Andrei Tarkovsky: POO

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.

reading through Sculpting in Time again, and came across a passage (about The Mirror, but also about his creative process) that I thought others might enjoy. Was about to type it all out, but the whole book is (currently) online at: https://monoskop.org/images/d/dd/Tarkovsky_Andrey_Sculpting_in_Time_Reflections_on_the_Cinema.pdf.

https://i.imgur.com/ivrTkCp.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/kleXE6u.jpg

ha. was just reading this over lunch, though i might be about 50 pages ahead of you.

I need to rewatch Mirror having read that Geoff Dyer book.

whoops, sorry, brain fart: I obviously meant Stalker

what do you think of it, circa? like his movies, at times i find myself drifting off and kind of forget what he's even talking about, and then suddenly he'll switch into something tangentially related that is somehow much more gripping and personal, and i'm sucked right back in again.

Feel similarly. It’s not something I’m finding myself desperately itching to pick up, but whenever I do, there are always insights amongst the drifting (and occasional repetition) that hit. It’s good. And I’ll probably want to go through his films again after this.

How do people who rate The Mirror rate Malick’s Tree of Life?

I rate both tbh

They are quite different? I like both, but The Mirror is obviously better.

They’re different, absolutely, but undeniably shared ground there. A lot of things in Tarkovsky’s book align with Malick’s MO. Would be surprised if The Mirror wasn’t an inspiration.

I love them both.

hbd

Interviewer: What animal would you wanna be? 😜

Andrei Tarkovsky: I have a dog named Dark, bearing a human soul, that no longer respects me pic.twitter.com/L3AUS8ipvS

— Eric Allen Hatch (@ericallenhatch) April 9, 2017

https://i.imgur.com/ttV63eR.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Q5fIQeu.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/kQRaO6g.png

many dozens more of these at: http://www.graphicine.com/andrei-tarkovskys-polaroids-instant-light

those are amazing! there is a painting-like quality about polaroids that is unlike any other kind of film

I wonder what kind of camera made those. they don't have the nearly-square image size (or basic resolution) of standard SX-70/SX-680 integral film and they don't appear to have the 8x10 ratio of the larger polaroids.

they look like 20x24 images to me

WHENNNNNN is mirror getting re-released

About 3 years ago?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mirror-Blu-ray-Anatoli-Solonitsyn/dp/B01BFH7QT4/

Re the Polaroids - Polaroid sold a lot of the 635 CL in Russia and the image dimensions and aesthetic seem very similar:
https://www.lomography.com/magazine/192280-getting-instant-with-the-polaroid-635-cl

also - hard to see details and may have a sticker on it:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5a/ce/45/5ace4568c7e28a8e02750ae28ba5633a.jpg

not looking for PAL pal

Makes no difference unless you have a 20 year old TV - the blu ray is 1080p / 24p which any blu ray player can output as PAL or NTSC or (more likely) send to the TV as 24p for display at 24fps, if it's a recent or higher end TV.
I'm not sure if it's zone B tho - in the US that would require a multi region bluray player.

I love those polaroids, they come up now and then on twitter its good to see a stack of them.

me too.

isn't there a book? it comes up on amazon when searching for the films

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Instant-Tarkovsky-Polaroids-Giovanni-Chiaramonte/dp/0500286140 (£120)

(that's from 2006. there are two others, with essays, from 2012 and 2019)

That’s a great book. It wasn’t anywhere near £120 when I bought it, must be out of print

The book of interviews is quite good as well. I especially enjoyed the one with Irina Brezna from 1984: she directly calls him out on his archaic treatment of female figures.

It's the one aspect of his work I've never been able to tune out.

I have that book too. Haven't seen the ones with essays.

Makes no difference unless you have a 20 year old TV - the blu ray is 1080p / 24p which any blu ray player can output as PAL or NTSC or (more likely) send to the TV as 24p for display at 24fps, if it's a recent or higher end TV.
I'm not sure if it's zone B tho - in the US that would require a multi region bluray player.

http://www.openculture.com/2010/07/tarkovksy.html?fbclid=IwAR0Q6zqfyO9fW1IHqTtNnOXHV-eoaasZ_CCZ0FfNiee3Mjm0UNh1Pb28E2E

Stalker, Solaris, The Mirror & Andrei Rublev being streamed for free by Mosfilm on youtube.

https://i.redd.it/qu6hhxwnqxa31.jpg