Original subtitles

CHAPTER 1 A WHITE, WHITE DAY...

A rock lies by the jasmine

Under the rock - a treasure

Father stands in the road

A white, white day

In the light, a silver poplar tree

Centifolia, and behind it winding roses

Milky grass

Never have I been happier than back then

Never have I been... happier than back then

Going back there is impossible

And to tell of it is forbidden

How overflowing with bliss

This Garden of Eden

Dad...

MIRROR (1974)

An artist feeds on his childhood all his life.

On what his childhood was like will depend what his art will be.

It was of course a huge influence on me, that my father was a poet.

And... his poems influenced me greatly...

His views on Russian literature...

On art...

It's such a... an unconscious dependency. And a bond.

I can neither weigh nor evaluate its qualities.

I can feel more intensely my bond with my mother than with my father.

Whatever I had to say about that, I said in the film Mirror.

Whoever saw that film, must've understood what I had in mind.

My first memory is from when I was 18 months old.

I remember a house, stairs, a terrace.

An open terrace. Steps, and a railing.

A couple of stairs, five or six.

And between the steps and the house, a huge lilac bush.

It's cold there, and there's sand around.

And I'm rolling a pot lid, an aluminum one, under the railing.

I'm rolling it, and I suddenly get startled by some noise.

I crawl under the bush and look up at the sky.

Because this noise, which keeps growing, is coming from the sky.

And suddenly, through a gap between the branches,

I see a flying airplane.

This was in 1933.

And I was born in 1932.

These post-war years were very hard, there was mass hunger.

And I barely remember them.

I just remember the hospital where I was a patient, in 1947.

As a child I became sick, of hunger and fear

Peeling the dead skin off my lips, and licking them

I remember a cool and nasty taste

And I keep walking, walking, walking

Sitting on the steps in my ceremonial uniform

Warming myself, walking in a delirium, as if under a spell

After the Pied Piper, into the river

Sitting, warming myself, on the steps, with a fever

And Mother stands there, beckoning to me

As if close by, but I can't get close

I walk a bit closer, stands seven steps away, beckoning to me

I walk a bit closer, stands seven steps away, beckoning...

To me...

I think that memory is... an emotional structure...

that has a colossal significance for every... person for whom...

the imagining of fantasy is significant for his profession.

I was only 3 years old when Father left the family.

And he showed up only infrequently.

That's why I can only judge by those moments when

he suddenly showed up. When he came over.

We lived in two small rooms, in one of the apartments,

where we lived, in Old Moscow, beyond the Moskva River.

A few years passed, I was in school by then.

Father came over one night, or in the evening, late.

My sister and I were asleep.

And he had an argument with Mother in the kitchen,

and demanded that she would give me away...

to him... She didn't want to, and these demands

caused her great pain, apparently.

She said nothing to me. Father hasn't said anything to me either.

But I remember it. And it showed up as an episode in Mirror.

Ignat... Mother and I wanted to ask you...

What?

Maybe you'd rather... live with me?

How?

Well, you can stay here. We will live together.

You'll transfer to another school.

Haven't you said something like that to Mom?

Said what?

When? Why, no...

I don't want to...

I understood that I would never go live with Father.

Even though I always dreamt about it.

I felt pain that I wasn't living with him.

But I would never in my life go live with him.

I remember that episode from Mirror

where she's waiting for Father's arrival from the city.

That's exactly the way it happened, I must've remembered it.

Other than that, I don't remember anything.

But I do know that Mother loves Father, even to this day.

And has never loved anyone else.

After Father left our family,

even though we're still keeping in touch with him...

And him keeping in touch with us, because I was just a baby...

Soon afterwards the war started.

And life became so nightmarishly difficult.

And this difficulty fell, of course, on my mother.

Who, even though completely ill equipped to handle life,

not only saved the lives of my sister and me,

but did all she could to give us an education.

Despite the terrible circumstances,

she got me to finish musical middle school,

[...] school of pictorial art.

And now I can't even understand how Mother could possibly...

do all that. How she could accomplish that.

Because in [...] this didn't exist.

If not for my mother, I could of course never

have become a director.

Mom...

The kerosene stove is smoking.

What?

Come to me, take it, I don't need anything

If I love, I'll give away, and if I don't love, I'll give away

I want to replace you, but if I say that I will turn into you

Do not believe me, poor child I'm lying...

O, these hands with fingers like vines

Open, moist eyes

Tiny ears, like saucers

Full of loving song

And wings, tightly bent by the wind

Do not believe me, poor child I'm lying...

I will go berserk, like a condemned man

But I can't overcome the estrangement

And I can't lap with your wing

And I can't, with your little finger, touch your eyes

To see with your eyes

You are a hundred times stronger than me

You are a song about yourself

And I am the governor of trees and sky

And condemned by your court

For the song...

CHAPTER 2 THE BEGINNING

THE STEAMROLLER AND THE VIOLIN (1960)

It's a very unclear sensation...

the representation of a child in a film...

very, sort of, opaque...

Just like the role of women in my films.

It's something I haven't been able, so far, to express.

