Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky

Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Soviet

and Russian film-maker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director.

Tarkovsky's films include Ivan's Childhood, Andrei Rublev, Solaris, Mirror, and Stalker.

He directed the first five of his seven feature films in the Soviet Union; his last two films, Nostalghia and The Sacrifice, were produced in Italy and Sweden, respectively. 

Film school student

Upon returning from the research expedition in 1954, Tarkovsky applied at the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) and was admitted to the film directing program. He was in the same class as Irma Raush whom he married in April 1957

Tarkovsky's teacher and mentor was Mikhail Romm, who taught many film students who would later become influential film directors.

In 1956, Tarkovsky directed his first student short film, The Killers, from a short story of Ernest Hemingway. The short film There Will Be No Leave Today and the screenplay Concentrate followed in 1958 and 1959.

AS a film maker

His work is characterized by spiritual and metaphysical themes, long takes, lack of conventional dramatic structure, and distinctively authored use of cinematography. His contribution was so influential that works done in a similar way are described as Tarkovskian

He is widely regarded as one of the greatest film-makers of all time.

Tarkovsky became a film director during the mid and late 1950s, a period referred to as the Khrushchev Thaw, during which Soviet society opened to foreign films, literature and music, among other things. This allowed Tarkovsky to see films of European, American and Japanese directors, an experience which influenced his own film making. His teacher and mentor at the film school, Mikhail Romm, allowed his students considerable freedom and emphasized the independence of the film director.

Tarkovsky was, according to Shavkat Abdusalmov, a fellow student at the film school, fascinated by Japanese films. He was amazed by how every character on the screen is exceptional and how everyday events such as a Samurai cutting bread with his sword are elevated to something special and put into the limelight. 

Tarkovsky has also expressed interest in the art of Haiku and its ability to create "images in such a way that they mean nothing beyond themselves

In 1972, Tarkovsky told film historian Leonid Kozlov his ten favorite films. The list includes: Diary of a Country Priest and Mouchette, by Robert Bresson; Winter Light, Wild Strawberries and Persona, by Ingmar Bergman; Nazarín, by Luis Buñuel; City Lights, by Charlie Chaplin; Ugetsu, by Kenji Mizoguchi; Seven Samurai, by Akira Kurosawa, andWoman in the Dunes, by Hiroshi Teshigahara.

Cinematic style

Tarkovsky's films are characterized by metaphysical themes, extremely long takes, and memorable images of exceptional beauty. Recurring motifs are dreams, memory, childhood, running water accompanied by fire, rain indoors, reflections, levitation, and characters re-appearing in the foreground of long panning movements of the camera.

He once said, "Juxtaposing a person with an environment that is boundless, collating him with a countless number of people passing by close to him and far away, relating a person to the whole world, that is the meaning of cinema.”

Film career in the Soviet Union

Tarkovsky's first feature film was Ivan's Childhood in 1962. He had inherited the film from director Eduard Abalov, who had to abort the project. The film earned Tarkovsky international acclaim and won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival in 1962.

In 1965, he directed the film Andrei Rublev about the life of Andrei Rublev, the fifteenth-century Russian icon painter.

In 1972, he completed Solaris, an adaptation of the novel Solaris by Stanisław Lem.

In December 1976, he directed Hamlet, his only stage play, at the Lenkom Theatre in Moscow

Awards

Numerous awards were bestowed on Tarkovsky throughout his lifetime. At the Venice Film Festival he was awarded the Golden Lion for Ivan's Childhood. At the Cannes Film Festival, he won the FIPRESCI prize four times, the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury three times (more than any other director), and the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury twice. He was also nominated for the Palme d'Or two times. In 1987, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awarded the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film to The Sacrifice.

Passed away 29 dec 1986

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