Andrei Tarkovsky: Other

Andrei Tarkovsky was Soviet and Russian film-maker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director. Explore interesting quotes on other.
Andrei Tarkovsky: 110   quotes 21   likes

“What nobody seems to understand is that love can only be one-sided, that no other love exists, that in any other form it is not love. If it involves less than total giving, it is not love. It is impotent; for the moment it is nothing.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 217

Love , Understanding

“A man writes because he is tormented, because he doubts. He needs to constantly prove to himself and the others that he’s worth something. And if I know for sure that I’m a genius? Why write then? What the hell for?”

Andrei Tarkovsky
Hell

“What is art? (…) Like a declaration of love: the consciousness of our dependence on each other. A confession. An unconscious act that none the less reflects the true meaning of life—love and sacrifice.”

Andrei Tarkovsky
Love , Life , Art , Dependency

“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.

People

“We are talking here about the future: about the lives of people in the world without wars, without social oppression, without national inequality, without suppression of human’s abilities. In other word, it is about the future that we all call Communism. We strive to imagine (and show to the viewer) the reality of the 21st century - the life of future humans developing, solving their difficulties and problems but being already on the new levels of cognition and morality. But the foundation of that future is being laid now. We strive to represent the future people as vivid and free, in the unity of their joys and cares, poetry and prose of their life. We are in no way satisfied with the primitive and unconvincing image of "people of the future", which can be observed in some works of literature and cinema. At the same time, we consider our work to be polemical with the many books and movies produced by the bourgeois world, which tend to see the future in an apocalyptic or technocratic way, affirming a sort of disbelief in the strength and capabilities of a human being.”

Andrei Tarkovsky

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).

Life , War , People , Books

“"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

Suffering , Flying

“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

People , Idea

“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

Faith

“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

God , Way , Personality

“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

Love , Life , Freedom , Learning