Landscape of Tarkovsky

Theron 2021-12-22 08:01:13

A.

After reading "Andrey Rublev" (1969, Andrei Tarkovsky) again, I can borrow from people's comments on Dostoyevsky: There are only two kinds of people in the world, who have read " People who have "Andrei Rublev" and those who have never watched "Andrei Rublev".

B.

In Tarkovsky's camera, the focus is miraculously shifted from the film narrative itself. Two monks were discussing the aesthetics of icon painting, and at the same time, a leader was tortured to death outside the temple. Stimulus events with more "kinetic energy" are placed in the context of weak processing and are simply taken over.

Many shots stay meaningfully in the water ripples of the pond, the leaves swaying in the wind, and the muddy plains. Even if the film narrates falling, arguing, torture, massacre, carnival, death, and celebration, the focus of the lens will gradually shift out of the "action" and turn to the eternal nature. This is similar to the theme expressed in Bruegel's famous painting "The Fall of Icarus". The eternal law of nature has not been affected by the fall of Icarus in the slightest. It is just a trivial vision. Coincidentally, the opening scene of "Rubrov" is a scene of a hot air balloon falling. Maybe this is not a coincidence.

C.

In the second chapter of the fourth book of Dostoevsky’s novel "Insulted and Damaged", there is this paragraph: "It is strange that I am now lying alone in the hospital bed, far away from all the people I love deeply. At this time, some trivial things in the past, some things that were neglected and forgotten at the time, suddenly came back to my mind, and gained a brand-new significance, revealing the inside information that I still can’t understand.”

This passage can be used as a commentary on "Takovsky-style nature": At the beginning of "Andrei Rublev", three wandering painters left the monastery where they had been painting for several years and went to another country. One of them suddenly noticed a white birch forest on the plain outside the temple, which they had never noticed during the years they lived here, such an ordinary white birch forest. And now they are leaving, which means that they will never see this white birch again, so the insignificant white birch forest suddenly has some great significance and becomes a signpost in life. At the back of the film, the progress of time will suddenly be interrupted, and "seemingly irrelevant" scenes are inserted: three monks stand under this cluster of birch trees, gazing at the birch leaves swaying in the wind (whether it is reminiscent of Chen Hongkuan's "path" The grass in the crevices of the side stones is just as perfect"?).

"Takovsky-style nature" has a purely poetic logic, but it also conforms to human psychology and thinking. From this I understand that landscape is purely an externalization of the spiritual world, and this tradition may come from Levitan.

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Extended Reading
  • Johnnie 2021-12-22 08:01:13

    I'm in a trance...not enough concentration

  • Effie 2021-12-22 08:01:13

    The old tower’s ability to express the scenes of crucifixion is too strong, which is definitely related to nationality

Andrei Rublev quotes

  • Kirill: [admiring one of Feofan's icon paintings] As Epiphanius said in "The Life of Saint Sergeius," "Simplicity, without gaudiness." That is what this is. It's sacred... Simplicity, without gaudiness - you can't say it better.

    Feofan Grek: I see you are a wise man.

    Kirill: If so, is that a good thing? If one is ignorant, isn't it better to be guided by one's heart?

    Feofan Grek: In much wisdom there is much grief. And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

  • Andrey Rublev: I see the world with your eyes. I listen to it with your ears. With your heart...