What it was necessary to say, both about women and children.

About children, I've always thought they were much wiser than us.

I always wanted to attract them to my films.

To me, children are a link between our world, this world,

and another world, a transcendental one.

That is, that they haven't lost that connection yet.

They will, soon, but they haven't yet.

In that sense, the role of the child is very important to me.

Where the adult can't find words to say, to express

something like that, I think that if you ask a child,

he'd be able to explain everything.

Even with his [...].

I have no doubt that if that famous Khrushchev thaw

didn't take place, it would've been impossible

to count on any kind of a cinema career

that could've happened for me.

I remember that time very well.

It was tied to this hope that all of us were feeling.

Looking into the future with hope,

full of plans, full of prospects.

We were full of hope.

I remember that time very well.

We were all united by this uncontrollable urge

to express ourselves, as soon as possible.

And more so, a feeling that it was possible.

IVAN'S CHILDHOOD (1962)

However, very quickly it all passed.

The hangover that followed this period

arrived fairly quickly.

I remember how my first film,

in 1962, Ivan's Childhood, I remember how it already

was being evaluated by the regime, by the officials,

as a pacifist film.

Which is to say, being evaluated negatively.

According to our understanding, Ivan is both just and unjust.

A Raskolnikov-like conception.

You're allowed to kill, but only if it's just.

In retrospect, it's very clear how

hypocritical and false this point of view was.

In any case, this was how my film was criticized.

That its anti-war pathos was so strong,

literally anti-death, anti-destruction,

that it was perceived as expressing sentiments against

death and war in general.

And not either just or unjust.

When we talk about war, we're talking about victims.

Because there are no winners in a war.

And even if we win a war, we actually lose it.

Because we took part in it.

The story of this film is pretty strange.

Mosfilm had a film in production simply titled Ivan.

It was directed by someone else.

The film was more than halfway done.

The money was halfway spent.

The footage was so terrible, that production had to be shut down.

Mosfilm's administration started approaching directors.

At first, famous directors.

Finally, the last [...], they said of course not.

And then they approached me.

This was when I finished my studies and received a diploma.

I presented them with a few conditions.

That I will read Bogomolov's original story.

Then I will not watch a frame of the previously shot footage.

I will rewrite the entire screenplay.

I will replace the actors and the cinematographer.

And the entire crew.

And I will re-do the entire film.

They said, yes, but you'll only have half the money.

I said, that's enough for me.

If you'll grant me freedom, I'm willing to do it.

Fine.

Let me help you. - I'll do it by myself.

"By myself, by myself"! Eh!

I know that the film was very well-received.

But I think it was completely misunderstood by the critics.

They tried to study the historical aspect.

But in fact it was simply a juvenile composition by a young director.

It was a poetic creation that should've been

examined from the point of view of the author.

Sartre came to its defense,

from a philosophical point of view.

But to me, that's no defense.

I should've been defended from an artistic point of view.

Because I'm not a philosopher, I'm an artist.

His defense was useless to me.

In the universe, our mind is happy

Building an unreliable dwelling

People, stars and angels, living

By the earth's gravity

We haven't yet conceived a child

And already under his foot

The film not bending anywhere

On his circular orbit

I'm flying!

CHAPTER 3 THE PASSION ACCORDING TO ANDREI

ANDREI RUBLEV (1966)

I felt the cooling after the thaw very quickly.

And the second film, which I started making in 1964,

and finished in 1966, Rublev,

its story very plainly shows this turning point.

Go!

The film was very well received by the film community.

I remember that colleagues and film committees

all praised the film very much.

Which was very unexpected for me, because I didn't

understand myself what it is I'd done.

Nonetheless, the film was immediately shelved.

And was not screened for the next 5.5 years.

Because it was deemed "anti-historical".

Which is completely false.

We tried to be faithful to the highest degree

to historical facts.

And to the circumstances that the film is based on.

On the other hand, it was also deemed "anti-Russian".

And thirdly, that the film was made in a West-like mode.

In the way that the conception of the protagonist

was very individual, he was too much of an individualist.

He opposes himself too much,

in life, in order to become a Russian painter.

Even though this is absolutely false.

He couldn't not oppose himself, because he was a monk.

And all his life was in opposition to vile existence.

And that's exactly the point.

And this stage was very hard for me.

At this time it was clear to me that

the time of [...] was over, and hard times were ahead.

Something isn't working out.

Or you're tired, exhausted.

And suddenly your eyes meet someone in the crowd.

In a human way.

As if honored.

And everything is suddenly easier.

It is, isn't it?

A genuine poet, if he truly is genuine,

can't be a non-believer.

By the way, this probably explains this crisis

of culture that we've been living through for many years.

People need to be reminded more often

that they are people.

That they're Russians. One blood, one soil.

When it comes to me, I can't even remember when

this transformation happened to me.

When I became a believer.

Became a religious man.

Religious, but that doesn't mean that I'm without sin.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that

culture cannot exist without religion.

In some sense, religion becomes sublimated in culture.

And culture in religion.

It's a very interconnected process.

If spirituality is needed, it starts to create

works of art, to give birth to artists.

And if it isn't, then society has to get by without art.

The number of miserable people grows.

Unrooted people, in the spiritual sense.

Man loses his purpose.

He stops understanding what he's living for.

So when we talk about religion, for me this isn't

a strictly personal problem.

This problem is linked to the fate

of our culture, of our civilization.

The image is a thing that can't be divided.

That can't be captured.

Having the properties of the world that [...].

This is a relationship that is completely genuine,

with our Euclidean awareness.

We can't perceive it by sight alone.

But we can imagine its existence,

and express to it our own internal regard.

So essentially, the poetic image can't be decrypted.

If the world is mysterious,

then the truthfulness of the image is in that the image

also carries within itself a certain mysteriousness.

The image, when written down,

carries a strictly internal meaning... a symbolism...

But never an external one, a plastic one.

It's a kind of pure metaphysics.

It wasn't an image of God, it was His materialization.

And that's very important.

Because the best works of Old Russian icon painters

they are essentially meditations on the absolute.

The deeper the image is, the more elusive it is,

the greater therefore it is,

the more rigid is the construction it calls for.

The most sublime poetic image is a naturalist one.

And not in an ideological sense,

but in the earthly sense of the word.

That's why, when we talk of the simplicity

of the construction of the artistic image,

for me, this always indicates

the author touching the earth with one hand,

and the world beyond with the other.

Run!

It's necessary not to forget that we are people.

We're just matter.

Inspired by the divine, but still only matter.

Because in the afterlife, everything has a single source.

And made from a single matter.

That's why we're so terribly irritated

when we encounter art that

we can call "artistically pretentious".

Which is expressed in an exaggerated infectiousness.

Exaggerated only because of the lack

of internal equilibrium in the image.

Which is to say, that it's already a symbol.

A symbol is a thing that can be decrypted.

Which makes it entirely anti-artistic.

Because an image is not a game of charades,

not a puzzle.

Every puzzle and every riddle has a solution.

When the viewer solves it, the symbol is exhausted.

In short, it demonstrates the fact that it has limits.

How can the symbol be limited, if it reflects the infinite.

We can even say that [...] is a symbol of the infinite.

A symbol of the world we live in.

There are no signed icons, not even one.

The icon painter didn't consider himself

to be a painter, an artist.

If he had a talent for icon painting,

he would thank God for that,

because in his mind, with his craft, his profession,

he was serving God, he was praying.

This is the meaning of his creation.

What I'm talking about is the absence of pride.

The meaning of life is in knowing...

at least knowing for oneself...

in believing... in your own origins...

Where you came from, and where you're going to.

And what you live for.

You need to feel your dependence on the Creator.

If you don't feel it, you turn into an animal.

When you drop down on your knees

and turn your feelings to God,

glory emerges from you.

True glory.

In the same way, true images emerge.

When your craft is identical to praying to the Creator.

It's like giving a gift.

As if I grew a flower,

and I'm now dedicating it to someone.

But I need to grow it first.

Art is a reflection in a mirror

of the most sublime talent of creation.

We are in this way imitating the Creator.

We are the very ones that are created in God's image.

And this is one of the moments when we resemble Him.

Art is one of man's most selfless acts.

The meaning of art is prayer.

This is my prayer.

And if my prayer can become a prayer for others,

then my art becomes closer to others.

I'm talking about duty.

And the duty of man is to serve.

And that's exactly why this idea is debased,

and becomes a struggle for power.

In order to not have to serve.

But to exploit the fact that others do serve.

Because in the world, there's only one principle of relations,

and that is to serve. There's nothing else.

CHAPTER 4 THE RETURN

Our blood is not jealous in the house

But gapes in the forthcoming gap

Because the earth is for the earthly

On earth the limit is set

The distraught mother is dreaming

The roaring of the four horses

Phaethon, and his chariot

And crimson colored cubic stones

SOLARIS (1972)

We wanted to film an adaptation of Solaris,

without traveling to any Solaris.

That would've been a lot more interesting.

But Lem was against it.

The Russian person is somehow very connected to nature.

He can't think of himself outside of nature.

He sees himself as part of nature.

It is, in a way, an attribute of the Russian character.

That's why nature, and its condition,

can have such an impact on a man's character.

We cut nature out of films, as if it was useless.

We exclude it.

We think of ourselves as the main thing.

But we're not the main thing, we're dependent on nature.

Nature is more important than us.

We ourselves are the result of nature's evolution.

That's why I think that to neglect nature,

in some emotional, artistic sense, is criminal.

Not even criminal, it's foolish.

Because it's the only place where

a sense of truth awaits us.

Do you remember Tolstoy?

His suffering over the impossibility of loving mankind as a whole?

Well, I love you.

But love is a feeling that can only be...

experienced.

But can't be explained.

The concept can be explained.

But you love only what can be lost.

Yourself, a woman, a homeland.

Until this very day, love was unattainable to mankind.

Do you get my meaning, Snout?

There are so few of us in the world.

A few billions. A handful.

Can it be that we're here

to experience people as a reason to love?

Huh?

It seems to me that...

The unclean life sometimes gives us a chance

to become convinced of what it says.

It is life itself that leads us to these ideas.

A cleansing is necessary because it lets us

cool down from the suffering.

Shame...

That's the emotion that will save mankind.

TARKOVSKY HOME, MYASNOYE HAMLET, RUSSIA

I love this house very much.

It's more than a house, it's not even a house.

It's a clinic. It can be anything you'd like.

In this house I can become a person

that is capable of writing a book.

A person that can build a building.

I can do everything that can be done in this house.

It transforms me into a person.

Frees me up from the necessity of working for a living.

Professionally...

I could've lived my entire life there.

But only on the condition that I would know that I

could go from this house to any destination I want.

A wonderful house.

It's what I need. I don't need anything else.

At one time it burned down.

I was so scared of seeing the burnt down house,

that I didn't go there.

Larisa was the one who took care of it.

We put our entire soul into this house

because we were so happy in it.

So to sell this house, to leave it,

to betray it, would be like to betray Larisa.

Which I'm not capable of doing.

I bow to people who do for me more than they can.

[...]

Everything that happens around the house is a miracle,

from the point of view of the condition, certain moments.

I can't explain it...

I go outside, sit on the steps, and a film starts.

But not that film, not fictional film.

But that film that, to me, means real film.

That's remarkable...

When Larisa is staying in the country house,

I can suddenly see incredible things happening.

Birds that fly after her.

Not after me, after her.

Land on her shoulders, on her head...

Like in the film, Mirror.

People ask me, what does that mean?

Why does a bird land on a person's head?

What is this symbol?

The answer is very simple.

A bird would never land on the head of a bad person.

It's an amazing house.

My son visits there now.

He'll be happy there. We're going to live there.

As long as the house stands, we're going to live in it.

And if it ever gets taken away from me,

there will be nothing left for me, here in this world.

On space and time, the hands

We will put from up high

But we'll understand that in the sovereign crown

Are precious stars of poverty

Poverty, and vanity, and worries

About our own joyless bread

And with foreign constellations, the scores

On our motherland we will settle

CHAPTER 5 THROUGH A MIRROR OF TIME

For Proust, [...] is much more important than time.

For a Russian person, that's not a problem.

Us Russians, we need to defend ourselves.

CHAPEL AT POSHUPOVO, RYAZAN OBLAST

For memoir writers, those that write about their childhood,

Tolstoy, Garshin, and many others,

usually it's an attempt to "pay the bill" on your past.

It's always repentance.

There's absolutely nothing else.

MIRROR (1974)

The film inspired a lot of conversation.

After one such public screening,

with simple, everyday viewers, a debate flared up.

And because it was late, a woman showed up

that was supposed to clean this huge theater.

And she asked the people: "What are you doing here?

I'm supposed to tidy up. The film is crystal clear,

there's nothing to argue about. Go away."

The others said: "Fine, what's so clear about it?"

She said: "It's very simple. A man is very sick.

He's afraid that he's dying. And he's remembering

the many terrible things he's done to other people.

He wants to apologize. And that's it."

I think the woman hasn't even finished primary school.

Even though there were critics, that, as always,

don't understand anything.

They absolutely never do. And the more time passes,

the less they understand, what they're writing about.

And this simple woman, just showed up and said it.

I think that if I was asked,

what's the common theme between Ivan's Childhood,

Andrei Rublev, my film of the Lem novel, Solaris,

or the film I'm working on now.

I would say that what's common among them,

or should be common among them,

is the desire to process, to immerse ourselves in,

a character in a state of extreme strain.

A state of a very strained lack of emotional equilibrium.

Where this character should either break,

or to be affirmed in a conclusive manner.

In their belief in their ideals,

in their faith in their principles.

When I was trying to edit the picture

the way it was conceived,

it simply didn't work. I don't know why.

The screenplay was completely different.

The episodes were in a completely different order.

And only with great effort,

and with endless attempts to rearrange the episodes,

when I despaired of finding the final version,

and I understood that the picture was a failure,

I remember the 19th version of the rearrangement.

It turned out that this is the way the film works,

the way it looks like in the final version.

It turned out that dramaturgy in the literary sense,

in the traditional, dramaturgical sense,

didn't fit this film.

Film, in its essence, in its preference,

in its image composition,

is a poetic entity.

Because it's possible to get by without literalness,

without everyday consistency.

Even without what we call dramaturgy.

The specificity of cinema consists of

the fact that cinema is called upon

to freeze and to express time.

Time, in the philosophical, in the poetic,

and in the literal sense.

It was actually born when

man began to sense a scarcity of time.

It seems to me that a man of, say, the 19th

or the 18th century, couldn't have existed [...] time.

He would simply die of time's pressure on him.

And cinema in essence is called upon

to poetically grasp this problem.

Cinema is the only artform that literally freezes time.

It's theoretically possible to view

the same piece of film endlessly.

It's a sort of a matrix of time.

And in this sense, the problem of rhythm,

the problem of length, of tempo,

have in cinema their own special significance.

