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"Cinema, true cinema, would be the unique means of influencing the transformation of the human race and therefore the most effective medium for saving the world. Andrei Tarkovsky made seven complete films and left one unfinished."
In: Andrei Tarkovsky: a Life on the Cross, by Lyudmila Boyadzheva



How could one possibly organize such a dispersed collection of thoughts, impressions, reflections, feelings and sensations, from a talented film director?

Evidently philosophical, at times religious, profoundly Russian, a man writes about an intimacy with his own soul. Again, my favorite film director.

He was European in the greatest sense of the word. He was cultured in European matters, be it art, literature or music...; yet he loved his nation, Russia. Things didn’t work out well for Tarkovsky and exile made him die away from his motherland.



Ahead are some lines of a possible organization of a book which is Diary, though with some interruptions. The last part of the book includes interviews on some of his movies (Solaris, Mirror) and Cinema 1966; also, some reflections on The Idiot by Dostoyevsky and Hamlet by Shakespeare.



Preferences & Peculiarities

In 1974 Tarkovsky preferred green color; St John’s Passion by S. Bach and Pushkin, as his beloved poet; Bresson for foreign-film director.

(1986) "Yesterday I went for a walk and was suddenly overcome with an inexplicable urge: I took my shoes off and walked barefoot on the cold earth��.

Dream

1984 "Last night I had a terribly sad dream . I dreamed again of a Northern (I think) lake somewhere in Russia; it was dawn , and on the far shore were two Orthodox monasteries , with amazingly beautiful cathedrals and walls and I felt such sadness! such pain!"

Time

(1972) "For many years I have been tormented by the certainty that the most extraordinary discoveries await in the sphere of time��.

“The one important thing is to find time within time; it is enormously difficult, but it has to be done��.

Faith

(8th January, 1980) "I believe oh Lord and profess that Thou art truly the Christ, Son of the living God "(Prayer before Holy Communion)

Poetry

(27th April Rome)”True poetry goes with a sense of religion. An unbeliever cannot be a poet��.

(24th January, 1980) "Poets are above other people because they understand about people"



Society and the individual

Chinese proverb: “a great man is a disaster to society��.

(23rd June 1977; Tallinin ) “Our lives are all wrong. A person has no need of society; it is society that needs him��

America

(24th Dec 1970) "Have been reading about the Kennedy assassination, of course, they were pretty slack over Oswald, but all the same the way the whole thing was handled is very impressive, compared with the American leaders, our lot are cretins"


Filming

(30th April,1970, Moscow) "Now Solaris. For the moment progress is agonizingly slow, because things at Mosfilm have reached crisis point"

“Rublev is being shown in Sweden. According to Bibi Andersen, Bergman called Rublev the best film he has ever seen. I must make a film called Thomas Mann��



Cities

(22nd July, 1979; Ostini, Incanto hotel, Italy) "This morning we went to Lecce and Otranto. The baroque of Lecce!"

(8/9th March, Stockholm) "Berlin has an appalling effect on me. It’s a terrifying city��.


Life and the Motherland

[in 1982 Tarkovsky went into exile]

(1983) “A bad day…I’m lost! I cannot live in Russia nor can I live here��.

(15th December 1986, Paris) “Hamlet…in bed all day didn’t get up. Pain in the lower stomach and the back��

--

Tarkovsky died of cancer on the 29th of December 1986. He “rests�� in France. We were in the early days of Perestroika.


Some of his movies, ahead.


(The Killers)

(Rublev)

(Stalker)

(Solaris)

(Mirror)

(Nostalghia)

(Sacrifice)


UPDATE

Tarkovsky viewed by his son: