Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 42
Quotes from book
Sculpting in Time
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.
“Objectivity can only be the author's and therefore subjective, even if he is editing a newsreel.”
Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 150
Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 97
“We know perfectly well that neither love nor peace of mind can be bought with any currency.”
Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 219
Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 57
Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 188
Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 200
“I have to say from the outset that not all prose can be transferred to the screen.”
Sculpting in Time (1986)
Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 180
Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 181
Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 218
“An artist cannot be partially sincere any more than art can be an approximation of beauty.”
Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 47
Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 150
“What is the essence of the director's work? We could define it as 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.
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.
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.
