Andrei Tarkovsky The legendary Russian director and screenwriter was born on April 4, 1932 in the village of Zavrazhye, Ivanovo Region, in the family of the famous Russian poet Arseny Tarkovsky. When Andrei was 5 years old, his father left the family.
Tarkovsky lived with his mother in Moscow. Here Tarkovsky went to school. According to the recollections of friends, Tarkovsky already in childhood had a feeling of being chosen, aristocratic. Among the boys he was always neat and fresh, in his youth he dressed defiantly fashionably, although the family was very poor, especially after the departure of his father.
In 1951-1952 Andrei Tarkovsky studied at the Arabic department of the Middle East faculty of the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies. And, perhaps, he would never have become a director if it were not for the concussion received in physical education classes. In May 1953, he was enrolled as a collector (worker) in a research expedition of the Nigrizoloto Institute to the far Far East Turukhansk region. There he worked for almost a year on the wild Kureika River, walked hundreds of kilometers through the taiga and made a whole album of sketches, which was handed over to the Nigrizoloto archive.
In 1954 he entered the directing department of VGIK (the workshop of M.I. Romm - V. Shukshin studied in the same group). On September 1, at VGIK, Tarkovsky met his future wife, Irma. In 1960, Andrei Tarkovsky graduated from the directing department and defended his diploma with the short film The Skating Rink and the Violin, which won the main prize at the New York Student Film Festival in 1961. Then he worked from the age of 61 at the Mosfilm film studio.
Back in 1961, Tarkovsky applied for the filming of Andrei Rublev, but the filming was launched only three years later. Therefore, Tarkovsky's full-length debut was the film "Ivan's Childhood" (the production of which was first given to another director), staged based on the military story of V. Bogomolov "Ivan". A piercingly tragic story about a teenager who got to the front (N. Burlyaev), with its contrasting opposition of the bright world of childhood and the gloomy realities of war, made a real sensation in world cinema. This film was awarded many prestigious film awards. After Ivan's Childhood, Tarkovsky and Irma had a son, Arseniy.
At the same time, the director began work on a film about Andrei Rublev. In the script, written jointly with A. Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky, the duality of the costume-historical saga and the author's sermon film was visible. The shooting of the picture (started in 1964) was difficult. Communist officials from the arts saw in the film some unfavorable parallels with modern reality, many semi-literate "art historians in civilian clothes" were annoyed by the unusual form of the work. With major censorship amendments, "Andrei Rublev" was released in domestic distribution in a limited number of film copies. But abroad, our party leaders boasted about the art of Tarkovsky's painting, demonstrating that even under socialism an unusual artist has the opportunity to realize himself.
For twenty years of work in cinema, the director was allowed to make only five films in his homeland, and the release of each of them was accompanied by humiliating bullying - endless nit-picking, corrections, organization of persecution in the press, political accusations, although Tarkovsky did not wage any fight against the communists.
In 1969, the French company, which received the rights to foreign distribution of Rublev, successfully showed it at the Cannes Film Festival (FIPRESCI Prize, 1969). After that, the film for many years became the object of spectator excitement in the USSR, and Tarkovsky firmly established himself as the main "esthete" and "nonconformist" of the Soviet screen. The picture was included in the top 100 films in the history of cinema.
In 1970 Andrei Tarkovsky officially divorced Irma. Tarkovsky's relationship with his son Arseny did not work out .... Later, Andrei Tarkovsky remarried.
Soon, the aesthetic and ideological and moral credo of Tarkovsky found an equally vivid expression in the genre of cinematography. Unlike Rublev, the heroes of the philosophical fantasy drama Solaris (based on the novel of the same name by S. Lem) are representatives of the technocratic civilization of the future, living in the artificial world of the space station. However, here, too, Tarkovsky carried out his idea of the original, “divine” spirituality of man, extending it beyond national and cultural boundaries (in the attributes of the film, the Rublev Trinity coexists equally with the music of J.S. Bach and the paintings of P. Brueghel, and the composition of the final frame is literal Rembrandt quote). In Cannes (1972), in addition to the Special Jury Prize, Solaris also received the Prize of the International Evangelical Center.
