Andrei Tarkovsky: POO

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).

Tarkovsky. Dancing. pic.twitter.com/UTckA4qLFi

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