[John Gianvito] Andrei Tarkovsky Interviews (Conv(BookFi.org)

ANDREI TARKOVSKY INTERV!EWS

CONVERSATIONS WITH FILMMAKERS SERIES PETER BRUNETTE, GENERAL EDITOR

ANDREI TARKOVSKY INTERVIEWS

EDITED BY JOHN GIANVITO

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The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Associatit>n of

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Introduction ix Copyright

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Chronology xxiii

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Irilmography xxvii

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Andrei Thrkovsky: I Am for a Poetic Cinema PATRICK BUREAU

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Andrei Tarkovsky : interviews / edited by John Gianvito. (Conversations with fllmmakers series) p. cm. Includes index.

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ISBN-I3: 978-r-578o6-z19-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-ro: v578o6-zr9-5 (cloth: alk. paper) ISBN-I3: 978-r-578o6-zzo-t (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-ro: 1578o6-zzo-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) r. Tarkovskii, Andrei Arsen'evich,

r93z-r986-Interviews. 2. Motion picture producers and directors-Soviet

Union-Interviews. I. Tarkovskii, Andrei Arsen'evich, r93z-t986 II. Gianvito, John. III. Series.

'l'lrc Artist in Ancient Russia and in the New USSR 16 MICHEL CIMENT, LUDA SCHNITZER, AND .JEAN SCHNITZER l)irrlogue with Andrei Tarkovsky about Science-Fiction on

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lincounter with Andrei Tarkovsky 6 GIDEON BACHMANN

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CONTENTS

CONTENTS

The Artist Lives Off His Childhood like a Parasite: An Interview the Author of The Mirror 44 CLAIRE DEVARRIEUX

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Portrait of a Filmmaker as a Monk-Poet 163 LAURENCT cossE A Glimmer at the Bottom of the

Interview with Andrei Tarkovsky 46 TONINO GUERRA

THOMAS JOHNSON Faith Is the Only Thing That Can Save Man r7B CHARLES H. DE BRANTES

Stalker, Smuggler of Happiness 50 TONINO GUERRA

lndex Interview with Andrei Tarkovsky (on Stalker) 55 ALDO TASSONE Against Interpretation: An Interview with Andrei Tarkovsky

IAN CHRISTIE Tarkovsky's Translations 70 PHILIP STRICK Tarkovsky in

Italy

73

TONY MITCHELL Nostalgia's Black

Tone

Bo

HERVE cutBERT Between Two

Worlds

88

J. HOBERMAN AND GIDEON BACHMANN

My Cinema in a Time of Television VELIA IACOVINO

97

An Enemy of Symbolism ro4 IRENA BREZNA The Twentieth Century and the Artist r24 V. ISHIMOV AND R. SHEJKO Red

Thpe r55 ANGUS MNCKINNON

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INTRODUCTION

Frw AMoNG coNTEMpoRARY FtLM ARTtsrs inspire the degree of ardor and zeal that Andrei Thrkovsky does. In the eyes of the faithful, an encounter with virtually any of Tarkovsky's fllms holds the promise of awe-inspiring aesthetic transport liable to stir the innermost reaches of the spirit. To his detractors, the same films can provoke iust as fervent feelings of consternation, boredom, and outright antipathy. lf, however, one were to be judged by the company of one's admirers, 'larkovsky's place in the pantheon of film history would alone be secured, having earned during his career the esteem of many of the cinema's preeminent directors-Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa, Michelangelo Antonioni, Sergei Paradjanoy among a host of maior artists, inside and outside the world of film. Writing about Tarkovsky in his rgBT autobiography, The Magic I trntcrn, Bergman proclaimed that his discovery of Tarkovsky's work w:rs akin to "a miracle. Suddenly, I found myself standing at the door ol' a room the keys of which had, until then, never been given to me. It wirs a room I had always wanted to enter and where he was moving Irt,cly and fully at ease. I felt encouraged and stimulated: someone was t'xprcssing what I had always wanted to say without knowing how. lirrl