Bach and Tarkovsky

New Sound International Journal of Music, 2023

Book review

The article explores meaning and function of musical quotations in the films of Andrei Tarkovsky, the context of their appearance in a particular film space and their relationships with the visual images and onscreen situations. Quotation forms a vastly significant part of the new cinematic sound language that Tarkovsky was creating in his work, relating its function to the mechanisms of the poetic logic. Holding a multiple and variable meanings, the quotation is an open semantic space that produces a series of senses. Current observations departure from the original ideas concerning approach to the historical musical material from Tarkovsky’s own notes in Sculpturing in Time and the interviews of his musical collaborators (composer Eduard Artemiev and sound-mixer Owe Svensson), which are extended by findings made in case studies.

Cinema Journal, 2010

I don't suppose there is doubt in many quarters that Tarkovsky was one of the great artistic fi gures of the twentieth century. At the most basic level of fi lm style, his vocabulary, alive as it was to the beauty of the world embodied in the four elements of earth, fi re, air, and water (yet somehow managing to "naturalize" these elements and to avoid making them too symbolic) has had a marked effect on the look of international cinema ever since. Numerous contemporary cineastes pay homage to Tarkovsky, either explicitly or in subtly hidden ways. Notwithstanding his tremendous cinephilic appeal, Tarkovsky has not quite been welcomed into fi lm studies. It is perhaps not hard to see why: his religious disposition, his moral fervor, his stated belief in truth (and in the complementary existence of error), his ideological dogmatism-all this is contrary to the coolness of our epoch, and to the technicist bent of much academic discourse in the humanities. Of course there is another side to Tarkovsky: his speaking out is shadowed by ambivalence, even by craftiness. For all Tarkovsky's public commitment to truth, the art itself veers toward the cryptic, especially perhaps in the later works, from Stalker (1979) onwards. Stalker, Nostalghia (1983), and his last fi lm Sacrifi ce (1986) seem to offer themselves as parables, demanding, yet at the same time withholding, interpretation. It is not obvious what any of them "mean," and in this respect-an important one-Tarkovsky must be allowed to belong to the broad stream of sophisticated modernism, which, among other attributes, prides itself on being impossible to pin down. An earlier English-language book aiming to explicate Tarkovsky was subtitled "A Visual Fugue," and Robert Bird's procedure in the new study under review could also be described as fugal. The fi lms are examined chronologically, but the order, in practice, is loosely conceived, and each topic the author pauses on encourages him to make

Cinema Journal, 2010

I don't suppose there is doubt in many quarters that Tarkovsky was one of the great artistic fi gures of the twentieth century. At the most basic level of fi lm style, his vocabulary, alive as it was to the beauty of the world embodied in the four elements of earth, fi re, air, and water (yet somehow managing to "naturalize" these elements and to avoid making them too symbolic) has had a marked effect on the look of international cinema ever since. Numerous contemporary cineastes pay homage to Tarkovsky, either explicitly or in subtly hidden ways. Notwithstanding his tremendous cinephilic appeal, Tarkovsky has not quite been welcomed into fi lm studies. It is perhaps not hard to see why: his religious disposition, his moral fervor, his stated belief in truth (and in the complementary existence of error), his ideological dogmatism-all this is contrary to the coolness of our epoch, and to the technicist bent of much academic discourse in the humanities. Of course there is another side to Tarkovsky: his speaking out is shadowed by ambivalence, even by craftiness. For all Tarkovsky's public commitment to truth, the art itself veers toward the cryptic, especially perhaps in the later works, from Stalker (1979) onwards. Stalker, Nostalghia (1983), and his last fi lm Sacrifi ce (1986) seem to offer themselves as parables, demanding, yet at the same time withholding, interpretation. It is not obvious what any of them "mean," and in this respect-an important one-Tarkovsky must be allowed to belong to the broad stream of sophisticated modernism, which, among other attributes, prides itself on being impossible to pin down. An earlier English-language book aiming to explicate Tarkovsky was subtitled "A Visual Fugue," and Robert Bird's procedure in the new study under review could also be described as fugal. The fi lms are examined chronologically, but the order, in practice, is loosely conceived, and each topic the author pauses on encourages him to make

2014

This thesis examines seven films from the cinemas of Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky—Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957), Through a Glass Darkly (1961), Winter Light (1963), and The Silence (1963), and Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979), Nostalghia (1983), and The Sacrifice (1986). These films were chosen as they represent the deepest periods of two directors’ engagements with the possible death of God and the subsequent loss of intrinsic existential meaning—topics with which this thesis is principally concerned. As a starting point, this thesis argues that the films present the silence of God as the primary indicator of God’s absence from the human world. Becoming aware of this silence thus causes one to interrogate religious certainties which have hitherto been taken to be timeless and true. This thesis then contends that, when faced with this silence and its implications, Bergman desperately sought evidence of God’s existence while Tarkovsky unyieldingly maintained an attitude of faith. The directors’ progressions toward these contrasting positions are evident through the uses of sound elements in their films. As Bergman unsuccessfully pursued evidence of God’s existence, the soundscapes in his four films become increasingly minimal. The sparse use of sound reveals Bergman’s conception of a Godless void. On the other hand, metaphysical silence in Tarkovsky’s films was not perceived as emptiness. Instead, “silence” in his films was, paradoxically, often depicted through complex layers of sounds. Presented as manifestations of the metaphysical, the sounds of “silence” in Tarkovsky’s films consequently become affirmations of faith. Through this sound-based approach to film analysis, this thesis sets out to explain why Bergman and Tarkovsky understood metaphysical silence so differently by examining how they portrayed literal silences.

2007

Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies, 2023

This article provides a detailed analysis of references to other films found in two of Andrei Tarkovsky's works, thus highlighting the films' intertextual and intermedial nature. More specifically the article examines several referential elements found in Tarkovsky's Ivanovo detstvo (Ivan's Childhood) (1962) and Zerkalo (Mirror) (1975), which, as scholars suggest, borrow elements from Kazimierz Kutz's Krzyż Walecznych (Cross of Valour) (1958) and Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963), respectively. Through the theoretical analysis of filmmaking techniques as well as intertextual analysis, the article seeks to explain why and how Tarkovsky employs these references in his films. The article therefore examines the cinematography of the three directors in addition to their films' visual stylistics and formal elements. By analysing mise en scènes, types of shots, lighting, editing and more, the article proves that the references Tarkovsky employs in his two films not only justify connections to his films' main ideas but also serve as incontrovertible evidence that his films contain references and counterpoints to Kutz's and Fellini's works.

Quarterly Review of Film and Video, 2009

The last several years have evidenced a revival in Tarkovsky studies. Alas, the majority of these works dedicated to Andrei Tarkovsky and his oeuvre can be aptly characterized by reiteration. Banal presuppositions of Russian mysticism and general religious connotations seem to monolithically plague these texts to the point of fatigue. The discursive overflow seems to stem from Tarkovsky's tone in later public statements and writings, but as Robert Bird, associate professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago, argues in his tour-de-force Andrei Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema, such assertions are limited in their critical appeal. It's no wonder Tarkovsky is rarely mentioned amongst the giants of cinematic auteurism, not to mention as a consequence, how easy it is to forget Tarkovsky's unique and polemic theory of cinema, namely intraframe rhythm as the governing characteristic of cinema in opposition to formalistic theories of montage (e.g. fellow countryman Sergei Eisenstein's theory of dialectical montage). Until Robert Bird's Andrei Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema, the most recent interesting and innovative ideas concerning Tarkovsky and his work were seemingly resigned to essays in larger collections, such as Thorston Botz-Bornstein's Films and Dreams: