containers that have ends but no sides. That piques a person's interest.

jamesakirk2• 5 years ago

If you are a fan, I strongly recommend Weird Studies' 2-part episode on Stalker. Phil and JF generalize the concept of "the zone" and discuss other examples of zones in art.

SavantIdiot2• 5 years ago

Never heard of that, thanks for the recommendation!

marttt• 5 years ago

The central parts involving the Zone were filmed in and around Tallinn, Estonia [1, 2].

EDIT: Ugh, looks like some people may have died because of the lengthy filming sessions near a chemical plant. Wikipedia quotes one of the crew members [3]:

"We were shooting near Tallinn in the area around the small river Jägala with a half-functioning hydroelectric station. Up the river was a chemical plant and it poured out poisonous liquids downstream. There is even this shot in Stalker: snow falling in the summer and white foam floating down the river. In fact it was some horrible poison. Many women in our crew got allergic reactions on their faces. Tarkovsky died from cancer of the right bronchial tube. And Tolya Solonitsyn too. That it was all connected to the location shooting for Stalker became clear to me when Larisa Tarkovskaya died from the same illness in Paris."

1: https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/andrei-tarkovsky-stalker-loc...

2: https://dobraszczyk.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/tallinntarkovsk...

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalker_(1979_film)#Production

loloquwowndueo• 5 years ago

Oh I like Tarkovsky. Nothing puts me right to sleep like his films do. Set up a 1h off-timer and sweet dreams!

mhh__2• 5 years ago

The people paid for this film stock, we're going to use the film stock!

pizza2• 5 years ago

Careful what you say about movies that put you to sleep like that. I thought the same thing when I first watched Koyaanisqatsi... now I've seen it upwards of 30 times, probably :)

coldtea4• 5 years ago

Yeah, it does take an active mind to not be put to sleep by such films. They're not for the passive consumer who awaits to be entertained with plot twists and/or explosions. In general, they're not there to entertain anyone...

forinti• 5 years ago

That's so funny. For years I couldn't watch Stalker because I would sleep.

The Pandemic gave me the time to finally watch it during the day.

the_gipsy• 5 years ago

If it doesn't put your body to sleep, then it will put your soul to sleep... forever!

svilen_dobrev• 5 years ago

if you ever need to make A Decision in Life... watch "The Sacrifice" ("Offret" in swedish, it's filmed there)

p.s. Now that i read the article... pfff how come the only things noticed are sex and wars and all that shallow headline-making jazz.. One has to go way beyond that to see anything worth..

pizza2• 5 years ago

There are some movies you think about for years.. The Sacrifice and Stalker were like that, for me.

Tarkovsky's advice to young people is also something I think will ring true with the Hacker News crowd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Vvdtaaprzw

andrei_says_3• 5 years ago

Fun fact, when filming the fire in Sacrifice, the camera failed. Tarkovsky had them build the building again, and burn it again, this time filming with two cameras.

The crew wanted to work with a model but that didn’t happen. They built the life-size structure and burned it.

zaat2• 5 years ago

These English subtitles are masterpiece indeed.

streamofdigits2• 5 years ago

I don't think his work travels particularly well in the West. It is steeped in symbolism, deep metaphysics and calm, meditative, photography. All attributes that have been essentially banned from the fast food production/consumption chain that has conditioned audiences.

Its a bit like pop music. If all you've ever heard is (basic) western harmony and suddenly get exposed to some weird oriental stuff it does not even register as music..

qbasic_forever• 5 years ago

There are directors in the west that have similar ideas and even see some mainstream success, for example Terrence Malik.

telesilla• 5 years ago

Wow that's a big statement, about the west. I just watched Nine Days (US, https://ninedaysfilm.com) which was rich with Tarkovskian references. I could name hundreds of western films that are deeply moving and affecting beyond their words. Where to start.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_film#Timeline_of_notable_f...

mhh__2• 5 years ago

You say that even though Tarkovsky is absolutely worshipped by Western film fans?

UncleOxidant2• 5 years ago

Sure, cinephiles, but most people in the US haven't heard of Tarkovsky. Even fairly educated people I've suggested a Tarkovsky film to will give me a blank expression and say "who?"

