letter from an audience member
Andrei Tarkovs Ji (1932.4.4 ~ 1986.12.28), in the eyes of Bergman, "the most important contemporary director", he has been in the film for more than 20 years, and his main works are only two short films and seven feature films. However, "he has created a brand new The language of the film captures life like a reflection, like a dream.” In the era of totalitarian rule that strangled poets, Tarkovsky used these auspicious images of Kataba to sculpt the time of life with difficulty, using a traditional Russian poet's Enthusiasm and conscience, struggling to find the true meaning of art and human conscience, looking for the spiritual home of mankind in the chaotic world where modernity and post-modernity prevail.
The book "Sculpture Time" collects Tarkovsky's lifelong exploration of film and art. In the preface, he repeatedly mentioned only one movie-"Mirror". Because no film has experienced complicated tortuous ordeals, accusations and unprovoked criticisms like "Mirror", but it has finally been affirmed by the audience. These must have warmed the author's heart and strengthened his creative belief! "When I think that my mother will die, I can't accept it anyway. I will fight and I will prove that my mother is immortal!" (1) This is the original motivation for the creation of the film. This article will analyze this film and try to explore Tarkovsky's artistic and spiritual world.
1. Individuals, homes, and history
A person's life depends largely on the person who patted the back of your hand at the dinner table in childhood and asked you to pick up the grains of rice on the side of the bowl. In the era of grandiose grand narratives, Tarkovsky is going to make a movie about his family for his mother. Such arrogant "ambition" cannot even agree with the photographers who have been working with him. But Tarkovsky told us, "In "Mirror," I want the audience to feel Bach and Pegolesi, Pushkin’s letter, the Red Army’s forced crossing of the Sivas Sea, and private family affairs-this All things, in a sense, are equally important human experiences." [2] In order to express those unforgettable and unforgettable life experiences, at the very beginning of "Mirror", the director used a documentary method to shoot A scene of treatment for stuttering was used as the prelude to "I can say...".
The gates of time were opened, and the first picture ushered in was a lonely mother sitting on a slanted fence with her back to the camera. In the depth of field, buckwheat flowers spread out on the vast grassland; in the distance, accompanied by the long whistle of the train Sheng walked towards the house alone—not his father, his parents had already divorced.
Mother took a puff of cigarette and slowly spit it out, the camera shook with the tobacco, the breeze hit, and the branches shook--love comes to feel things, and things come to meet the feelings! This kind of wind blows repeatedly in the film, either in memory or in dreams. Slightly upgraded shooting is no longer a simple photography technique. In the slow shot, we see and feel: the breeze lingers on the branches and leaves, that is the lingering of time, the lonely mother is just like her lonely childhood. Hang around.
Passers-by left, and a miraculous wind blew the waves of wheat. It was "a clear and condensed childhood scene in my memory!" My father left us, so his poems were treated as voiceovers by the director, and it was clear and clear here. In the recitation of, the mother returned to the old house alone with her arms folded...
From personal and home memories into this almost plotless movie "narrative", it is not self-esteem, let alone narcissism, Tarkovsky Since his graduation short film "Road Roller and Violin", he has not neglected his concern for the suffering Russian nation. This is due to the conscience of a traditional Russian intellectual, but Tarkovsky’s approach to history is not just a way of cutting into history. With the grandiose and grand narrative method, history will only be imprinted by the personal experience of life.
A memory in "Mirror" that can be used as a "plot" is a mistake made by my mother when she was a proofreader in a printing house-the name of Stalin was printed wrong. After the mother noticed the error, she ran back to the printing factory. The director used a slightly upgraded lens and zoomed to follow her mother’s running. As the speed of the presentation on the screen slowed down, the mother’s effort and tension combined with the magnified image. With the sound of breathing, the director conveys the deterrence of the ideology of the totalitarian era in a way of side-by-side.
