SCULPTING IN TIME

Andrey Tarkovsky was born in Zavrozhie on the Volga in 1932. In 1960 he graduated from the Soviet State Film School with his first film The

Steamroller and the Violin.

He made five more films in Russia: Ivan's Childhood, 1962, Andrey Rublyov, 1966, Solaris, 1972, Mirror, 1978 and Stalker, 1979. In 1983 he made Nostalgia in Italy and his last film, The Sacrifice, was made in Sweden in 1986.

He died in Paris on 29 December 1986.

Contents

Notes

Editor’s Note

This new edition of Sculpting in Time contains an additional chapter on Tarkovsky's last film The Sacrifice. He wrote this, and made revisions to the text of the book, shortly before his death.

Introduction

Some fifteen years ago, as I was jotting down notes for the first draft of this book, 1 found myself wondering whether there really was any point in writing it at all. Why not just go on making one film after another, finding practical solutions to those theoretical problems which arise whenever one is working on a film

My professional biography has been none too happy; the intervals between films were long and painful enough to leave me free to consider—for want of anything better to do—exactly what my own aims were; what are the factors that distinguish cinema from the other arts; what I saw as its unique potential; and how my own experience compared with the experience and achievements of my colleagues. Reading and rereading books on the history of cinema, I came to the conclusion that these did not satisfy me, but made me want to argue and put forward my own view of the problems and the objectives of film-making. I realised that I generally came to recognise my own working principles through questioning established theory, through the urge to express my own understanding of the fundamental laws of this art form.

My frequent encounters with vastly differing audiences also made me feel that I had to make as full a statement as possible. They seriously wanted to understand how and why cinema, and my work in particular, affected them as it did; they wanted answers to countless questions, in order to find some kind of common denominator for their random and disordered thoughts on cinema and on art in general.