Then, in 1972, Tarkovsky staged his first theatrical production based on Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Tarkovsky returned to the stage only in 1983, having staged the play Boris Godunov on the stage of Covent Garden in London.
The highest achievement of Tarkovsky was "Mirror" (1974), where his muse of philosophical and poetic reflection is not constrained by the framework of the traditional plot, but only finds the fragment she needs in a rich set of visual associations and memories of the artist - author and hero. The semantic structure of the picture turned out to be surprisingly multidimensional - along with the philosophical and poetic “codes”, in some episodes the note of political dissent was easily deciphered (episode in the printing house, etc.). The film practically did not receive a rental and exacerbated the hidden confrontation between the director and the authorities. At a joint meeting of the Goskino board and the secretariat of the board of the Union of Cinematographers, Tarkovsky's picture was called incomprehensible, not mass and, in general, not successful. Andrei Arsenievich had his own opinion on this matter: “Since cinema is still an art, it cannot be understood more than all other types of art ... I don’t see any sense in mass character ... Some kind of myth was born about my inaccessibility and incomprehensibility ".
Trying on a new project, Tarkovsky wrote scripts, lectured on directing, staged Hamlet at the Lenin Komsomol Theater (1977).
In 1980, Tarkovsky was awarded the title of People's Artist of the RSFSR. At the same time, in fact, the conflict with the authorities only deepened.
Tarkovsky filmed “Time to Travel” in Italy: the director’s requests for work were ignored by the State Film Agency, which led to his departure. Travel Time is a documentary about Tarkovsky and his friend Tonino Guerra in Italy. In the experiences of the writer Gorchakov, cut off from his native roots, the protagonist of the following creation: “Nostalgia”, his own state of spiritual bitterness and despair was almost “mirror-like”. After filming 'Nostalgia', Tarkovsky was offered another job abroad, he agreed. However, vigilant party officials considered that he had enough to hang around abroad and should return to the USSR. Although he was not offered any work here. Since childhood, endowed with a heightened sense of dignity, Andrei Tarkovsky decided that he should manage his own destiny. He refused to return to the Soviet Union, for which he was immediately declared a traitor, the films were withdrawn from distribution, and his name was forbidden to be mentioned. They refused to let their spouse and son go abroad to Tarkovsky. However, the excitement of separation from the family, perhaps forever, as well as the undoubted feelings of a sharp turn in fate, affected his health.
In Sweden, Tarkovsky began filming his latest film, The Sacrifice, an intimate philosophical parable.
Meanwhile, health continued to deteriorate. Doctors made a terrible diagnosis: lung cancer. The French movie star Marina Vlady, connected with Russia and origin, and family ties (she was the wife of Vladimir Vysotsky for a long time), provided Tarkovsky with all kinds of help, including material. He went to an expensive and prestigious hospital in the suburbs of Paris, but medicine was already powerless.
When the news of the terrible diagnosis came, the Tarkovskys were in a difficult financial situation. The money for the "Sacrifice" has not yet been received; there was no medical insurance, and the course of treatment required significant money - 40 thousand francs. Marina Vladi gave money for this. Upon learning of the disaster, she without further ado took out her checkbook and wrote out a check for the correct amount. Later, Marina Vladi's husband, Professor Leon Schwarzenberg became Andrey's attending physician.
Those who knew Tarkovsky believe that separation from his homeland and son Andrei caused his fatal illness. The director's son was allowed to go to his sick father only after a demanding letter from French President Francois Mitterrand personally to Mikhail Gorbachev.
On December 29, 1986, Andrei Tarkovsky "left" ... Hundreds of people gathered in the courtyard of St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, where Andrei was buried. On the church steps, Mstislav Rostropovich played on the cello Bach's sublimely austere Sarabande.
final resting place Andrei Tarkovsky became the Russian cemetery in Paris: Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois. On the grave of Tarkovsky there is an inscription: “To the man who saw an angel” - Tarkovsky often said that an angel helps him in his work ...