In the sense that time expresses itself.

It's an extremely interesting problem,

and in a way any artform is poetic

in its best and most sublime specimens.

Leonardo is a poet of painting, a genius poet.

It's ridiculous to call Leonardo, a "painter".

Ridiculous to call Bach, a "composer".

Ridiculous to call Shakespeare, a "playwright".

Ridiculous to call Tolstoy, a "novelist".

Because they're poets.

And in this sense,

cinema has its own poetic meaning.

Because there's a part of life, a part of the world,

that was neither understood nor grasped

by other artforms.

Because what cinema is capable of,

music can't do, and neither can other artforms.

The role of artists in contemporary society

is colossal.

Without artists, there will be no society.

Because what is an artist?

The artist is the conscience of society.

The less an artist is allowed to express himself,

and therefore to communicate with the public, with the people,

the worse it is for society.

It becomes spiritless, and man is no longer

able to fulfill his function, his purpose in life.

It's completely unimportant where all this is happening.

In Russia, in Africa, or in Switzerland.

What's important is that with the disappearance

of the last poet, life will lose all meaning.

I never dared to ask Father to write

a poem for a film.

In general, Father has a good attitude about this.

He gave me a compliment.

He said, "You know what, Andrey,

what you shoot aren't films."

And when he said that, it became easier for me

to live in this world.

The heat of the last leaves

With constant self-immolation

Rising into the sky

And on your way

This whole forest lives with the same exasperation

That you and I, for the past year, live with

In the cried-out eyes the road is reflected

As the gloomy flooded plain reflects the shrubs

Don't be particular, don't threaten

Don't touch

Don't interrupt the Volga's forest silence

You can hear the breath of the old life

Muddy mushrooms growing in the moist grass

Slugs penetrating them to their very core

The skin still tickled by the wet itch

You know how similar love is to a threat

Look, I'll soon be back Watch, I will kill

The sky shrivels up, holding a maple like a rose

Let it burn even more

Right next to the very eyes

CHAPTER 6 IN THE LABYRINTH OF THE ZONE

I don't know of a country

where there was a larger number of talented people.

There's something happening in Russia that can

of course destroy culture.

It's physically possible.

But it doesn't mean man's spirit can be suppressed.

You see, there's a problem of freedom.

What is freedom?

Freedom is an internal, a spiritual freedom of man.

It's not a matter of rights.

Rights can be taken away.

You can't take away freedom.

Freedom is the inherent privilege of man,

as a spiritual being.

Hamlet observed very simply...

I mean, Shakespeare... put into Hamlet's mouth

the following:

"I could be bounded in a nutshell,

and count myself a king of infinite space".

Or the way the ancients put it:

"If you want to be free - be it".

Freedom is a personal problem.

And that's why taking away a person's rights

doesn't deprive him of freedom.

And that's exactly why, in politically unfree places,

we meet people who are very free.

And traditionally democratic countries

are at the same time completely unfree.

Hamlet is the best dramaturgical, poetic work

that exists in this world.

This is self evident.

Because in this drama

is presented the most important problem

that has existed in the time of Shakespeapre,

that has existed before him, and will always exist.

The tragedy of Hamlet is not that he physically dies,

as a result of his obsession with revenge or justice.

That's not it at all.

The thing is that he dooms himself to death

by trying to fix this disjointed age.

A man who dooms himself to serve other people.

By a desire to tie the torn thread of time.

By submitting to the historical process of serving,

becoming a catalyst of it.

And in this process,

finally and irrevocably dissolving.

And this danger to disappear, to die,

for a movement, for progress,

to disappear completely,

this is the tragedy that Hamlet experiences.

Because he disappears completely, and functions

solely as a catalyst of this historical movement.

It's a tragedy of identity, because not every man

would so easily sacrifice himself for others.

Not every man is up to this.

REHEARSAL OF HAMLET (1976) - Hamlet, thou hast thy

father much offended. - Mother, you have my father much offended.

Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

Have you forgot me?

No, by the rood, not so:

You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;

And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.

Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.

You go not till I set you up a glass

Where you may see the inmost part of you.

What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?

Help, help, ho! - What, ho! help, help, help!

How now! a rat?

O me, what hast thou done?

Nay, I know not: Is it the king?

What is revenge? What is to fix a disjointed age?

It means... blood. It means to spill someone's blood.

It means to establish a truth that

a philosopher isn't used to.

Or a Wittenberg-educated student.

To cleanse your hands with blood.

Even in the name of establishing justice.

Not anyone is capable of it, and for Hamlet this is a tragedy.

At this moment he stops being a philospher

and becomes a man of action.

Creative freedom... Without this concept,

the concept of creative freedom, art cannot exist.

It's simply an impossibility.

For example, it's impossible to seriously discuss

a work of art that isn't entirely successful

because it was created in a creatively unfree environment.

If we feel in a work an absence of this freedom,

it can be said with certainty that the work was not realized.

In a work of art, nothing should be perceived

except the work itself.

Regrettably, in the 20th century, the meaning

of the artwork has transformed and now demonstrates

its own presence.

