Andrei Tarkovsky

The Pocket Essentials: Film

by Sean Martin

A concise study of the work of the most celebrated Russian filmmaker since Eisenstein, and one of the most important directors to have emerged during the 1960s and 1970s

Considering the whole of Tarkovsky's oeuvre, this book covers everything from the classic student film The Steamroller and the Violin, across the full-length films, to the later stage works and Tarkovsky's writings, paintings, and photographs. This study seeks to demystify Tarkovsky as a "difficult" director, while also celebrating his radical aesthetic of long takes and tracking shots, which Tarkovsky was to dub "imprinted" or "sculpted" time, and to make a case for his position not just as an important filmmaker, but also as an artist who speaks directly about the most important spiritual issues of our time. Although he made only seven features, each one was a major landmark in cinema. Since his death in Paris in 1986, his reputation continues to grow.

Genres: Film, Art, History, Nonfiction

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2005

About the author

Author of bestsellers The Knights Templar: The History & Myths of the Legendary Military Order, The Gnostics: The First Christian Heretics and The Cathars: The Rise & Fall of the Great Heresy. My new book, A Short History of Disease, will be published in June 2015.

Reviews

[Braeden]

Read the chapter on Solaris for a research paper

[Pedram · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very concise review of Tarkovsky's life and career. The major part of the book includes plots of his 7 major movies plus a brief history for each project. The opening chapter concentrates on common themes and methods in Tarkovsky's cinema. Imminent armageddon and prophecies,the scared insane,mothers/wives,children and nature are among discussed issues. In summary it's a very insightful and readable book. Highly suggested to those who have an ardent interest in cinematography not cinema per se!

[Chant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pleasantly surprised by a small book! One often finds these survey books on such-n-such subjects to be rather lacking; however, with this book? It provides a fairly brief introduction to Tarkovsky's films with a brief summary of each film, which might be considered sacrilegious to Tarkovsky! But one tends to forget that most of us cannot block out 3-hour chunks of time to dedicate to a rewatching of whatever Tarkovsky film you're trying to "get".

Concise, to the point, and certainly provides just enough context on why Solaris and Stalker were adapted the way they were, among more illuminating information.

[Jonathon Dabell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Kamera series of film books are pretty good "cinema-lite" reads, although in this case the subject (Russian film-maker extraordinaire Andrei Tarkovsky) is hardly the kind of director you would describe as "lite". His films are at once poetic, beautiful-looking, deeply philosophical and extremely challenging to watch. No doubt about it, Tarkovsky is a genius, but you have to work hard to enjoy his films.
Sean Martin makes a creditable stab at analysing, explaining and interpreting Tarkovsky's films, as well as providing a wealth of other fascinating information. He admits himself that it's better to experience Tarkovsky for yourself, rather than reading about it or, worse still, looking up analyses of the director's work. Nevertheless, the book will make you seek out (or, perhaps, return to) the films and look at them from a different persepctive.
The weakest aspect of the book is Martin's plot synopses of each film, which are clunkily written. In all the other sections, he writes engrossingly about his subject and the book is eminently readable. A worthy look at one of the world's greatest (and most unheralded) movie-makers.