The man who saw the angel. Andrei Tarkovsky is Orthodox.
The man who saw the angel. Andrei Tarkovsky is Orthodox.
Father Silouan (Livy) serves in Italy according to the old style and is in Eucharistic communion with the Russian Church Abroad. He recently visited the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville and spoke about little-known facts from the life of Andrei Tarkovsky.
No one doubts the fact that Andrei Tarkovsky was not a pro-Soviet artist. His difficult creative fate, forced emigration is evidence of this. But few people know that Andrei Tarkovsky was an Orthodox Christian, and not only in the nominal, but also in the most literal sense of the word. Unfortunately, there are many myths or simply incorrect information about Andrei Tarkovsky. Recently I had to come across this statement: “Tarkovsky was NOT an Orthodox person, for example, it is known for sure that he did not belong to the Church (no matter what denomination) (on his deathbed he did not confess and did not receive communion), and in life, at least , overseas, did not do this. As I know from people who knew him, he was rather interested (at the end of his life at least) with something like Swedenborg.
Let us cite here the testimony of another person who also personally knew Andrei Tarkovsky and perhaps knew his inner world better than others...
From 1982 until his death, Andrei Tarkovsky was in exile and lived mainly in Florence and Paris, but also in other European cities. During these years he visited the Orthodox monastery of St. Seraphim of Sarov in Pistoia (Italy), and was well acquainted with Father Siluan (Livy), since the latter served in Florence almost every Sunday. Photographs taken during the visit of Andrei Tarkovsky to the monastery of St. Seraphim in Pistoia.
At the end of 1985, after finishing the film The Sacrifice in Sweden, Andrei Tarkovsky returned to Florence. He was already seriously ill, and in the last year of his life, Father Siluan repeatedly confessed and communed him in the Florentine house of the Tarkovskys. Father Siluan says about Andrei Torkovsky that he was a deeply and subtly religious person. As a creative person, Andrei was a person with a complex and intense inner spiritual life.
Immediately before his death, Andrei was taken to France, as he did not want to be buried in a Catholic cemetery, but wanted to be buried in an Orthodox cemetery. After his death on December 29, 1986 in France, Andrei was buried in the Orthodox rite and buried in the cemetery in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.
Sorokoust after Andrei, at the request of the family, Father Siluan served in Florence, and Andrei's wife and children were present at many services during this period.
These facts harmoniously fit into the life of Andrei Tarkovsky, whose work and worldview cannot be understood outside of Orthodoxy.
As an example of his Orthodox work, we can cite the film "Andrei Rublev". It is amazing how accurately Andrei Tarkovsky managed to show the turning points of monastic life, the inner world of a monk and the difficult internal monastic relations.
In conclusion, we will quote from an interview with Andrei Tarkovsky, which he gave in London in 1983 (!)
Andrei Tarkovsky says: “We set ourselves ... problems, we try to solve them, and at the same time we think that we are saving the modern world, which is in crisis. But we are mistaken. In my opinion, it is even very dangerous to deal with such problems, because they distract us from the main task, from the struggle for SPIRITUALITY.
The struggle for spirituality is going on in all directions. Everyone understands this. Everyone, even a completely uneducated, but spiritually developed person understands... He protects his inner spiritual world. It is very important. We want to live, understanding the meaning of life and fulfilling our vital duty on this earth, but often we fail to do so. We are still too weak. But it is important to choose a path and follow it...
The trouble is that modern civilization has reached a dead end. We need time to change society spiritually. BUT WE DON'T HAVE THIS TIME. The processes that man has already started, the technical levers that he has already pressed, now function on their own. People, politicians, have become slaves to the system that they themselves have created. People are already controlled by the computer. To turn it off requires mental effort, for which we do not have enough time.
The only hope - it remains - is that a person at that last moment, when he can still turn off the computer, will be ILLUMINATED FROM ABOVE. This is the only thing that can save us."
