Quotes from book
Sculpting in Time

Andrei Tarkovsky

Sculpting in Time is a book by Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky about art and cinema in general, and his own films in particular. It was originally published in 1986 in German shortly before the author's death, and published in English in 1987, translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair. The title refers to Tarkovsky's own name for his style of filmmaking.

“The allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as an example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 42

“I have always liked people who can't adapt themselves to life pragmatically.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time

“I am only interested in the views of two people: one is called Bresson and one called Bergman.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

After the Goskino representative explains that he is trying to give the point of view of the audience.
Sculpting in Time (1989)

“Modern mass culture, aimed at the "consumer", the civilisation of prosthetics, is crippling people's souls, setting up barriers between man and the crucial questions of his existence, his consciousness of himself as a spiritual being.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 42

“A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 177

“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.

“Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time

“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

“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

“I find poetic links, the logic of poetry in cinema, extraordinarily pleasing. They seem to me perfectly appropriate to the potential of cinema as the most truthful and poetic of art forms. Certainly I am more at home with them than with traditional theatrical writing which links images through the linear rigid logical development of plot. That sort of fussily correct way of linking events usually involves arbitrarily forcing them into sequence in obedience to some abstract notion of order. And even when this is not so, even when the plot is governed by the characters, one finds that the links which hold it together rest on a facile interpretation of life's complexities.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Sculpting in Time (1986)

“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.

“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)

“It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in four thousand years humanity has learnt nothing at all.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 50

“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

“The idea of infinity cannot be expressed in words or even described, but it can be apprehended through art, which makes infinity tangible. The absolute is only attainable through faith and in the creative act.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 39

“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

“No one component of a film can have any meaning in isolation: it is the film that is the work of art. And we can only talk about its components rather arbitrarily, dividing it up artificially or the sake of theoretical discussion.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 114

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