Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema

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Art is a meta-language, with the help of which people try to communicate with one another; to impart information about themselves and assimilate the experience of others. Again, this has not to do with practical advantage but with realising the idea of love, the meaning of which is in sacrifice: the very antithesis of pragmatism. I simply cannot believe that an artist can ever work only for the sake of 'self-expression.' Self-expression if meaningless unless it meets with a response. For the sake of creating a spiritual bond with others it can only be an agonising process, one that involves no practical gain: ultimately it is an act of sacrifice. But surely it cannot be worth the effort merely for the sake of hearing one's own echo?” It is the film the strongest which I know. A giant masterpiece There is all life dead spirutuality. He was never a fan of american style adventure movies and wanted to create inward attention rather than outward. There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast it is all a sham - all a sham, James, and it won't stand when things come to be turned inside out and put down for what they are.”

If we feel inexplicable symptoms of anxiety, depression or despair, we promptly turn to the services of the psychiatrist or, better still, the sexologist, who has taken over from the confessor, and who, we imagine, eases our minds and restores them to normality. Reassured, we pay him the going rate. Or if we feel the need for love, we go off to a brothel and again pay cash—not that it necessarily has to be a brothel. And all this despite the fact that we know perfectly well that neither love nor peace of mind can be bought with any currency.If Sculpting in Time could be distilled to a single message, it would be this: Content and conscience must come before technique—for any artist in any art form." ( Los Angeles Times Book Review) None of these reactions has anything to do with the reality shown in the film. The first and last scenes—the watering of the barren tree, which for me is a symbol of faith—are the high points between which events unfold with growing intensity. By the end of the film not only does Alexander prove his case and demonstrate that he is able to rise to extraordinary heights, but the doctor, who first appears as a simplistic character, bursting with health and utterly devoted to Alexander’s family, changes to such an extent that he is able to sense and understand the venomous atmosphere prevailing in the household and its deadly effect. He turns out to be capable not merely of expressing an opinion of his own but of deciding to break with what has grown hateful to him, and emigrate to Australia. It was far from easy to find protagonists for the eight parts, but I think that each member of the final cast completely identified with his or her character and actions. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep content for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services

And most important, let them believe in themselves, let them be helpless like children,because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing... Robinson, Harlow (19 July 1987). "Sculpting in Time: REFLECTIONS ON THE CINEMA by Andrey Tarkovsky". Los Angeles Times. art, like science, is a means of assimilating the world, an instrument for knowing it in the course of man’s journey towards what is called ‘absolute truth’. I felt all the time that for the film to be a success the texture of the scenery and the landscapes must fill me with definite memories and poetic associations” What is the essence of the director’s work? We could define it as sculpting in time. Just as a sculptor takes a lump of marble, and, inwardly conscious of the features of his finished piece, removes everything that is not part of it — so the film-maker, from a “lump of time” made up of an enormous, solid cluster of living facts, cuts off and discards whatever he does not need, leaving only what is to be an element of the finished film, what will prove to be integral to the cinematic image.I tend to approach the world at an emotional and contemplative level. I don't try to rationalize it. I perceive it as an animal or child can do - not as an adult who draws his own conclusions.” was a bare response of Andrei Tarkovsky when asked what was his attitude to the world. David Kollar's guitar is marked with AT initials along with the title of one of the most significant European movies - "Stalker". Tarkovsky, Andrey. Sculpting in Time. Translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair, University of Texas Press, 1988. Alexander, an actor who has given up the stage, is perpetually crushed by depression. Everything fills him with weariness: the pressures of change, the discord in his family, and his instinctive sense of the threat posed by the relentless march of technology. He has grown to hate the emptiness of human speech, from which he flees into a silence where he hopes to find some measure of truth. Alexander offers the audience the possibility of participating in his act of sacrifice, and of being touched by its results. (Not, I hope, in the sense of that ‘audience participation’ which is all too current among directors in both the USSR and the USA—and therefore also in Europe—and has become one of the two main trends of current cinema: the other being the so-called ‘poetic cinema’ where everything is deliberately made incomprehensible and the director has to think up explanations for what he has done.)