It is impossible to call these lines otherwise than a prophecy. And this prophecy came out of the mouth and heart of Andrei Tarkovsky, an Orthodox artist and Christian, on whose grave monument it is no coincidence that the inscription is placed: “To the man who saw the Angel.”
Monk Vsevolod (Filipiev) (published with the personal permission of Father Vsevolod)
Publication based on site materials
80 years ago the great director Andrei Tarkovsky was born. "Ivan's Childhood", "Andrei Rublev", "Solaris", "Nostalgia", "Sacrifice"... Films that entered the history of cinema...
Alas, a wonderful director died, having lived a not very long life. He was buried on January 3, 1987 at the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois in the vicinity of Paris. Later Ernst Neizvestny created
tombstone with the inscription "To the man who saw an angel"...
No one doubts the fact that Andrei Tarkovsky was not a pro-Soviet artist. His difficult creative fate, forced emigration is evidence of this. But few people know that Andrei Tarkovsky was an Orthodox Christian, and not only in the nominal, but also in the most literal sense of the word. Unfortunately, there are many myths or simply incorrect information about Andrei Tarkovsky. Recently I had to come across this statement: "Tarkovsky was NOT an Orthodox person, for example, it is known for sure that he did not belong to the Church (no matter what denomination) (on his deathbed he did not confess and did not receive communion), and in life, at least , foreign, did not do this. As I know from people who knew him, he was rather fond (at the end of his life at least) of something like Swedenborg. "
Let us cite here the testimony of another person who also personally knew Andrei Tarkovsky and perhaps knew his inner world better than others...
From 1982 until his death, Andrei Tarkovsky was in exile and lived mainly in Florence and Paris, but also in other European cities. During these years he visited the Orthodox monastery of St. Seraphim of Sarov in Pistoia (Italy), and was well acquainted with Father Siluan (Livy), since the latter served in Florence almost every Sunday. Photographs taken during the visit of Andrei Tarkovsky to the monastery of St. Seraphim in Pistoia.
At the end of 1985, after completing the film "The Sacrifice" in Sweden, Andrei Tarkovsky returned to Florence. He was already seriously ill, and in the last year of his life, Father Siluan repeatedly confessed and communed him in the Florentine house of the Tarkovskys. Father Siluan says about Andrei Torkovsky that he was a deeply and subtly religious person. As a creative person, Andrei was a person with a complex and intense inner spiritual life.
Immediately before his death, Andrei was taken to France, as he did not want to be buried in a Catholic cemetery, but wanted to be buried in an Orthodox cemetery. After his death on December 29, 1986 in France, Andrei was buried in the Orthodox rite and buried in the cemetery in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.
Sorokoust after Andrei, at the request of the family, Father Siluan served in Florence, and Andrei's wife and children were present at many services during this period.
These facts harmoniously fit into the life of Andrei Tarkovsky, whose work and worldview cannot be understood outside of Orthodoxy.
As an example of his Orthodox creativity, we can cite the film "Andrei Rublev". It is amazing how accurately Andrei Tarkovsky managed to show the turning points of monastic life, the inner world of a monk and the difficult internal monastic relations.
In conclusion, we will quote from an interview with Andrei Tarkovsky, which he gave in London in 1983 (!)
Andrei Tarkovsky says: "We set ourselves ... problems, we try to solve them, and at the same time we think that we are saving the modern world, which is in crisis. But we are mistaken. In my opinion, it is even very dangerous to deal with such problems, because that they distract us from the main task, from the struggle for SPIRITUALITY.
The struggle for spirituality is going on in all directions. Everyone understands this. Everyone, even a completely uneducated, but spiritually developed person understands... He protects his inner spiritual world. It is very important. We want to live, understanding the meaning of life and fulfilling our vital duty on this earth, but often we fail to do so. We are still too weak. But it is important to choose a path and follow it...
