Andrei Tarkovsky

The Pocket Essentials: Film

by Sean Martin

Andrei Tarkovsky is the most celebrated Russian filmmaker since Eisenstein, and one of the most important directors to have emerged during the 1960s and 70s. Although he made only seven features, each one was a major landmark in cinema, the most well-known of them being the mediaeval epic Andrei Rublev - widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time - and the autobiographical Mirror , set during the Russia of Stalin's purges in the 1930s and the years of stagnation under Brezhnev. Both films landed Tarkovsky in considerable trouble with the authorities, and he gained a reputation for being a tortured - and ultimately martyred - filmmaker. Despite the harshness of the conditions under which he worked, Tarkovsky built up a remarkable body of work. He burst upon the international scene in 1962 with his debut feature Ivan's Childhood , which won the Golden Lion at Venice and immediately established him as a major filmmaker. During the 1970s, he made two classic ventures into science-fiction, Solaris , regarded at the time as being the Soviet reply to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and later remade by Steven Soderbergh, and Stalker , which was thought to have predicted the Chernobyl disaster. Harassed at home, Tarkovsky went into exile and made his last two films in the West, where he also published his classic work of film and artistic theory, Sculpting in Time . Since his death in Paris in 1986, his reputation continued - and continues - to grow. Sean Martin considers the whole of Tarkovsky's oeuvre, 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. Martin also seeks to demystify Tarkovsky as a 'difficult' director, whilst 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 Tarkovsky's position not just as an important filmmaker, but also as an artist who speaks directly about the most important spiritual issues of our time.

Genres: Film, Art, History, Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

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!

[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.