Barrin922• 5 years ago

I'm not sure if he's as good as Tarkovsky or as important, but Alex Garland reminds me a lot of him. Annihilation had a very soviet sci-fi feel to it, and there's a scene in Ex Machina that funnily enough mirrors the discussion at the top of the thread about interpreting art.

stinkytaco• 5 years ago

It is steeped in symbolism, deep metaphysics and calm, meditative, photography. All attributes that have been essentially banned from the fast food production/consumption chain that has conditioned audiences.

Whoa... this is a bold claim. I can think of western films that use techniques like this: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Thin Red Line, Breathless, anything by Bergman, and The Royal Tenenbaums, for example, and many more that employ some of those traits. Additionally, implicit in the suggestion that not having those things somehow makes it "fast food production" (and thus of low quality), is rather unfair to the many western and non-western artists who have honed they're storytelling craft in a variety of styles. I love Tarkovsky and Solaris remains one of my favorite films, but I also like suspense films like Alien or action movies like Enter the Dragon, and many others which are frenetic, scary, fun or exciting.

ctchocula• 5 years ago

Not GP, but I think by "fast food production/consumption chain that has conditioned audiences" they are taking a potshot at the swathe of superhero movies being very formulaic rather than any West vs. Soviet Russia argument and how only Soviet Russia makes meaningful films.

For example, every superhero gets 30s of screentime and a few sarcastic quips. The story is black and white, because you know who the good guys and bad guys are. The dominance of franchise movies has vastly restricted the opportunities for other kinds of films to be seen in cinemas. In his essay [1], Martin Scorcese makes a much better case for it than I can, but the gist of it is that while before there were high-brow and low-brow films, now Hollywood is taking the cynical approach that the low-brow films make the most money in a low risk way rather than art for art's sake.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/martin-scorsese-m...

streamofdigits2• 5 years ago

There are ofcourse both filmmakers and films in the West that explore similar domains. And I generally love them (for the same reason I love Tarkovsky's work).

But when I check what audiences say about said work (and even well known art critics) in 99% of the cases I am left with the impression they live in an another planet. The analogies, metaphors and other symbolism fail to trigger recognition of the "multiple levels" involved and thus also to elicit the emotional response that follows from linking to our current realities.

It is almost as an old story appreciation ability has been lost...

daneel_w• 5 years ago

Perhaps not in the American West - I could be wrong - but certainly so in the European West.

Bayart2• 5 years ago

By "West", do you mean the US ? He's always been extremely popular with cinephiles in Western Europe. If anything, he's closer to Dreyer than Eisenstein (which is hinted at in the article) and fits well in the lineage of European film-makers.

bgm1975• 5 years ago

Tarkovsky was truly one of cinema’s great directors. His films aren’t simple or easy, but they are gorgeous to behold and if you put in the time, you’ll be richly rewarded. As others have mentioned, Stalker and Solaris are his two great sci-fi films, easily on par with Kubrick’s 2001. For history buffs, Andrei Rublev is fantastic too.

tombert2• 5 years ago

I definitely think that Solaris is a bit of an underrated gem. It's a very long movie that I can't watch all the time, but occasionally when I'm in the mood for a slow, cerebral movie I pop that one on.

If you want a more "abridged" version of it, "Memories" by Satoshi Kon is also pretty great. It's unique enough to be its own thing, so I'm not accusing it of being a "rip off" or anything, but it has similar themes about how memories can influence our perception of people, and it's shorter.

EDIT: Sorry, Memories is the name of the anthology movie. Magnetic Rose is Kon's segment.

personalityson• 5 years ago

On YouTube in good quality from the film studio itself, may not work in some countries https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-4KydP92ss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXa6XpaxBS0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGRDYpCmMcM

jamesakirk2• 5 years ago

Tarkovsky was an Orthodox Christian, but his ideas about the irreducibility of experience parallel Zen:

"Everybody asks me what things mean in my films. This is terrible! An artist doesn't have to answer for his meanings. I don't think so deeply about my work - I don't know what my symbols may represent. What matters to me is that they arouse feelings, any feelings you like, based on whatever your inner response might be. If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens. Thinking during a film interferes with your experience of it. Take a watch into pieces, it doesn't work. Similarly with a work of art, there's no way it can be analyzed without destroying it."

- Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Tarkovsky: Interviews, pg. 71 Univ. Press of Mississippi, 2006

Edit: as others have pointed out, my surprise at this parallel may tell you less about the uniqueness of Tarkovsky's world view, and more about my ignorance of Orthodox Christianity.

stareblinkstare• 5 years ago

You say "but" as if Orthodox Christians are contrary to this. Put another way, there is a greater overlap between the thinking (and feeling, and believing) embedded in religions than we can garner just from reading.

coldtea4• 5 years ago

Came to write just that. In fact had just finished my comment when I saw yours :-)

coldtea4• 5 years ago

Tarkovsky was an Orthodox Christian, but his ideas about the irreducibility of experience parallel Zen

Let's add that this is not by chance: the irreducibility of experience (especially divine experience) is a core motive of Orthodox Christianity as well (which also has a long tradition of mystics).

dhdondldn• 5 years ago

The idea that experience is not irreducible is rare. Who thinks they can analyse consciousness into more fundamental elements?

Max Planck: "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness."

mwattsun4• 5 years ago

That's not really Zen though. Zen is expanding your awareness of the present moment to experience it without interpretation, including emotional interpretation, to experience it as it is. Zen is freedom from the constant need to assign meaning and experience feelings about where you are right now. Zen is the calm eye of the storm without attachments to thoughts or emotions, especially those that we use to identify who we are. Zen is a hot cup of tea and the sounds of birds singing.

lemmsjid• 5 years ago

I might be missing a nuance in what you're saying, because it seems like the way you are describing Zen is indeed similar to what Tarkovsky is describing above. Specifically, he says, "If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens. Thinking during a film interferes with your experience of it." As you describe Zen, it is "freedom from the constant need to assign meaning and experience feelings about where you are right now". I.e., not interrupting your experience of Tarkovsky's films by attempting to assign meaning.

hardwaregeek• 5 years ago

I really agree with this. I find it so superficial when people attempt to find a singular “meaning” to a film. A film is not about one thing. It’s an experience. Reducing it down to one idea removes the complexity and nuance of that experience.

zaat2• 5 years ago

According to the article he was agnostic.

Bayart2• 5 years ago

The barn scene in The Mirror [1] remains one of my favourites in cinema history.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dA60D-j290

andrei_says_3• 5 years ago

To me this is the dog in the hotel room in Nostalgia. Mixing dream and reality in such an incredibly simple way is beyond genius.

kolbusa2• 5 years ago

Tarkovsky is a genius. The original novel for Stalker is a must read (esp. if you can read Russian). But I cannot watch some of his movies after I learned that he _cruelly_ killed a horse in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Rublev_(film)#Depiction.... I cannot justify this for the sake of art.

skrebbel2• 5 years ago

Can you justify it for the sake of food?

kolbusa2• 5 years ago

Probably, if killed responsibly. The scene in the movie is just animal cruelty in my opinion (edited my comment for clarity).

tomcam• 5 years ago

I certainly can, though I have some ambivalence. If you’re referring to the statement that the horse was eventually sent to a slaughterhouse, it doesn’t address the central ethical question of purposely torturing a horse to get a good shot.

coolandsmartrr2• 5 years ago

I believe the horse was going to be killed anyways in a slaughterhouse.

uwagar2• 5 years ago

this tarkovsky worship has to stop.

tombert2• 5 years ago

...why? If we like his movies then what is the harm of analyzing the hell out of them?

uwagar2• 5 years ago

its kinda becoming like an entry in a website called 'what white people like'

coldtea4• 5 years ago

A dark aspect of Tarkovsky’s critique of industrial modernity manifests itself: the reversion to a pre-modern order brings with it a reinforcement of male dominance.

Yeah, it wouldn't be the New Yorker without at least a touch of cliché 2022 preoccupations and Zeitgeist, no matter how tacked on and forced it is...

idhqbfojqbx• 5 years ago

If you want to truly watch and dive into a tarkovsky (and auteur cinéma in general) film I highly advise you to watch them in your local cinémathèque/cineteca. I've watched the films years ago on a laptop but when I recently saw some during the retrospective at the kinemathek in Berlin it was an incomparable experience.