The trouble is that modern civilization has reached a dead end. We need time to change society spiritually. BUT WE DON'T HAVE THIS TIME. The processes that man has already started, the technical levers that he has already pressed, now function on their own. People, politicians, have become slaves to the system that they themselves have created. People are already controlled by the computer. To turn it off requires mental effort, for which we do not have enough time.
The only hope - it remains - is that a person at that last moment, when he can still turn off the computer, will be ILLUMINATED FROM ABOVE. This is the only thing that can save us."
It is impossible to call these lines otherwise than a prophecy. And this prophecy came out of the mouth and heart of Andrei Tarkovsky, an Orthodox artist and Christian, on whose grave monument it is no coincidence that the inscription is placed: "To the man who saw an angel."
My dears, very often on your life path you meet people whom you do not understand, who bring you some kind of harm, who, by their behavior, “spoil” your life, bringing discord and grief into it.
But know that they appeared in your life for a reason, there is a certain purpose for everything - to teach you something, to give you the necessary experience that will help your further growth and development in this incarnation.
By the word "enemy", I mean not only your real enemies, who really interfere with your existence, who intrigue you, who arrange any problems for you, but I also mean those people who meet on your life path and you feel hostility towards them, feel any irritation towards them.
They may not emit a sufficient level of Light that you are used to, and your inner being sometimes perceives them as its "enemies" on a subconscious level.
They didn’t do anything bad to you, but you just feel their inner negativity, you just see their erroneous attitude towards life, they are very bogged down in the material plane and in the values of this world.
These people live in the old energies of three-dimensionality and their whole life is enclosed: in the struggle for survival, in the discussion of catastrophes and cataclysms, in gossip and gossip, in condemnation and comparisons, and you live a completely different life and in a completely different world where there is : love, joy, happiness.
And the presence in your life of such people is manifested by your internal rejection. Subconsciously, you also consider them your “enemies”.
And the first and second type of "enemies" will help you in spiritual development and perfection:
- learn to understand them
- learn not to judge them,
- learn not to fight them,
- learn to accept them for who they are,
- learn to thank them for the lesson they have given you.
After all, those "enemies" that cause trouble for you and bring inharmonious energy into your life help you become a man - a god. Learn to look at all the problematic situations in your life, like God - not to fight them, but to be above them and.
Say to yourself: “Is this situation going to hurt me? She is nothing in my beautiful and harmonious world!”
And everything negative that people want to convey to you: their inner irritation, their gossip, their scandals, you will look at everything like a divine being, and it will seem so insignificant to you, because you have been living in a completely different world for a long time. You have come out of the 3D experience and can look at the situation differently.
And for those who still can’t live like this, can’t completely disconnect from the power of the three-dimensional world, and people with low vibration turn them on with their complaints about problems and prevent them from living in harmony and in love, I suggest doing the following practice.
How to see an angel
For starters, you can just imagine what I'm going to talk about, and later do it in your real life.
When you meet an irritant person on your life path, we will also call him your “teaching enemy” - you see his inner darkness, you feel his inharmonious energies, you feel his negativity and irritability.
And now see in him a piece of God, in every person lives a divine golden angel with beautiful shining wings. It is hidden inside each of you behind a dark shell of inharmonious energy.
It is located in the depths of a human being - this is his true essence, this is his pure Soul, and all the irritating energy is what a person plunged into, incarnated on Earth to gain experience.
He cannot yet feel his bright Soul, but with time this knowledge will come to him, he will feel his divinity, he, like you, will reach this stage of spiritual development, everything has its time.
Maybe it is too early for him, maybe he has not yet received the three-dimensional experience that his Soul needs, maybe he has not yet completely plunged into this darkness: prejudices, fears, vices... Into these low energies in order to see and feel his inner Light and choose it.
And when you will be in crowded places: on the street, in a store, in a cinema, in a theater and at the same time meet low-spirited people from whom inharmonious energies are pouring directly in a vast stream, always imagine them as golden angels.