The presence of the author, the presence of gesture.

STALKER (1979)

I wanted my next film to be drier, more ascetic.

This is the word that expresses my aspirations.

Because I think that a sort of an Olympian serenity

of an artist is very important

in the creation of art.

The artist shouldn't fuss, shouldn't stammer.

And shouldn't express his interest externally.

Because the artist's temperament should be

expressed as little as possible, externally.

I think that Stalker is the most successful

of all of my pictures.

In the sense that the intention

correlates to the result.

And not only because of that, but also because

it's structured in a simpler manner.

It uses very few devices,

that is, expressive devices.

This is very dear and very important to me.

And obviously Stalker expresses my condition

as an artist during the past few years.

For me, this is a film about a man

who, of course, suffers defeat, practically.

But as an idealist, he remains a knight

in the name of spiritual values.

So our protagonist, Stalker, is on the same level

as Don Quixote, as Prince Myshkin.

Literary characters whom we might call

"ideal characters".

And exactly because they're ideal, they suffer

defeat in real life.

So for me this is a work

that expresses the strength of the weak man.

Belief in the dependency on the spirit

that gave birth to this man.

The subject is that it doesn't matter what a man does

in the name of what he feels in his soul,

as a link to a higher power.

I've always suspected that

actions that can be absurd, senseless, impractical...

Doing the impractical thing is, to me,

the sign of a sublime spirit.

It's a mark of unselfishness.

Because there are other ideas, because the world,

structured as it is, cannot create a spiritual man.

But that very force makes him act

in an impractical way.

Yes... You're right, I'm a louse.

I haven't done anything in this world.

And I can't do anything.

I could give nothing to my wife.

I have no friends, and it's impossible for me to have any.

But don't take away from me what's mine.

They took everything from me already...

beyond the barb wire.

Everything I have is here.

Here...

In the zone...

My happiness... My freedom...

My dignity, everything is here.

The people I bring over are just like me.

Miserable, ground down.

They have nothing... to hope for.

But I can help them.

No one can help them,

but me - a louse - I can!

I weep for joy because I can help them.

That's it. I don't want anything else.

I'm willing to grant an actor absolute freedom,

if before starting work, he demonstrates

total dependency on conception.

In short, I'm intolerable as a director,

if the actor doesn't share my views on the conception

of the film we are making.

And I love actors, and grant them total freedom,

if they share it.

This is the most important thing...

One take, or two, or three, it's completely unimportant...

What's important to me that you won't show me anything.

It's important to me, that it'll be the way it is...

You know yourself where you can give,

where to add and where to subtract...

Only you can control this...

Later on, this won't be allowed...

You understand, right? - No, I don't.

It's all on the edge... It's on the edge...

Attention! Places!

Speed!

Shot 288, take 1.

He just walked up to me and told me to go with him,

and I went.

And I never regretted it later.

Never...

There was a lot of grief...

I felt scared, and ashamed.

But I never regretted it, and I never envied anyone.

That's just the hand I was dealt.

That's life, that's us.

And if there was no grief in our lives,

then I'd rather if there was no life at all.

It would've been worse.

Because that way...

there wouldn't be happiness either.

There'd be no hope.

So...

CHAPTER 7 AT THE ORIGINS OF NOSTALGHIA

Only 2 nights this week I haven't dreamt the dream.

And it's an especially amazing dream.

I can't even document them.

And I don't even need to document them.

Because I can't separate myself from them.

[...]

And there are some dreams, that I know have

great significance.

Significance not for us, but for our children.

For others.

In these dreams we see the power of closeness to God.

NOSTALGHIA (1983)

Nostalgia is an all-encompassing feeling.

A man who experiences nostalgia essentially

remains in his homeland, and doesn't separate

from his family.

In a happy home, a man cannot experience nostalgia.

Because he will feel that his soul cannot expand

in those directions it may be drawn to.

A man is formed by love.

Love is the ability to sacrifice,

an ability to gift oneself to others.

If love runs into obstacles,

man will become warped, tortured.

And when you feel this love,

and when you see these terrible limits

that mankind has erected.

Obstacles that we set for each other.

And then man will suffer because of that.

This happens when lovers are separated.

The protagonist suffers because he is unable

to be friends with everyone.

He suffers because he can't spend even a few more

days in this country.

He finds a friend,

who is also suffering.

This attribute is the reason he finds him.

We need to demolish borders, he says.

So everyone can live freely.

Without experiencing these clashes between

systems of [...].

Because there will be many problems anyway.

And this creates a completely impossible existence.

He suffers from the disorder of life.

An all-encompassing disorder.

He cannot be happy because a huge number of

people are unhappy.

His problem is a problem of compassion.

It is a purely Russian idea.

He can't actualize his idea of compassion.

BAGNO VIGNONI, TUSCANY, ITALY

Is he writing of Italy?

He's working on a biography of a Russian musician.

Zoe!

Why did he come here?

This musician was studying at the Bologna Conservatory.

and he spent summers here, for the hot springs.

When?

In late 18th century.

Who was it? Tchaikovsky?

No, his name was Sosnovsky.