The book's main statement about the nature of cinema is summarized in the statement, "The dominant, all-powerful factor of the film image is rhythm, expressing the course of time within the frame." It contains a great deal of poetry written by the filmmaker's father Arseny Alexandrovich Tarkovsky along with a fair amount of Tarkovsky's personal writings on his life and work, lectures and discussions during making of Andrei Rublev with a film history student named Olga Surkova, who later became a professional critic and helped in writing of this book. Ese apego a reproducir la realidad pero a través de la poética de la imagen que también rechaza la pirotecnia, el artificio, el símbolo y la interpretación unívoca propuesta por el director, busca un impresionismo cinematográfico en el que incluso el color resulta un problema, ya que para la época, el trabajo con el color en el cine aún no llegaba a un nivel técnico óptimo y seguía resaltando como una estética incontrolable por encima del fondo y la profundidad del sentido de la imagen. Por ello Tarkovski proponía el uso de colores apagados y neutros, e incluso, asegura que el blanco y negro es la representación de la realidad más fiel, pues anula la necesidad del escoger un color por encima de otro y de darle un sentido a la gama de colores que en la vida real no existe porque es fortuita. was not only his proverbial brain child but as if it was his actual offspring. He treats his instrument as a gateway between his complex ideas and their audible representation, the same way a sculptor treats the chisel or a painter the brush."

Un libro tan íntimo y tan abierto...¿cómo un hombre pudo alcanzar tal madurez, tal ingenio y tanta sensibilidad? Creo que no tiene que ser leído necesariamente por aficionados, estudiosos del cine, sino creo es un libro que alcanza a todo al que se lo permita, como lo fue tan necesario para mi en estos tiempos. After reading Tarkovsky’s autobiography, I can’t help but feel utterly overwhelmed, disturbed, and changed in some profound way. My own considerations and world views have been upturned. Parts of Sculpting in Time were so engrossing and beautifully told (even penetrating the sometimes overly literal translation of Kitty Hunter-Blair) that I couldn’t contain my sense of inner delight, and I’d spontaneously release these monosyllabic mutters. That is how Tarkovsky is defined; his poetry is jaw-droppingly affective through any language. And that should be obvious if you’ve ever seen his films. You can also become a spontaneous supporter with a one-time donation in any amount: GIVE NOW BITCOIN DONATION Curiously, while the images of the film were being conceived, and indeed all the time the first version of the scenario was being written, regardless of the current circumstances of my life, the characters began to stand out more and more clearly, the action grew steadily more specific and structured. It was almost an independent process that entered my life of itself. Furthermore, while I was still making Nostalgia I could not escape the feeling that the film was influencing my life. In the Nostalgia scenario, Gorchakov had only come to Italy for a short time, but he fell ill and died. In other words, he failed to return to Russia not of his own volition, but by a dictate of fate. Nor did I imagine that after finishing Nostalgia I would remain in Italy; like Gorchakov, I am subject to a Higher Will. Another sad fact came to underline these thoughts: the death of Anatoliy Solonitsyn, who had played the lead in all my previous films and who, I assumed, would have the parts of Gorchakov in Nostalgia and of Alexander in The Sacrifice. He died of the illness of which Alexander was cured, and which a year later was to afflict me. I am interested above all in the character who is capable of sacrificing himself and his way of life—regardless of whether that sacrifice is made in the name of spiritual values, or for the sake of someone else, or of his own salvation, or of all these things together. Such behaviour precludes, by its very nature, all of those selfish interests that make up a ‘normal’ rationale for action; it refutes the laws of a materialistic world view. It is often absurd and unpractical. And yet—or indeed for that very reason—the man who acts in that way brings about fundamental changes to people’s lives and to the course of history. The space he lives in becomes a rare, distinctive point of contrast to the empirical concepts of our experience, an area where reality is all the more strongly present.

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.

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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 Sculpting in Time could be distilled to a single message, it would be this: Content and conscience must come before technique—for any artist in any art form. Kollar treats his music with a deep degree of seriousness and personal involvement, as if each and every one of his projects was not only his proverbial brain child but as if it was his actual offspring. He treats his instrument as a gateway between his complex ideas and their audible representation, the same way a sculptor treats the chisel or a painter the brush." 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". Need to cancel an existing donation? (It's okay — life changes course. I treasure your kindness and appreciate your