Andrei Tarkovsky Quotes (55 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Letter to the central committee of the CPSU (Communist Party of Soviet Union) https://varjag2007su.livejournal.com/2591915.html?utm_source=fbsharing&utm_medium=social (20 October 1970).

“It is perfectly possible to be a professional director or a professional writer and not to be an artist: merely a sort of executor of other people's ideas.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 188

Andrei Tarkovsky: Trending quotes

“I have a horror of tags and labels.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 149
Context: I have a horror of tags and labels. I don't understand, for instance, how people can talk about Bergman's "symbolism". Far from being symbolic, be seems to me, through and almost biological naturalism, to arrive at the spiritual truth about human life that is important to him.

“Show them life, and they'll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 152
Context: Never try to convey your idea to the audience — it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they'll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.

“The man who has stolen in order never to thieve again remains a thief. Nobody who has ever betrayed his principles can have a pure relationship with life. Therefore when a film-maker says he will produce a pot-boiler in order to give himself the strength and the means to make the film of his dreams — that is so much deception, or worse, self-deception. He will never now make his film.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 124

Andrei Tarkovsky Quotes

“What is the essence of the director's work? We could define it as sculpting in time.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 63-4
Context: What is the essence of the director's work? We could define it as sculpting in time. Just as a sculptor takes a lump of marble, and, inwardly conscious of the features of his finished piece, removes everything that is not a part of it — so the film-maker, from a 'lump of time' made up of an enormous, solid cluster of living facts, cuts off and discards whatever he does not need, leaving only what is to be an element of the finished film, what will prove to be integral to the cinematic image.

“The artist is always the servant, and is perpetually trying to pay for the gift that has been given to him as if by a miracle. Modern man, however, does not want to make any sacrifice, even though true affirmation of the self can only be expressed in sacrifice.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 38
Context: Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual, for the ideal: that longing which draws people to art. Modern art has taken the wrong turn in abandoning the search for the meaning of existence in order to affirm the value of the individual for his own sake. What purports to be art begins to looks like an eccentric occupation for suspect characters who maintain that any personalised action is of intrinsic value simply as a display of self-will. But in an artistic creation the personality does not assert itself it serves another, higher and communal idea. The artist is always the servant, and is perpetually trying to pay for the gift that has been given to him as if by a miracle. Modern man, however, does not want to make any sacrifice, even though true affirmation of the self can only be expressed in sacrifice. We are gradually forgetting about this, and at the same time, inevitably, losing all sense of human calling.

“Art is realistic when it strives to express an ethical ideal. Realism is striving for truth, and truth is always beautiful.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 113
Context: Art is realistic when it strives to express an ethical ideal. Realism is striving for truth, and truth is always beautiful. Here the aesthetic coincides with the ethical.

“I had the greatest difficulty in explaining to people that there is no hidden, coded meaning in the film, nothing beyond the desire to tell the truth. Often my assurances provoked incredulity and even disappointment. Some people evidently wanted more: they needed arcane symbols, secret meanings.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 133
Context: [About Mirror] I had the greatest difficulty in explaining to people that there is no hidden, coded meaning in the film, nothing beyond the desire to tell the truth. Often my assurances provoked incredulity and even disappointment. Some people evidently wanted more: they needed arcane symbols, secret meanings. They were not accustomed to the poetics of the cinema image. And I was disappointed in my turn. Such was the reaction of the opposition party in the audience; as for my own colleagues, they launched a bitter attack on me, accusing me of immodesty, of wanting to make a film about myself.

“If there are some who talk the same language as myself, then why should I neglect their interests for the sake of some other group of people who are alien and remote?”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 174
Context: If there are some who talk the same language as myself, then why should I neglect their interests for the sake of some other group of people who are alien and remote? They have their own 'gods and idols' and we have nothing in common.... If you try to please audiences, uncritically accepting their tastes, it can only mean that you have no respect for them: that you simply want to collect their money.

“Art symbolises the meaning of our existence.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 192
Context: Art must must carry man's craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it; that art must give man hope and faith. And the more hopeless the world in the artist's version, the more clearly perhaps must we see the ideal that stands in opposition — otherwise life becomes impossible! Art symbolises the meaning of our existence.

“Perhaps the meaning of all human activity lies in the artistic consciousness, in the pointless and selfless creative act?”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 241
Context: Perhaps the meaning of all human activity lies in the artistic consciousness, in the pointless and selfless creative act? Perhaps our capacity to create is evidence that we ourselves were created in the image and likeness of God?