Wait...

That's him, the one who married the local girl!

Don't think so, he was in love with a Russian serf.

It's unexpected, and pretty terrible.

For the first time, I found out that the leaders

of the Soviet film industry don't consider me

to be a Soviet director.

Because they sent their own jury member to Cannes

who was assigned the task of damaging my success

at this festival, in 1983.

It was Bondarchuk, Sergei Bondarchuk,

a Soviet director.

I still don't understand why this order was given.

I made a picture about the inability of

a Soviet, Russian man, a member of the intelligentsia,

of living in the West.

I could've assumed anything,

a regular, traditional incomprehension

of my cinematographic language

or of the aesthetic aspects.

But I didn't expect from my leadership,

my countrymen, my leaders,

such a traitorous stab in the back.

I suddenly found myself

to be completely unnecessary, over there.

And imagine what would the Soviet leadership

do to me upon my return to Moscow after this

participation of mine at the Cannes festival.

I simply couldn't have acted in any other way.

I couldn't return to the Soviet Union.

My wife and I were simply forced to stay here, in the West.

Even though I have no illusions about

life in the West, and despite the fact

that part of my family stayed in Moscow.

This was a very hard and...

difficult decision for me and for Larisa.

Regarding the country, Larisa and I haven't

made a decision yet.

What's important for us is to make this decision.

Everything else is completely meaningless.

If, for 20 years, I had the chance to make 5 pictures

in Moscow, having more or less diplomatic relations

with my cinematographic leadership.

But now, after the scandal at Cannes,

it was clear to me that I will no longer

get the chance to make anything.

SAN VITTORINO, LAZIO, ITALY

I feel very sad, having been torn away

from my viewers, from my friends.

From my homeland.

And of course, most of all,

I'm afflicted, depressed,

by the impossibility to work for those I have

considered until now to be my viewers.

This is, for me, a great drama.

And I will of course suffer greatly

for being torn away from you.

Torn away from those who looked forward to and loved my films.

And for whom I have worked until now,

and will continue to work.

I had no escape, I had no choice.

What happened was the true and only logical step.

After the conflict between me and the cinematographic

leadership in Moscow.

SAN GALGANO, TUSCANY, ITALY

The hunt is ending

I've been hunted down

A greyhound is hanging from my hip

I throw my head back until my horns dig into my ribs

Horns sound off They're cutting my tendons

Poking a gun barrel in my ear

Falling sideways, horns tangled in the wet twigs

I see a dull eye with a blade of grass stuck to it

A black, ossified apple without a reflection

The legs will be tied and the pole will be passed through

Thrown on their shoulders...

CHAPTER 8 ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE APOCALYPSE

TARKOVSKY'S PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE, SANTA MARIA, PORTONOVO, ITALY

The Apocalypse, the Book of Revelations, is perhaps

the very greatest piece of poetry that has ever

been created in the world.

It is inspired from on high.

It is something which encompasses, embraces

all the laws given to man from on high.

We turned out to be spiritually, in the historical process,

less evolved than materially.

And we're paying for that dearly.

If humanity will die, it will only be because the process

of human development was [...].

And because humanity did not develop in the

spiritual sense. What guided humanity was fear.

Man guards himself against the world,

instead of finding a way to dissolve in the world,

and finding contact with this world.

Communication between people was transformed by man

into the infliction of pain on one another,

irritating, unnecessary, diseased.

Instead of transforming contact into pleasure.

We grab at the closest available toy.

We believe in the stone ax, and not in the magical

impact of the fatherly glance, or wish,

which could've prevented that hammer's strike.

Regarding salvation, our last time on earth

leads us to the idea that there is meaning

in personal salvation.

[...] denying life and art.

There are no prospects now without the idea

of coming together against the evil of the world,

as exemplified by the atomic bomb.

You saw yourself the damage done by one small station

that happened to explode.

Imagine if there were ten of them.

It's possible that the drama of our future

lies not in war, but in the gradual destruction

of the ecological niche reserved for man's emotions.

Even without war, we will suffocate in this [...].

This is why the problem of art and of salvation

in our times becomes even more relevant.

It's important to get it done in time.

TARKOVSKY'S FIRST HOME IN ITALY, SAN GREGORIO DA SASSOLA, LAZIO

When I talk about spirituality,

what I mean first of all is man's interest

in what is referred to as the meaning of life.

This is at the very least the first step.

The man who asks himself this question,

he can no longer descend from this plane.

He can only become more evolved.

To ask yourself this question, of why we live,

and where are we going,

what is the meaning of this presence on this planet

during these...

[...] of each other, during the 80 years

that we get to spend in this world.

To speak plainly, a man who isn't asking himself

this question, or hasn't asked it until now,

is a figure without a soul.

And an art, or an artist, that isn't concerned

with this problem, is not an artist at all.

Because he isn't a realist.

Because he eschews one of man's most

important problems, that which makes man what he is.

And only when we start to engage

with these problems, only then emerges

what we call true art.

I think that the meaning of life lies in

the elevation of our spiritual plane

in the time we are allotted in this world.

