Andrei Tarkovsky

Tarkovsky also wrote Sculpting in Time (1986), his theoretical work on cinema, which articulates much of his aesthetic philosophy.

He also kept diaries (published posthumously) titled Time Within Time (1970–1986) that offer insight into his creative struggles, spiritual reflections, and personal life.

Because his work was frequently at odds with rigid Soviet cultural authorities, he faced censorship, interference, and limitations. By 1979, after Stalker, he effectively left the Soviet Union and thereafter made films abroad under constraints of financing, exile, and health.

He died in Paris on December 29, 1986, from lung cancer.

Style, Themes & Philosophy

Tarkovsky’s cinema is not easily categorized—he blended poetic metaphor, spiritual inquiry, and visual austerity. Some key aspects:

Time as Material

He saw time not as something to be disguised or chopped, but as the very substrate of filmic experience. He treated duration, memory, and temporal depth as dramatic forces. (“Sculpting in Time” is a central reference for this.)

Spiritual & Religious Undertones

Although not strictly doctrinal, many of Tarkovsky’s films explore faith, sacrifice, transcendence, and the tension between the material world and something beyond it.

He believed that art carried a quasi-religious duty to disavow the ego, and that cinema, when true, should help reveal the “absolute.”

Long Takes and Poetic Visuals

Tarkovsky frequently used very long camera takes, panning, tracking, slow flow, and lingering on elemental imagery—water, fire, wind, reflections, ruins—letting the image “breathe.”

Memory, Dreams, Landscape

His films often interweave memory, childhood, mirror images, flashbacks, and dream fragments, blurring the boundaries between inner and outer life. Landscape, nature, weather become metaphors for inner states.

Conflict & Compromise

He believed a director must not be a mere “illustrator” of someone else’s screenplay—he insisted on deep authorial involvement in writing, editing, and vision to preserve authenticity.

He also saw the role of the artist as one who often must abstain, choose what not to show, to let silence or absence carry weight.

Challenges & Struggles

• Censorship and political resistance. Within the Soviet system, Tarkovsky’s aesthetic and philosophical ambitions often collided with state oversight and demand for ideological conformity.

• Exile and limited resources. Once he left the USSR, funding difficulties, cultural displacement, and health issues compounded the challenges of making deeply personal work abroad.

• Health and death. His later years were shadowed by illness; ironically, some have speculated that toxic elements on film sets (especially during Stalker) may have contributed to his lung cancer.

• Misinterpretation. The dense symbolism, slow pacing, and ambiguity of his films invite many interpretations; some viewers find them opaque or difficult to “get.”

Yet these very tensions—between freedom and constraint, silence and revelation—are part of what gives his work its power.

Legacy & Influence

Though relatively small in quantity, Tarkovsky’s films have had a massive impact on filmmakers, scholars, cinephiles, and the aesthetics of “slow cinema.”

• His films Andrei Rublev, Mirror, Stalker are often listed among the greatest works in global cinema polls (e.g. Sight & Sound).

• Directors such as Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, Akira Kurosawa, Béla Tarr, and many contemporary art-film directors cite him as influence.

• The concept of cinema as spiritual, as a medium of interior time, has been deeply shaped by Tarkovsky’s writings and films.

• Film festivals and retrospectives around the world honor his work; the Russian film festival Zerkalo (meaning “Mirror”) was named for him.

• His aesthetic—long takes, poetic minimalism, image as symbol—can be seen in the work of many modern directors working in contemplative cinema.

Selected Quotes

Here are a few notable expressions from Andrei Tarkovsky, giving insight into his worldview and approach:

• “For me the most interesting characters are outwardly static, but inwardly charged by an overriding passion.”

• “If you look for a meaning, you’ll miss the meaning.”

• “My purpose is to make films that will help people to live, even if they sometimes cause unhappiness.”

• “We have forgotten to observe. Instead of observing, we do things according to patterns.”

• “All of us are infected today with an extraordinary egoism. And that is not freedom; freedom means learning to demand only of oneself, not of life and others, and knowing how to give: sacrifice in the name of love.”

• “Art is born out of an ill-designed world.”

• “The film needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts.”

These lines convey his humility, his emphasis on interior truth over spectacle, and his belief in cinema as spiritual work.

Lessons from Tarkovsky’s Life

1. Art demands sacrifice. Tarkovsky believed artists must subordinately use their lives in service of their vision, not the other way round.

2. Silence and absence speak. What is unsaid or unseen often carries more emotional weight than what is explicit.

3. Patience is essential. His films teach us that deep experience often requires slowing down and resisting instant gratification.

4. Maintain inner freedom. Despite external pressures (political, financial, institutional), he strove to preserve personal integrity.

5. Art is spiritual. For Tarkovsky, cinema was not mere entertainment but a path toward the sacred, toward reflection, transcendence.

Conclusion

Andrei Tarkovsky’s cinema is timeless not because it clings to nostalgia, but because it invites every generation to slow down, reflect, and feel. His films don’t just narrate—they immerse. They ask questions rather than offering answers.

Though he passed away young, Tarkovsky left behind a treasure whose depths continue to unfold. For anyone who sees cinema as more than entertainment, his work is a benchmark, a challenge, and a source of perpetual wonder.