The intervention in history is more than just a mother's experience. "Mirror" also uses many news documentaries to present history: the earliest flying balloon, the Red Army forcibly crossing the Sivas Sea, the conquering of the Berlin Building, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and the surging crowds in Tiananmen Square. ……. They appear in a lot of movies, but the time ratio is small, and they often appear unprepared without perspective and narrative motivation—their abruptness is just like these absurd historical events themselves. But after watching the film in its entirety, the audience will discover their abruptness and fragmentation, which just hints at their ubiquity, as a kind of memory, a kind of hidden pain, and even the shadow of future humans, in the final film of the director. In the movie "Sacrifice", mankind in the new era is still threatened by the fear of a nuclear war that may break out at any time, and the fate of mankind is not peaceful! Regarding these historical images, the director used a news film about the Red Army forcibly crossing the Sivas Sea as an example to explain how they are integrated with personal memories-"I think the news films and performance plots in "Mirror" are natural. And the perfect connection... When I saw those people on the screen in front of me, as if they appeared from the emptiness, and were devastated by the horror and inhumanity of that tragic moment in history, I knew that this segment must become The main axis, essence, core, and center of the film, which is based solely on personal and private lyrical memories...Under the pale and vast sky, a group of people are stuck in the wet mud with their knees, dragging their bodies. Passing through an endless swamp that extends to the other side of the horizon, almost no one has survived. The infinite perspective of these documentary clips creates an almost purifying effect." [3] For news films and feature films in the depth of time Meaning, we must continue to consider the author’s aesthetic attitude.
2. Time·Memory·Dreamland
Film is the art of time. On the one hand, Tarkovsky believes that the ideal film is a news film, which uses millions of feet of film to record every minute and every second of a person's life. Undoubtedly, this is due to the ontology of photography. We use this perfect time-preserving medium to store the lives we have existed, thus resisting the death instinct that humans cannot escape! On the other hand, ideals are ideals after all. It is impossible and unnecessary for us to record every inch of life in our lives. No one can do it. We can cherish time and carve time, but we are not the creator of time! Tarkovsky opposes naturalistic mechanical copying. In his actual creation, time is not only arranged in the present, but more and more emotionally dense time is arranged in memory, dreams, and fantasy. On the surface, this time arrangement violates the author's theory of "recorded time", but in fact, "time and memory merge with each other, like two sides of a medal." [4] The director's record of time Has entered the psychological level from the external level. In objective nature, time flows forward unidirectionally in three-dimensional space. However, because we have emotions, memories, and thoughts, our inner time can be free from the constraints of natural laws, it can be reversed, and it can be poetic. However, the author still emphasizes that “one of the most important assumptions in the film is that the image of the film can only be presented in the true and natural form of the vivid and colorful real life itself.
... Dreams must still be presented in the real life itself on the screen. It is constructed by the tangible natural form." [5] There are two unusual situations of the mother in the black and white scenes in the film:
In the foreground, the father helped his mother water and shampoo her long hair. The camera slowly pulled back, and the scene was expanded from close-up to panoramic view-the father was gone, and only the mother who seemed unable to stand remained, hanging in front of him tremblingly. His long hair, mud and rain falling from the roof one after another, the camera moved horizontally from right to left past her mother, the mother painted, the camera continued to move, the camera did not stop, but the mother wrapped in a sand towel and entered the painting on the left. The location is as uncertain as a dream; the mother walks towards a vague mirror, and what is reflected in it is the mirror image of the elderly mother (played by Tarkovsky's mother herself)! Although this set of shots is clear, it is not a realistic record at all, and is closer to the surreal and expressionist image presentation. It may even confuse the audience the first time you watch it, but the director has his own reasoning: "What I want to say is the'ambiguity' and'unspoken words' in the movie. The unique impression produced by the logic of ": the unusual and unpredictable combination of completely real elements, as well as the conflicts between the elements." [6] The sudden departure of the father, the depressed homeland, the beauty of the mother, the loneliness As you grow old, these ambiguous images string together the logic and psychological feelings of dreams, and they are all true impressions that the author can't forget!
During the war years, the poor mother sold her earrings to a wealthy lady. The lady asked her to help slaughter a rooster. The next shot changed from color to black and white. The father stroked the mother's arm and the camera was pulled back. Open-the father is gone again, while the mother is floating in the air. This scene obviously violates people's common sense of physics, but what better way to show the "weightlessness" state of a stoic and self-respecting mother's body and mind?
