In the Mirror, when Masha was running to the print house
under the heavy rain, it represented Masha's panic, tenseness and a hidden
suppression in her environment. Especially in the last episode of Andrei
Rublev, it becomes much clearer that Tarkovsky merged two different time
periods with the storm and rain -both conceptually and
visually.
Leong also evaluates and relates the film of Andrei
Rublev to the 'socialist realism', which helps us to see the film in the
'big picture' of Soviet cinematography and regime:
...Rublev with the aesthetics of socialist realism on
two levels: (1) Tarkovsky, as a Soviet film artist, in his film created 'a
truthful, historically-concrete representation of reality in its
revolutionary development' and (2) Rublev, as the central character in the
film, underwent 'ideological transformation in the spirit of socialism in
the course of the film. (5, p.231)
The film Andrei Rublev has its own long story. In short,
film contract was signed in 1962, and its first premiere was in Moscow in
1966. The scenario was written by Tarkovsky and Andrei
Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky, and it was published in 1963. (6) David A. Cook
states that the film struggled in the former Soviet
Union:
...Andrei Rublev, from a script by Konchalovsky
produced an official scandal. Tarkovsky used Rublev's life, reconstructed
in loosely connected episodes, to symbolize the conflict between Russian
barbarism and idealism. The film was banned in the Soviet Union on the
grounds that it gave an inaccurate (that is, negative) account of medieval
Russian history, although an edited version won the International Critics'
Award at Cannes in 1969, and Rublev was ultimately given limited domestic
release in a version further re-edited and cut by forty minutes. (7,
p.769)
In order to evaluate some of the different difficulties
and struggles film makers' faced during the Stalinist period, Dmitry and
Vladimir Shlapentokh state in the book "Soviet Cinematography, 1918-1991"
that:
The case with Tarkovsky's movies demonstrates a
similar atmosphere during Brezhnev's period. The international recognition
his movies received (for example, Andrei Rublev or Mirror did nothing to
militate the attacks against them in the USSR. (8)
Anna Lawton also writes about in the
"Kinoglasnost: Soviet Cinema in Our Time" that, "...Liberal critics
expressed deep appreciation, while conservative ones attacked them in the
press for being 'difficult' and self-indulgent. As a consequence, those
directors were only allowed to make a few films over the years."(9) Lawton
includes Tarkovsky among others. Dmitry and Vladimir Shlapentokh add
another perspective via director's diary:
...In fact, many movies that Tarkovsky wanted to make were
terminated before shooting began. It is also remarkable how the officials
tried to force Tarkovsky to shoot movies they regarded as necessary for
ideological reasons-for example, about technological progress, about
Lenin, etc. (10)
As another background of the 'social realism' according
to Christopher Williams, in the book "Realism and the Cinema": "The
doctrine of socialist realism set out by Italian film maker Zhdanov and
officially adopted in Russia after 1932 produced no significant text in
the field of cinema, through we should note that much of Eisenstein's
later writing represents a kind of response to it. ...One of its foremost
spokesmen is Cesare Zavattini: "The Cinema should never turn back. It
should accept, unconditionally, what is contemporary. Today, today, today.
It must tell reality as if it were a story; there must be no gap between
life and what is on the screen." (11, p.29)
Finally from Tarkovsky's perspective is also about the
film Andrei Rublev, in the "Sculpting in Time":
When isolated episodes were taken out of context from
Andrei Rublev in order to accuse me of 'naturalism' (for instance the
blinding scene and certain shots in the sack of Vladimir) I genuinely
didn't understand the point of the accusation and I still don't. I'm not a
drawing-room artist and it's not up to me to keep the public happy. On the
contrary: what I have to do is tell people the truth about our common
existence as it appears to me in the light of my experience and
understanding. That truth hardly promises to be easy or pleasant; and it
is only by arriving at that truth and that 'realism' that one can achieve
a moral victory over it within oneself. (12, p.186)
I understand Tarkovsky's very subtle approach better than
before. He didn't aim or promise to please the public or the state. In
contrast, his 'realism' is completely different than 'social realism',
which quests 'a moral victory within oneself'.