At the same time, all the energy that will come from these people to you will simply evaporate, simply will not reach, it will simply dissolve into space. You will not see a person who has gone astray and lost in life with all his problems and hatred in his soul, but you will see this angel, this divinely beautiful being of Light, and how can you not love him.
This will help you understand how to see an angel and accept all people as they are.
And this is my help to you.
http://jlm-taurus.livejournal.com/22079.html#cutid1
Peacock:
It is difficult to say what had a stronger effect on the fate of the director - blasphemy or praise. I did not know Andrei Tarkovsky before the bureaucratic aesthetes started the fuss around Andrei Rublev that broke him. But, trying to humiliate the master, they only achieved that in the eyes of the intelligentsia Tarkovsky became a martyr, and the sufferers in Rus' have always been worshiped. And during my three or four meetings, Andrei Arsenievich behaved emphatically aloof, was not only buttoned up, but sewn up tightly, without making contact. I didn't see him otherwise. Only once, when additional money was needed for the filming of The Mirror, and we talked one on one, he opened for a moment, hooking on America in some way:
- But Coppola, having staged Apocalypse, received a fee for which he bought a hotel ...
- We, Andrei Arsenievich, have a different social system, and hotels are not for sale. And your work is always paid at the highest rate that we have.
He raised his eyes to me for the first time and said in his dry and harsh voice:
So we have a bad system...
On that they parted. I added money for the production. It was extremely difficult to work with him. The slightest remark made on his script or film caused a storm of indignation in the cinematographic community, and not only among us.
His paintings are a true school of skill for filmmakers. And at the same time, he lived in his own closed world, showed disdain for the public and at times could say, looking into the audience:
- And you look at yourself. Are you able to understand my film? And he constantly grumbled, and jumped on the distributors, why his films were released in small editions, he saw in this the intrigues of the "bosses". But what to do, his pictures were difficult to perceive, especially since in the overwhelming majority of our cinemas the screen illumination, sound quality, level of amenities, and acoustics of the halls were far from the standard ones. The transparency and subtlety of the image that the director suffered through, the spiritual depth and elusive charm of each frame disappeared, the director's genius gave in to the dullness of technology. And Tarkovsky became more and more irritable, completely immune to criticism, deified his own opinion. I remember a difficult and tedious discussion of the script for Stalker in Yermash's office. Even with a cursory reading, the wretchedness of philosophy, the abundance of commonplaces and common political truths, the exorbitant conspiracies and, if you like, the littering of the dialogue, were striking - not a script, but a radio newspaper. Sizov and I did not enter into polemics, and the editor-in-chief Dal Orlov and Yermash, who took the initiative in the conversation, were wasting their words. Tarkovsky was deaf to exhortations. But, having filmed all the material of the two-part film, he said that the entire film was a marriage. It became clear that he was looking for a scandal. On Yermash's instructions, I looked through almost seven thousand meters of unedited material and became convinced that Tarkovsky's claims were groundless. One of the best cinematographers of Mosfilm, Georgy Rerberg, shot the film in accordance with the task set by the director. It was brilliant work. All the action took place in the pre-dawn hour, and how the camera crew managed to recreate the tremulous light of the coming day on film, maintaining the given tone throughout the entire tape, it was a miracle. In accordance with the established procedure, the director personally accepted each batch of film from the laboratory without a single remark. Acts with his receipts were kept in the laboratory. Most likely, Andrei needed a scandal. But it did not work out, a decision was made: to give Tarkovsky the opportunity to reshoot the whole picture. We allocated 500 thousand rubles, Kodak film, which we divided almost by centimeters into especially complex and important shootings, replaced the cameraman. Rerberg was reprimanded - for what? - after which he drank. The young talented cameraman Sasha Knyazhinsky, whom I knew from Minsk, repeated the artistic feat of Rerberg, re-shot the picture in the manner set by Tarkovsky. I spared no time and compared Rerberg's films with those of Knyazhinsky. It turned out, filmed one by one. What producer, in what country, would give such an indulgence to the whim of an artist?"