From the image's modeling, setting, camera movement to editing, and the illogical time, it is not only expressed in dreams, but also interwoven with reality and memory. The whole film is actually unfolded in the narration of the adult "I". The emotional entanglement between "I" and his wife, and the broken marriage is one of the clues of the film. Although "I" has never appeared on the screen under the director's arrangement, there is a set of shots that make people remember and feel a lot. "I" asked his wife where the children were. The wife (played by the same actor who played the young mother) looked at "I" in a daze-that is, looking at the camera, but after the camera was cut back, it was the father who came back from vacation. , He asked "Where are the children?" to the mother outside the painting. There is a reversed shot of Tarkovsky, which cuts from one time and space to another. It’s just human beings. Saying the same words in similar situations, time and space jump in the cut, but they can't jump out of the same human fate!
In addition, the combination of memory and fantasy (because memories are never mechanical memories, and memories must always be combined with reconstruction and imagination to stir up emotional waves), so that many images in memory will always have a dreamlike atmosphere. The charm of poetry. In "Mirror", those winds that seem to blow for no reason, rain everywhere, and bright fires. We don’t know why they started, but they flashed in our memories and dreams time and time again. The narration of the plot and story, they are elusive but make people feel that they do exist, and they are deeply imprinted in childhood memories. For such indescribable images in Tarkovsky's films, audiences who are accustomed to the director's explanation of all the ins and outs may be unacceptable, but think about it carefully, who has not been stunned in childhood Watching a gust of wind blowing the branches gently swaying ignorantly, who has never had the experience of looking at the ticking rain outside the window and waiting for the mother to come back, why bother to care about the "story" behind it? The director can only give a poetic image in his memory. As for the story behind the image, the audience can use their own life experience to complement and perfect. The audience is no longer passively accepting all the information given by the director as if watching a Hollywood movie, but is at the same level of creation as the director. The image that connects the director and the audience is the same, but the story behind the image can only reach their respective stories. Reminisce and think in the life experience. "Through the connection of poetry, emotions are enhanced; the audience has also changed from passive to active. He is no longer swayed by the plot preset by the author, but personally participates in a journey of exploring life.... The artist forces the audience to divide the The integration of the fragments forces the audience to think about the overtones and overtones. Only in this way can the audience and the artist be on an equal footing in the realization of the film." [7]
At the beginning of the film, the mother returned to the old house from the fence. The next scene is that the neighbor’s house ignited a raging fire. This could have constituted a plot (such as why the fire started and what casualties did it cause," How did you deal with it in the end) But the director didn’t do any plot setting and explanation for the impression of this childhood. For a child, the fire is a fire. This natural scene is deeply shocked by its solemn and magnificent scene. Childhood young mind. In addition to the natural scene of the fire, there is also a small fire lit by a branch in the film that cannot be erased from the author's memory-the love of a teenager! The vague admiration for the girl that sprouted for the first time in the child's heart, all that was left in the memory was a bright hand that was set off by the flames! In the dream, the young mother suddenly grew old in the mirror. The elderly mother stretched out her wrinkled hand to touch her mirror image. At this moment, without logic and paving, she suddenly inserted a bright hand against the flames. A flash passed, and then a ringing of the phone brought the dream into the present moment-the adult "I" was awakened by the phone call from my mother. If you watch the whole movie several times (for example, I watched it dozens of times), the audience can indeed sort out a little "plot" and chronological order in this seemingly disorderly image: this hand is in It appears again later in the film, which is the real experience of childhood, not the dream; the sequence of film images and the actual time sequence are out of place. In "Mirror", the director often only retains such an image without explaining it, and the timing is also misplaced. If the director uses a linear time processing method, it should be the first time he saw this in his childhood. Hands, there are flashes of dreams in adulthood, but this is a Tarkovsky movie, where time seems to be free from the control of daily logic and flashes, dreams, memories, fantasy, and order. It can no longer be clearly distinguished, they are intertwined to become the life experience of Yoshimitsu Kataba, they are life itself!
At the end of the film, Tarkovsky made a perfect scheduling of time and space. The mother and father at the beginning of the wedding were lying on the grass happily. The father asked the mother if he wanted a boy or a girl, but the mother was just shy. She smiled with satisfaction, and stared into the distance—I saw the elderly mother with her two children walking along the curved path towards the depths of the grassland, and in the depth of the field was the young mother (just after a few minutes). Years, it should be after the parents divorced) Standing in the depths of the grassland looking at the future of fate... In this same scene, there are three images of mothers in the same space in the same space, and the time is seriously misplaced-the elderly mother is still holding the childhood child! The war is over and time is getting old. How much the author hopes to return to childhood, a childhood without war and parental divorce, but the mismatched time combination of elderly mothers and childhood self strongly expresses this beautiful ideal The helplessness of-the good childhood time has been lost forever!