Tarkovsky was born in April 4, 1932 in
Zavrzhye,
Yurievets region in Moscow, the son of the acclaimed Russian poet Arseni
Tarkovsky. He studied at the VGIK under Mikhail Romm and had already won
first prize at the New York Student Film Festival for his diploma project,
Steamroller and Violin (co-directed with Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky)
when he graduated in 1960. The Sacrifice, Tarkovsky's last film, completed
with international co-production (Zhertva, 1986) was shot in Sweden. All
together, he made seven great movies, and lived the last six years of his
life in Europe, dying finally of lung cancer in Paris on December 1986.
(14, p.768) He couldn't see his son for four years. He was desperate to
bring his son and his grandmother to where he lived and finally they
received permission to go to Europe when a doctor's report proved that he
had little time left to live.(13)
Tarkovsky transformed himself in his life, like his
protagonist Russian poet Andrei in his film, 'The Nostalgia.' He was very
homesick and not able to see his own home, which lay very much in his
heart.(1) In many ways, Tarkovsky's own personal life experiences formed
the basis for his films' content and aesthetics. At the same time, his
films evolved a greater vision of his own personal life and of mankind.
The Sacrifice is associated with the Chernobyl nuclear explosion which
Tarkovsky foresaw via his film. In this respect, The Stalker also relates
it, and makes us consider what is happening to the soul and the
environment.
Tarkovsky's fifth film, The Stalker (1979), has motifs
based on the book, "Picnic on the Road", by the Stugatsky Brothers. The
film has three dominant characters and its protagonist Alexander
Kaldanovsky as the Stalker, Anotoly Solonitsyn as a writer, Nikolai Grinko
as a professor, and Alisa Freindlich is the Stalker's wife. In the Variety
magazine (September 19, 1979), the writer interprets the
film:
In general, though, his films are deeply rooted in
Russian tradition while remaining still highly original. Tarkovsky, in
short, is a film poet who specializes in 'confessions', meditative
discourses on life, existence, suffering, and profound personal
experience. ...Andrei Tarkovsky pegs his films on conversations
between central figures, which are usually poetic, abstruse and
penetrating. (15)
In the Stalker, the writer and professor make an illegal
journey to the wired and mined wasteland, where it is highly controlled by
the government. The first sequence begins with the sound of a train
passing in the distance while Stalker is in bed with his wife and their
daughter Monkey. Monkey is sleeping with her head covered but his wife as
well as Stalker is awake. He gets up silently and gets ready to leave. His
wife is warning him that this time he might go to prison -not for 5 years,
but for 10 years, and if he does, she'll leave him. The Stalker leaves and
quides the people illegally to the 'Zone'. The 'Zone' has a room where all
wishes can be fulfilled simultaneously to anyone in that 'room'. Stalker
meets at the bar at midnight with the writer and the professor who want
him to guide them to the 'Zone', a sort of 'sacred room'.
Each of them has their own reason to visit the Zone. The
writer seeks an inspiration, the professor has a reason, and Stalker for
faith. They take a car, then a trolley car, being aware of the risk and
being very careful of the officials who are controlling the area. Leading
the way up to the Zone, Stalker warns them that if any one gets shot,
don't shout, they'll pick up the dead body in the morning. When they
arrive in the Zone, the Stalker sends back the trolley. There is no return
from the same way. Stalker's character associates with Kevin in the
Solaris (1972), and Andrei Rublev, who has an ultimate goal beyond the
reality - either in the 15th. century or some time in the future. These
protagonists represent something far beyond the 'social realism'. They
don't relate or fit with it in any way. Mostly, they illustrate opposite
or spiritual characters to the ideology of the 'social realism'. Stalker
also resembles in some way the Russian poet and Dominico in theNostalgia.
