Andrei Tarkovsky: POO

As Tarkovsky, his wife Larisa Tarkovskaya and actor Anatoli Solonitsyn all died from the very same type of lung cancer, Vladimir Sharun, sound designer in Stalker, is convinced that they were all poisoned when shooting the film near a chemical plant

So, what is a dinosaur's favourite Tarkovsky film?

Solaurus?

Oh, okay. That kind of works.

Lol I just googled Barney Rublev and this came up.

rejected JBR screen names - ilXor.com
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2 Jun 2008 - 50 posts - ‎16 authors
barney rublev. ― James Redd and the Blecchs, Tuesday, 3 June 2008 17:38 (5 years ago) Permalink. a clockwork orangutan. ― Roz, Tuesday ...

Ha, forgot about that, thanks.

Meanwhile here is the answer to dowd's question: Better pay attention to this thread.

Where you would see http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/kenjuggle3/stalker.gif

haha, okay.

finally watched Stalker over the weekend. i feel like this movie spoke some kind-of secret language with my soul. i know it's corny and lame to express your actual thoughts and feelings, and since i can't think of a cynical or jokey way of putting it, i'll just leave it at that.

http://gwarlingo.gwarlingo.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Polaroid-1-Dog.jpg

this film's beauty is a spiritual experience in and of itself. i can see why tarkovsky loved nature so much. i think i caught this movie at the right time in my life. i used to be incredibly spiritual, and eventually turned into one of the bitter, cynical, materialistic archetypes in the movie. i can understand why the Writer attacked the Stalker at the end, i've been doing that for years now, pissed off that i can't believe in anything anymore. oh well, i love this guy's movies, he always manages to say things that hit right at the heart of life for me. that probably makes me a corny fuck, but whatever.

own it man. life is too important to let fear of corn get in the way.

i feel like this movie spoke some kind-of secret language with my soul.

exactly how i felt on first seeing it, more than 15 years ago now (yikes). beautiful movie, could go on and on abt the imagery, philosophy, occlusion, etc, but at the time it ~spoke to me~ in an indescribable, almost embarrassingly profound manner. have since avoided rewatching it out of a desire to preserve the experience intact.

yeah i have been saving a Stalker rewatch for a long time now, waiting for the right conjunction.

on an otherwise ordinary day in high school my friend handed me a dubbed video tape like it was an artifact

since then i have been in the zone

the shallow water flowing over the grasses and weeds

There is a lot of trickling water imagery throughout Tarvosky's movies. I read a quote where he says he likes to portray infinite beauty in small shots, microcosm not macrocosm. I want to see Stalker on the big screen one day, that would be an experience.

35 mm, guys. last may. i may have spoken about it before. it was transcendent!

almost, but I feel this way about The Mirror

Amused to see The Colour of Pomegranates also mentioned on this thread, as I first saw Stalker on a double bill w/ C.O.P. at the Scala Cinema in London. Those were the days. In Europe Tarkovsky's films are not esp well served by the shoddy prints on Artificial Eye's Region 2 DVDs. It needs the BFI etc to fund new restorations of all his films, tho' I'm certain it would be a digital restoration these days, regardless of all the Kodak 35mm that Tarantino is apparently saving from the scrapheap. I certainly saw Andrei Rublev as a restored film maybe 15 years ago, so that at least prob still exists in a decent print, somewhere.

The Mirror is the best film ever, but I don't think it's as 35mm-specific as Stalker. I've seen The Mirror on celluloid, and I've seen The Mirror on a small computer-screen, and it's genius both places.

saw The Sacrifice again in 35mm. I understand the prosaic types finding it "no good," I guess, but not why they are watching Tarkovsky.

I must've just been in really receptive mood when I saw The Sacrifice, because it blew me away. More so than some of his other, more widely regarded work. Suppose a rewatch is in order.

after having seen stalker and solaris in one week, i came to this thread looking for a recommendation on my next selection. i can only conclude that i must enter straight up chronological obsessive mode. can't wait! me and tarkovsky are like *THIS* right now

Andrei Rublev + The Sacrifice + The Mirror still to watch for the first time = jealous.

and Ivan's Childhood.

what is the best way to see stalker these days --- i had some rip a few years ago, but i never got past the first 30min due to cares, and would like to see the best print i can

also have not seen p much anything else

I am not one of those people who normally says celluloid or nothing - I'll watch a film on youtube if I want to check it out enough - but Stalker is one of those very few film where that kind of talk is kinda warranted. I got nearly nothing out of it when I watched a rip of it years ago on my computer, but rewatching it on 35mm at a repertory theater, it was sublime! It needs to be magical, otherwise it really is only three men walking round a ruin, spouting bad poesy. Apparantly, Artificial Eye will release it on blu-ray this year, that would be second-best, then. But celluloid, that was one of the best filmic experiences I had in 2014.

otherwise it really is only three men walking round a ruin, spouting bad poesy.

erm, it is at base not much more than that. I watched it on DVD on a tiny screen and the experience of three men exploring not very much, seeing nothing, saying nothing of substance, when there was nothing to be said because there was nothing they could say.