Edit: plus you'll see the films with their lovely original laser subtitles.

randomNumber7• 5 years ago

Some of my favourite movies. They are now in good quality on youtube, but only in russian.

If anyone knows where to get the german (or english) synchro in decent quality pls tell me. I bought them on dvd but the quality is so bad that it hurts the art

nnamtr• 5 years ago

https://www.filmingo.de/

Watched Nostalghia yesterday :)

rdtsc• 5 years ago

Watching it [The Mirror] is like attending a séance of the twentieth-century Russian soul.

Very well put. I would agree. The Mirror is my favorite Tarkovsky film. I wouldn't even call it a film, it's more more like a poem in movie form.

burnished• 5 years ago

I loved Roadside Picnic and this had anticipated watching stalker for years (just never made it happen). When I finally did watch it, recently, I found it relentlessly boring. The questions it raised for me were more of the nature "why is this shot going on for so long" and "do all three of these grown men really think a puddle is the best spot for a nap? Why did you put your foot, still in your shoe, partially into the water?".

If some one feels up to the challenge of explaining what they got out of it and why it is critically acclaimed, please do. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some perspective I had failed to consider that made it a compelling experience.

metroholografix• 5 years ago

The very first impression I have of Stalker [seen on a projector] is being stunningly beautiful. Very few films [including all of Tarkovsky's, with maybe the best being Mirror] manage to create this sense of stunning beauty so that's something that needs to be mentioned.

Other than this, the film simply hypnotized and drew me in. I wasn't analyzing or thinking about the story, rather observing and experiencing, which allowed the magic to unfold. There are scenes that freeze time, the only words that maybe do justice to them are "bewitchingly intense". His philosophical magnum opus [1], Mirror, is even more powerful.

Tarkovsky was not only an artist extraordinaire but a supreme genius, the kind of person that appears once every few centuries. His films are full of something that you certainly won't find in any movie today [especially American], which is called "soul", and a full appreciation of him and his work entails opening up that part of yourself and allowing it to engage with Tarkovsky's as expressed in his output.

[1] I use "philosophy" here to mean meditations on the human condition that are understood / made real through praxis, i.e. its original definition.

coolandsmartrr2• 5 years ago

Tarkovsky may perhaps be the pioneer of slow cinema that consisted of long shots observing subjects like a thousand-yard stare. In Nostalghia (spelled in the Russian transliteration), the final scene consists of a man carrying a candle for 10 minutes. While detractors may be appealed by the hostile nature of slow cinema, their champions like Bela Tarr, Theo Angelopoulos, and contemporary ones like Bi Gan and Apichatpong Weerasethakul embrace long shots for their ability to convey the atmosphere of bleakness. Bela Tarr even made an 8-hour film called Santantango, which Susan Sontag praised as a film she would watch every year.

Tarkovsky was not appreciated in Soviet Russia, where distribution depended upon the whims of the censors. When censors criticized not his politics (his films were apolitical) but the lengthy content, he would respond that his films were intended for viewing by "Bresson, Bergman, and Dreyer" (in which order I forget). His films would be given minimal circulation and screened briefly at venues, like in worker's pubs for a week. He would even fight the bureaucrats until he had it with the forced cancellation of The First Day, which thereafter he burned all remaining film and set. (The project purportedly commented on the state's official atheism that were at odds with his deep Russian Orthodox Christianity.) After he defected, he collaborated with his favorite Bergman actors and crews until he died of cancer, possibly caused by exposure to harmful substances during the filming of The Stalker.

In Japan, Akira Kurosawa championed Tarkovsky and promoted his works. Today, there is almost always a screening of Tarkovsky in an arthouse cinema every year. While the content of his films eluded me on first viewing, I now observe the silences ripe with meaning. His films transcend time, imparting an experience that lasts briefly and eternally. There is nothing more exciting in film than his characters staring lengthily into the abyss of the human condition.

The Drenching Richness of Andrei Tarkovsky

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