Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema

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Musicians and sound artists have since devised countless artistic techniques whose goal is to sensitize listeners to their own auditory perception. ​52​ They have long moved their audiences out of the concert-hall setting that Cage’s famous silent piece 4’33” (1952) still relied on. Starting in the 1960s, artists began to lead their audiences on soundwalks in which participants often deliberately refrain from talking, with the goal of getting them to “ LISTEN“, as the single-word score read that Max Neuhaus rubber-stamped on his audience’s hands at the beginning of such encounters. ​53​ Popularized by artists such as Hildegard Westerkamp in the 1970s and 1980s, soundwalking has since yielded an impressive range of artistic forms and techniques ​54​ – from solo walks mediated by textual or graphical scores (sometimes handed out separately, sometimes located in situ) to group experiences – and has also been proposed as a method for urban sound design. ​55​ Pero ahí estaba Tarkovski con su Espejo, con su Stalker, con su Sacrificio, y ahí estaba yo, luchando contra ese tiempo extenuante para intentar ver aquello que él veía en el arte. En pequeñas salas de cine o funciones improvisadas incluso en monitores de TV, funciones a las que no acudía nadie. Esto debido en gran parte al contexto cultural del país en el que estoy. Pero todo esto puede parecer una labia innecesaria que nada tiene que ver con el libro que reseño aquí, sin embargo, tiene mucho que ver. Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema (1986) by Andrei Tarkovsky translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair (1989, University of Texas Press)

Again, Tarkovsky’s approach (in this case, to directing actors) is a distinct break from the Soviet tradition, particularly that of Stanislawski. While he sees much value for the theater in what has become known as method acting, he argues that film actors, like their directors, should find inspiration in subjective experience. “The one thing the film actor has to do is express in particular circumstances a psychological state peculiar to him alone, and do so naturally, true to his own emotional and intellectual make-up, and in the form that is only right for him” (141). Free to perform without restraint, the actors then provide the director true experience from which he selects the “stuff” of his film. Music and NoisesThe electronic synthesis of sounds from scratch by means of oscillators, noise generators, and filters afforded twentieth-century musicians another opportunity for the aestheticization of sonic experience. Tarkovsky recognized these “enormously rich possibilities” of electronic music, ​72​ and it is certainly no coincidence that for his films Solaris, Mirror, and Stalker, he ended up working with Eduard Artemyev, a composer who at the time was already very versatile in this medium. A key ingredient that Artemyev contributed to the scores of these films were the sounds created by means of Evgeny Murzin’s photoelectronic ANS synthesizer in Solaris and the EMS Synthi 100 in Stalker. My function is to make whoever sees my films aware of his need to love and to give his love, and aware that beauty is summoning him. — Tarkovsky

Tarkovsky a través de sus obras, nos hace entender que está al tanto de la intangibilidad del ser humano, el potencial que tiene para experiencias emocionales profundas que no se puede comprender a través de la lógica o la razón, pero que se puede sentir íntimamente.

One woman sent me on a letter written to her by her daughter, and the young girl's words are a remarkable statement about artistic creation as an infinitely versatile and subtle form of communication: Tarkovsky for me is the greatest (director), the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream,” said the acclaimed Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) of the legendary Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky. Born in 1932 in the village of Zavrazhye in western Russia to poet Arseny Tarkovsky and his wife Maria, Andrei Tarkovsky attended the State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. He made a total of seven feature films: Ivan’s Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972), The Mirror (1975), Stalker (1979), Nostalghia(1983) and The Sacrifice (1986) – the last two being produced in Italy and Sweden, respectively. Tarkovsky died in Paris in December 1986 at the age of 54. If this word “music” is sacred and reserved for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound. Sculpting in Time (Russian "Запечатлённое время", literally "Captured Time") is a book by Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky about art and cinema in general, and his own films in particular. It was originally published in 1985 in German shortly before the author's death, and published in English in 1987, translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair. [1] The title refers to Tarkovsky's own name for his style of filmmaking. Y respecto a ello, a lo material, al materialismo (visto desde la filosofía, y desde la cultura de masas y el consumismo), Tarkovski, que salió de la URSS en 1983, se sitúa en un espacio cuasi paria al criticar a ambos sistemas, aunque no los nombre. No nombra al Capitalismo y al Comunismo, pero sí habla de Occidente y su materialismo (lo cierto es que también critica a ese cine comprometido y político de la URSS con el que no quería tener nada que ver), y cree que la materia amenaza con devorar el espíritu del hombre. También equipara el avance de la tecnología con esa pérdida de espíritu (de ahí que esté relacionado con la introducción de este texto, en el que hablo de la entrada de la tecnología en los dosmiles, cosa que de alguna manera Tarkovski predijo, pese a que murió en los aún analógicos ochentas). Para Tarkovski el cine comercial no tiene valor alguno más que como fuente de generación de dinero y según su idea, el artista no está ahí por enriquecerse. Su visión del arte es totalizadora y metafísica (en el sentido no-místico, sino de trascendencia de lo humano): el arte es lo que salva al hombre de la pérdida de su espíritu. "Y por eso, quizá realmente consista el sentido de la existencia humana en la creación de obras de arte, en el acto artístico, ya que este no posee una meta y es desinteresado".

Again we are reminded of the dictum that our life here on earth was made for happiness, and that nothing else is more important for man. And though this could only be true if one were to alter the meaning of the word happiness—which is impossible—neither in the West nor the East (I am not referring to the Far East) will a dissenting voice be taken seriously by the materialistic majority. How many words does a person know?' she asks her mother. 'How many does he use in his everyday vocabulary? One hundred, two, three? We wrap our feelings up in words, try to express in words sorrow and joy and any sort of emotion, the very things that can't in fact be expressed. Romeo uttered beautiful words to Juliet, vivid, expressive words, but they surely didn't say even half of what made his heart feel as if it was ready to jump out of his chest, and stopped him breathing, and made Juliet forget everything except her love? Andrey Tarkovsky, the genius of modern Russian cinema—hailed by Ingmar Bergman as "the most important director of our time"—died an exile in Paris in December 1986. In Sculpting in Time, he has left his artistic testament, a remarkable revelation of both his life and work. Since Ivan's Childhood won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1962, the visionary quality and totally original and haunting imagery of Tarkovsky's films have captivated serious movie audiences all over the world, who see in his work a continuation of the great literary traditions of nineteenth-century Russia. Many critics have tried to interpret his intensely personal vision, but he himself always remained inaccessible.In the closing paragraph of Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky makes his final appeal, speaking to us as confidants: David Kollar - El. guitars, Ronroco, Guitalele, Electronics, Synth, Sound Processing, Bass, Vocal 12 Robinson, Harlow (19 July 1987). "Sculpting in Time: REFLECTIONS ON THE CINEMA by Andrey Tarkovsky". Los Angeles Times. He evolved from planning the details of the scene to approaching it with a general idea due to reality being richer than imagination and allowing serendipity. He finds meticulous plans abstract and restricting on the imagination so one should merely approach the scene with an open mind.