It is a nothing AND YET...type of film.

Apparantly, Artificial Eye will release it on blu-ray this year

Artificial Eye's Tarkovsky DVDs are notoriously pisspoor - for example, the print they use for Nostalgia is deformed by a loud soundtrack crackle for something like the first 40 minutes - so unless they go back and remaster/use a new source print(very unlikely for them) then I would've thought that watching their Blu of Stalker would be an even worse way of screening it.

when I saw Stalker it was at the local art museum, but they were just projecting that not-so-great DVD release that's commonly available :/

I think the versions of a bunch of russian films on youtube that their arts people uploaded are as good, if not better, than many of the NA releases

hang on tight for a retro, gbx, imo
something weirdly reassuring to me about having already left it so long to see some things that waiting another couple years won't hurt

three men walking round a ruin

35mm showing of Rublev yesterday in Brooklyn, packed. I'd forgotten how 'experimental' it is narratively, w/ AR as sort of a 'decentralized' protagonist.

So jealous of you metropolitan types.

nostalghia for me. The pool and candle scene is such an extraordinary image in my mind, and I made the journey to Bagno Vignoni to try it out for myself!! Its closed off to the public these days, but I think this is the only movie pilgrimage I have ever made! While others, such as Mirror and Stalker, contain some stunning water effects, I think nostalghiaa is the one in which he uses his water obsession to greatest effect.
― Japanese Giraffe (Japanese Giraffe), Thursday, September 2, 2004 4:15 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark

this person should come back and tell us more about their pilgrimage

http://i.imgur.com/5IMu1NZ.png

If we're just talking about Tarkovsky for a bit, I rewatched Ivan's Childhood a few days ago. Not really peak Tarkovsky, but that scene among the birches. Is that the best filmscene ever that has absolutely nothing to do with the film it's in?

Nostalghia screening in NY tonight

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/10-great-films-inspired-andrei-tarkovsky

Thanks. Massive LOLs @:

He even commended James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984) saying its “vision of the future and the relation between man and its destiny is pushing the frontier of cinema as an art”. However, remained critical of the film’s “brutality and low acting skills”.

Wonder who could he mean here?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51wdzjFe7tL._SX322_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Saw Mirror for the first time in about ten years, and back then it was on a DVD played in a small screen at home, as oposed to Sunday at the BFI.

Really the right time - I absorbed a lot from it, or certain scenes had more of an impact just because of the particular knowledge I bought to it. Having read Nadeszha Mandelstam's diaries the scene where the woman is looking for her ex-husband's texts felt a lot more charged and gripping than how it was presented - if you didn't know much about the repression of writers in the Soviet Union in the 30s you may think its someone looking for a book lost by someone she still loves. Tarkovsky didn't (probably because his every move was being watched by the censor) elucidate further.

But that approach of not explaining, letting the image speak (and as I said to the friend I went with - it was her first viewing of a Tarkovsky film - he does film grass like its a cathedral) and its symbols multiply is what Tarkovsky does anyway. And it probably helped not to talk through the ennui and mummy and daddy issues, which I might not have had any patience for.

Helps also to read Arseny Tarkovsky's poetry - not that many try but combining image with three powerful readings of his poetry is an experience.

Given all that it was jarring to see all the documentary footage segment of WWII - Mao - Hiroshima, whose sudden insertion just left us with little clue. This is a film that doesn't give you straightforward narrative answers - and there probably aren't any. Looking back though there were numerous dream sequences that 1) did seem to clash with any scripted scenarios and 2) put all of us who try and capture an image - whether in words or photographs - in a difficult position. As in: why bother after this?

Despite all the clashes they actually felt like something normalised. I was concious that certain things weren't following another in what you'd say was a coherent manner but I really don't recall switching off - just about the perfect sunday afternoon screening. Really fascinated by what the script might look like and what the process around the making of this film might have been.

I saw it last week, the person I was with thought it was (quote) "the greatest thing they'd ever seen", I'm a bit more of a sceptic!

35mm showing of Rublev yesterday in Brooklyn, packed. I'd forgotten how 'experimental' it is narratively, w/ AR as sort of a 'decentralized' protagonist.

― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), Monday, June 1, 2015 11:50 AM (7 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea this surprised me abt it, just watched

Just watched "Mirror" on the big screen tonight. The first Tarkovsky I've seen (Ok I watched "Solaris" when I was a teen on TV but I didnt watch the whole lot). Its very much an impressionistic picture of his mother. I found it better when I just let the images wash over me. Like we live through troubled times right now but it puts things into perspective when you watch footage of the Spanish Civil War and Maoist China. I suppose there was a puzzle aspect to it too which kept making me trying to decipher what was happening on screen which was frustrating at times though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeUvB-KXQZk

Solaris, it's not even close. but I'm very excited to see The Sacrifice for the first time at a theater here next month.