Thus, we can see through each of Tarkovsky's films; the
essence of his films create various strong spiritual, poetic concepts, who
specializes in 'confessions', meditative discourses on life, existence,
suffering, and profound personal experience.
In the Stalker, the place name in the film has a very
essential role and meaning for Tarkovsky, which recreates another meaning
for concept and place. When he wrote The Sacrifice script, its name was
the 'Witch', but it didn't apply in English as 'to know'. Supposedly, the
Witch would have represented the person who knows what is going to happen.
Thus, he changed the title to The Sacrifice. Before the film Stalker, the
'Zone's meaning was a kind of a prisoner camp according to Russian
Culture.
...
In the Stalker, the writer illustrates the skeptic and
cynic as one. The professor is much more realistic and mature in a sense
that he understands the high risk and constant changes in the environment.
At the same time, this is a contradiction that how come a materialistic
scientist preferred to go to a metaphysical place for a reason which can
fulfill his wishes. In the article "The Nostalgia of the Stalker", Peter
Grief writes that, "...As in the Nostalgia being far away from his home
for Russian poet Andrei, 'zone' is also utopia, a utopia, a sacred home
for Stalker." (16)
In the Nostalgia, Domenico burns himself in a public
square to recreate a new world in terms of the changing values of it. In
the Sacrifice, Alexander implored God, if he saves the world from the
nuclear bomb, he will sacrifice his son who is his the most strong tie
with life. The plea accepted via the mailman and Maria as a witch. It
returns, he burned down his house, he had to leave his son, wife and his
comfortable life for this purpose. Then he was taken away by an ambulance.
Alexander devoted himself to his son, his life and everything, so he could
prevent humankind from the danger of nuclear explosion. Stalker also
dedicated himself to a belief that no one needs to go the Zone for an
'inner wish'.
During their failure in front of the 'room', while he was
arguing with the writer, Stalker states that he can help the others
although he is a louse. He says to the writer that, "The people I bring
here are as wretched as I am. They have no hope left. No one can help
them. But I, a louse can!" His only wish is for his mutant daughter,
Monkey, to recover as previously the professor told the writer about the
Stalker's condition, "...He was imprisoned several times and got hurt
there. And his daughter's a mute, a 'zone' victim." After he returned
home, while his wife was trying to calm him down from his crash, she says
that, "It is not their fault", referring to their spiritual failure to get
in the 'room', having a materialist mind or loosing their hope. In this
concept, Stalker devotes himself to change those values for a faith and
belief as in the Nostalgia, as Dominico does, or in the Sacrifice, as
Alexander does.
The professor took away secretly 'Bunker#4', which is
a nuclear weapon, from his laboratory and he hid it form the Stalker until
the entry to the 'wishes room'. The professor's reason being that he
wishes to destroy the bomb and prevent it passing into the hands of
evil-doers.
In his conversation with his laboratory department's
chairman, who warns the professor of security matter, and also a reason to
lose his entire career. He destroys the bomb but couldn't enter the
'room', either. This also illustrates another aspect of intimidation over
the intellectuals, which indicates the existing suppression by the
system.
In an overview, Tarkovsky's quests for a higher moral
level of the human spirit in his films. In this respect, Andrei Rublev
devoted to an inner belief and creativity. The Stalker conveys a very
different story plat and time epoch than Andrei Rublev. Still Tarkovsky's
themes resembles each other in some ways in these films as well as others.
The Stalker demonstrates a great 'landscape of the human soul', a pure
cinema esthetic, as well as its other subtle layers. Tarkovsky indicated
the former Soviet political regime's suppressions and its sanctions by
'social realism', and how its consequences intimidated the life, the
creativity of the artists, the intellectuals and the people in a very
subtle and unique way. To extend it, 'social realism' collapsed at the end
of the 1980's, but in contrast, Tarkovsky continues to exist by way of his
films.
¡¡
From LIGHTMILLENNIUM
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