“Conscience, both as a sense and as a concept, is a priori immanent in man, and shakes the very foundations of the society that has emerged from our ill-conceived civilisation.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 234
Context: Freedom is inseparable from conscience. And even if it is true that all the ideas developed by the social conciousness are the product of evolution, conscience at least has nothing to do with the historic process. Conscience, both as a sense and as a concept, is a priori immanent in man, and shakes the very foundations of the society that has emerged from our ill-conceived civilisation.

“Art must must carry man's craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it; that art must give man hope and faith.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

“Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual, for the ideal: that longing which draws people to art. Modern art has taken the wrong turn in abandoning the search for the meaning of existence in order to affirm the value of the individual for his own sake.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

“Never try to convey your idea to the audience — it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they'll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 152

“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”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

On being told that his film Stalker should be faster and more dynamic by officials at Goskino.
Sculpting in Time (1989)

“Late this evening I looked at the sky and saw the stars. I felt as if it was the first time I had ever looked at them.
I was stunned.
The stars made an extraordinary impression on me”

Andrei Tarkovsky

Source: Journal 1970-1986

“Relating a person to the whole world: that is the meaning of cinema.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 66

“"Man is born unto the trouble as the sparks fly upwards." In other words suffering is germane to our existence; indeed, how without it, should we be able to "fly upwards".”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 239

“One can only be staggered by the hubris of modern artists if we compare them, say, to the humble builders of Chartres Cathedral whose names are not even known. The artist ought to be distinguished by selfless devotion to duty; but we forgot about that a long time ago.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 189

“A literary work can only be received through symbols, through concepts — for that is what words are; but cinema, like music, allows for utterly direct, emotional, sensuous perception of the work.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 176

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

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Sculpting in Time (1986)

“Objectivity can only be the author's and therefore subjective, even if he is editing a newsreel.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 150

“We know perfectly well that neither love nor peace of mind can be bought with any currency.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 219

“History is not Time; nor is evolution. They are both consequences. Time is a state: the flame in which there lives the salamander of the human soul.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 57

“An artist needs knowledge and the power of observation only so that he can tell from what he is abstaining, and to be sure that his abstention will not appear artificial or false.”

Andrei Tarkovsky

Journal entry (7 July 1980); published in Time Within Time: The Diaries 1970-1986 (1989)

“My function is to make whoever sees my films aware of his need to love and to give his love, and aware the beauty is summoning him.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 200

“I have to say from the outset that not all prose can be transferred to the screen.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Sculpting in Time (1986)

“Everything is conditioned by necessity of one kind or another; and if it were actually possible to find a person in conditions of total freedom, he would be like some deep water fish that had been dragged up to the surface. It's curious to reflect that Rublyov worked within the strictures of the canon! And the longer I live in the West the more curious and equivocal freedom seems to me. Freedom to take drugs? To kill? To commit suicide?”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 180

“The Stalker seems to be weak, but essentially it is he who is invincible because of his faith and his will to serve others.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 181

“It seems to me that the individual today stands at a crossroads, faced with the choice of whether to pursue the existence of blind consumer, subject to the implacable march of new technology and the endless multiplication of material goods, or to seek out a new way that will lead to spiritual responsibility, a way that ultimately might mean not only his personal salvation but also the saving of society at large; in other words, to turn to God.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 218

“Becoming an artist does not merely mean learning something, acquiring professional techniques and methods. Indeed, as someone has said, in order to write well you have to forget the grammar.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 88

“The meaning of religious truth is hope.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 43

“An artist cannot be partially sincere any more than art can be an approximation of beauty.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 47

“Above all, I feel that the sounds of this world are so beautiful in themselves that if only we could listen to them properly, cinema would have no need for music at all.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 162

“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.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 180

“What is Bresson's genre? He doesn't have one. Bresson is Bresson. He is a genre in himself. Antonioni, Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa, Dovzhenko, Vigo, Mizoguchi, Bunuel — each is identified with himself. The very concept of genre is as cold as the tomb. And is Chaplin — comedy? No: he is Chaplin, pure and simple; a unique phenomenon, never to be repeated.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 150

“No one component of a film can have any meaning in isolation: it is the film that is the work of art.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

And we can only talk about its components rather arbitrarily, dividing it up artificially or the sake of theoretical discussion.
Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 114