3. Art·Conscience·Faith
All great movies are reminiscent of Godard’s words "Movies are the first and last dreams of mankind!" In retrospect of time, we not only see our personal joys and sorrows. , And you can also see the ups and downs of the entire human race along the way. Personal time and the entire human time are inextricably linked. The right and wrong, joy and sorrow constitute the material for our reflection, so "the existence of human conscience depends entirely on time!"
"I think Most people watch movies for time: for time that has passed, wasted, or not yet possessed.... What is the nature of the work of a director? We can define it as carving time. Just like a sculptor facing a piece of marble, the finished product in his heart His image is lifelike, he cuts out the parts that don’t belong to it, one by one, the film creator, just like that: from the "big chunk of time" composed of huge and solid life events, he cuts out the parts that he doesn't need. , Abandon, leaving only the constituent elements of the finished product to ensure the integrity of the image. [8]
Therefore, Tarkovsky's time sculpted obviously has three levels: at the level of material and material, they come from reality. They are poetic at the level of temperament and charm, and they can lead people to regain their conscience and belief at the level of ideological value.
For the first two levels, the author uses a Japanese haiku poem as an example to show his understanding: "fishing in blue waves/waves rippling in the moon shadow/like a bait/solitary thorn plum tree/crystal night dew falling full of branches/hanging between thorns Water drop...This is pure observation! Its refined and accurate, so that even dull people can feel the power of poetry and the life image captured by the poet." [9] Tarkovsky often handles images Between representation and performance, those images not only make the audience feel inconsistent with their daily experience, but also make them feel real and emotional. They do not influence the audience in the slightest, and they are completely aesthetically poetic intuition. "A poet often has the imagination and psychological state of a child, because no matter how insightful and profound his thinking about the world is, his impression of the world is direct." [10] The poet Wang Guowei is more accurate in "Human Cihua" The description of "The description of the scenery is unsightly, the romance is refreshing, and the words are blurted out, without being softly dressed." Only the realm full of this kind of imagery is the realm written by the great poet, the realm created by the great poet!
Regarding the level of ideological value, the director told us tirelessly and even anachronistically: "I believe that this kind of art should give people hope and belief. The more hopeless the world the artist describes, the more people should feel it. Opposing ideals-otherwise it would be impossible to live!" [11] "Art carries the desire for ideals. It should spread hope and belief in people's hearts, even if the world depicted by the artist is hopeless." [12 ]
"The most important function of art is communication, because mutual understanding is a force to integrate mankind" [13] In "Homesickness", the madman Dominic drops a drop on the palm of his hand, and then another drop on the palm of his hand. One big drop instead of two drops, which entrusts the director's ultimate expectation of all creative activities-to use art to promote human harmony!
Although Tarkovsky spends more time waiting for the review of the script than he spends making the film, and after the film is completed, it is full of accusations, criticisms, and insults, but the works of art full of true feelings Never bury brilliance because of the stupidity of the times. "Everything will be reduced to a simple element. This is everything one can count on for its existence: the ability to love.... My duty is to make everyone see The people who have written my film realize the need to love and give and love, and realize that beauty is calling him.” [14] It is also the movie "Mirror", and the director won the highest praise he dreams of—it can only be From the audience!
A letter from an audience:
Thank you for your movie "Mirror", my childhood was like that... But how did you know? It's that wind, that thunderstorm... "Galka, get the cat outside." My grandmother yelled... The room was pitch black and the oil lamp went out. The feeling of waiting for my mother to come back filled my whole soul. ...And your movie presents the awakening of this kind of thinking of a child so beautifully! ...In that dark theater, staring at the screen lit by your genius. At that moment, it was the first time in my life that I felt that I was not alone...
A letter from another audience:
I see you The movie is like a mirror staring at life. This is the first time that a movie has become such a real object to me, which is why I go to watch this movie and I want to go directly into it, so that I can truly "live". [15]
"A letter like this warmed my heart, gave me the meaning of work, and strengthened my belief!"-Tarkovsky said.
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