Poet of the Cinema
In the Summer of 2006, while editor of the photo-eye Booklist, I was happy to publish a review of Instant Light, a collection of Polaroids by the Russian filmmaker Andrey Tarkovsky (published by Thames and Hudson). The review was by Krishnan Venkatesh, a tutor at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, and a fan of Tarkovsky’s films. He had introduced me to the film maker’s work during my graduate school years, and when the book came across my desk, I immediately thought of Krishnan.
A new book of previously unseen photographs by Tarkovsky has just been published by White Space Gallery, in London, in association with the Tarkovsky Foundation. It is entitled Bright, Bright Day. The images were all taken in Russia and Italy between 1979 and 1984, just two years before his life was cut short by cancer, at the age of 54. The photographs range from light-filled landscapes and tender portraits to casual images of the film maker’s family and friends. Taken together, they present a man who’s singular filmic style translated readily to the visual poetry of the still image.
What follows below are a few excerpts from Poet of the Cinema. This interview is available as a bonus feature on Tarkovsky’s film, Andrei Rublev (DVD, through Netflix or any other good source). For a more thorough presentation of Tarkovsky’s philosophical underpinnings, pick up a copy of Sculpting in Time, available readily on the out-of-print book market. These are simply a few of the most poignant passages from the interview, which is wide-ranging and mostly concerns the making of the film Andrei Rublev. They contain some gems of insight, not only into Tarkovsky’s approach to making a film, but into his life and beliefs.
Tarkovsky: The pressure Rublev is subject to is not an exception. An artist never works under ideal conditions. If they existed, his work wouldn’t exist, for the artist doesn’t live in a vacuum. Some sort of pressure must exist; the artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn’t look for harmony but would simply live in it. Art is born out of an ill-designed world. This is the issue in Andrei Rublev; the search for harmonic relationships among men, between art and life, between time and history. That’s what my film is all about.
Another important theme [in Andrei Rublev] is man’s experience. In this film my message is that it’s impossible to pass on experience to others or learn from others’ [experience]. We must live our own experience; we cannot inherit it. People often say, “Use your father’s experience.” Too easy; each of us must get his own. But once we’ve got it, we no longer have time to use it. And the new generations rightly refuse to listen to it. They want to live it but then they also die. This is the law of life, its real meaning. We cannot impose our experience on other people or force them to feel suggested emotions. Only through personal experience, do we understand life. Rublev, the monk, lived a complex life; he studied with master Radonevsky at the Holy Trinity, but he lived at variance with his teaching. He got to see the world through his master’s eyes. Only at the end of his life did he live his own way.
“Andrey, What is art?”
Tarkovsky: Before defining art—or any concept—we must answer a far broader question. What’s the meaning of man’s life on earth? Maybe we are here to enhance ourselves spiritually. If our life tends to this spiritual enrichment, then art is a means to get there. This, of course, [is] in accordance with my definition of life. Art should help man in this process. Some say that art helps man to know the world like any other intellectual activity. I don’t believe in this possibility of knowing; I am almost an agnostic. Knowledge distracts us from our main purpose in life. The more we know the less we know; getting deeper, our horizon becomes narrower. Art enriches man’s own spiritual capabilities and he can then rise above himself to use what we call ‘free will’.
“What would you like to tell young people?”
Learn to love solitude, to be more alone with yourselves. The problem with young people is their carrying out noisy and aggressive actions not to feel lonely. And this is a sad thing. The individual must learn to be on his own as a child for this doesn’t’ mean to be alone: it means not to get bored with oneself, which is a very dangerous symptom, almost a disease.
In the first paragraph quoted here, Tarkovsky states, “Art would be useless if the world were perfect.” This simple statement requires some unpacking, for behind the surface of the statement lies some deeper implications. The reverse statement would be that art is useful when the world is imperfect. Tarkovsky sees art as useful, since he tells us the condition under which it becomes useless.
In each of the three statements which form the heart of that paragraph he discusses what he sees as the motivations behind art: the artist exists because the world is not perfect; art would be useless if the world were perfect; art is born out of an ill-designed world; man wouldn’t look for harmony but would simply live in it. What emerges from this tiny constellation of statements is a belief that the artistic impulse is born of the desire to seek out and create harmony and perfection. We lack perfection, we live in imperfection, and from that state emerges the artist, the harmonizer.
It is, quite honestly, a very optimistic belief, and a very traditional understanding of the role of the artist in society. Man’s true nature is both material and spiritual, and art must take into account both sides. Tarkovsky employs the word “useful” and the reader clearly understands that any utilitarian use of a film is ludicrous; it is implied that a “spiritual” usefulness is what he is getting at. In the broadest sense, Tarkovsky sees the visual and performing arts as having an educational role in society–a reminder that life is comprised of more than just the material. In short, he aspires to awaken the spiritual.