Even if it's one iota higher than it was

at the moment of our birth,

then our life was not in vain.

To me, evil and the devil

are an absence of goodness and the absence of God.

Like shadow and light.

SACRIFICE (1986)

Evil is what a man carries within.

Carries it just like he carries goodness.

And the meaning of our existence

is to conquer the evil that is within ourselves,

And in that sense, we are given what we call free will.

We can conquer evil,

or we can allow evil to conquer us.

And the responsibility falls on us alone.

The most terrible thing is when we start

to battle the evil that is not within ourselves,

but the evil in others.

GOTLAND, SWEDEN

I will be filming this picture in Sweden

and it will be called, in Italian, Sacrificio.

That is, sacrifice.

It came out of, flowed out of, Nostalghia,

and of the central Italian image of the witch,

a provincial math teacher.

But it does of course acquire new traits,

and more significant ones, in that aspect I discussed.

Once upon a time

there lived an old monk,

who lived in a Russian Orthodox monastery.

His name was Pamva.

One day he planted a dried up tree on a rocky slope.

Just like this one.

And he ordered his novice monk,

whose name was Johann Kolov,

to water the tree every day, until it comes to life.

This picture is about a man's personal responsibility

in the face of events that are thrust upon him,

rapidly and inevitably.

He devotes a personal responsibility and possibly

a wish to somehow participate in these events, which we

delegate to those whom we call politicians.

Professionals whose role is to program our future,

and international relations, relations between

categories of society, etc.

This is the story that is told by my film.

The story of the participation of the individual

in the contemporary social process.

And the desire to return this man into the events.

It's a parable, a story with a moral,

that tells, in a poetic form, a story of one family,

in this dramatically intense form.

As I said, we froze, enchanted by all this beauty.

We stood and watched. We couldn't tear ourselves away.

Silence, peace...

And... it was perfectly clear that this house

was built just for us.

It turned out that it was for sale. It was a miracle!

You were born in that house.

Do you like it?

Do you like the house, my son?

The more evil prevails,

the more cause there is to create works of art.

There's more reason for it.

Art is...

how can I say this...

As long as man exists, man will instinctively

be compelled to create.

In this way, he is bound to the Creator.

Because to create... what is to create...

Why does art exist?

Why? Is it good or bad?

Is it constructive? Or is it art for art's sake?

But one thing is clear, that art is prayer.

And this says everything.

Assisted by art, man expresses his hope.

Everything else is completely meaningless.

Everything that doesn't express hope,

and that isn't built on any spiritual plane,

doesn't have anything to do with art.

If I was asked, where do you see hope for the future,

I would say, only in Russia.

In spite of everything.

Hope in the sense that...

the end of civilization may happen before

the first atomic bomb is even dropped.

It will happen the moment the last man

who believes in the Creator will die.

Civilization without spirituality,

without belief in the immortality of the human soul,

when it is at most an assembly of animals,

this is no longer civilization.

This is the end everything.

And in this sense, I see in Russia

more signs of some kind of a spiritual rebirth

than here, in the free West.

EPILOGUE AN ETERNAL RETURN

There was a time when I could name

the people whom I considered to be my teachers.

ROCCALBEGNA, ITALY Now, in my mind remain

ROCCALBEGNA, ITALY only those that I couldn't

even call "masters", but almost "holy fools".

People who are not of this world.

People who are mad...

And not to offend any of those still living,

I would name among them Walson,

as well as Tolstoy, Bach, and Leonardo.

All of them were, of course, crazy.

Because they never sought out

anything that was in their head.

All these people were possessed.

People like these scare me.

And at the same time inspire me.

To explain their art is completely impossible.

So much has been written about Tolstoy,

about Leonardo, about Bach, and yet no one could

write anything about them that made any sense.

And thank God that no one could explain any of it.

This means that to explain it is impossible.

It is a miracle, and miracles cannot be explained.

A miracle is... God.

When it comes to me, I'm not afraid of death.

It doesn't frighten me.

THE LAST TARKOVSKY HOME IN FLORENCE

The only frightening thing is physical suffering.

Death... For a man that has a conception of life,

death cannot be frightening.

I'm certain of this.

The thought of the coming of death does not make me sick.

Doesn't make me sick at all, quite the opposite.

I sometimes even think that death,

the sense of hopelessness, can grant the most

astonishing feeling of freedom.

One that we have never experienced in life.

A work can become a masterpiece

when it is a testament to a soul passing next to you,

and it is clear that it is passing

into the world above, into the heavens.

As if dissipating.

Leaving behind itself only a waft,

a wind that you can feel.

This is enough for a work to become a work of genius.

In the heart blows a slight wind

And you're flying, flying headlong

Love on a strip of film

The soul holding you by the sleeve

Oblivion, like a bird

Stealing grain - and so what?

Keeping it from blowing away

Though you're dead, and yet alive

Not in full, but in one hundredth

Under the muffler and in a dream

As if you're wandering around a field

On the way to the beyond

All that is lovely, visible, vivid

Repeating its flight

If the angel of the camera's lens

Will take your world under his wing