tarkovsy's andrei rublev
Firstly of course no one needs another review of Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev. But as you might expect a few thoughts arose from watching it yesterday which I'd like to see if can develop.
I realised watching Andrei Rublev that all Tarkovsky's films need to be watched more than once to begin to make sense of them. Yes, after a single viewing you'll be able to give a plot summary, a run-down of many of the scenes, and an impression of some of the themes of the film. But the films have much more to offer than this, and it won't become apparent how much until you watch for the second time. Among the many filmmakers/artists working in film whose work I often return to this is unique. Which is not to say that those filmmakers/artists produce work that's easily apprehended or unsophisticated. And I certainly don't want to suggest that they're inferior in any way. I just want to suggest that Tarkovsky makes films that deliberately withhold explanation. And interpretation, which is why as an atheist I never feel preached at or forced into spiritual/religious interpretations of events.
To add a little detail - here's an idea that only came through a chance connection having watched Sandrine Bonnaire's Her Name Is Sabine the day before. In this documentary there is a difficult scene to watch where the director shows her sister footage of a visit they made to New York together, some years before Sabine entered an institution after her behaviour had deteriorated. Sabine, now barely recognisable as the same person, begins to cry. This is one of the most affecting scenes in the film, and one I've thought about quite a lot. Although we have seen the footage of the New York trip previously we don't see it now, we simply see Sabine's response.
To add a little detail - here's an idea that only came through a chance connection having watched Sandrine Bonnaire's Her Name Is Sabine the day before. In this documentary there is a difficult scene to watch where the director shows her sister footage of a visit they made to New York together, some years before Sabine entered an institution after her behaviour had deteriorated. Sabine, now barely recognisable as the same person, begins to cry. This is one of the most affecting scenes in the film, and one I've thought about quite a lot. Although we have seen the footage of the New York trip previously we don't see it now, we simply see Sabine's response.
This reminded me of one of the more emotional scenes in Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man. When Timothy Treadwell, the subject of the film, was attacked by a bear, his partner turned on the camera before going to help him, but left the lens cap in place. The audio of the subsequent killing of both Treadwell and his partner formed part of the investigation into the deaths, and was then released to one of Treadwell's friend's. She plays the tape to Herzog, through headphones, so that neither she nor we hear the tape. We also only see Herzog from behind, and although we can see him shaking our response is formed by Treadwell's friend's reaction to Herzog's response. He very quickly asks her to stop playing the tape, and tells her that she must never listen to the tape and should destroy it to remove the possibility. Now with both of these scenes our emotional response is dependent on the reaction of another person, and not on the stimulus provoking the original reaction. As we have no real access to the inner life of any of the people on screen our reaction is therefore in part generated by us as viewers, by our ability to empathise with other people.
It's probably not coincidental that these two films are documentaries. The reactions of the people involved are not mediated through actors, and probably more importantly our reactions as viewers are reactions to what we believe to be 'true' as opposed to the way we might react to fiction. I think there is something here relevant to cinematic fiction though. This is that there is no need to fill in all the detail for the viewer. We don't need to be shown what Sabine is watching at the same time as she does, and we don't need to be told what she is thinking. She may in fact be crying for reasons quite different from what we project onto her, what's important is her reaction. Likewise we certainly don't need to hear what's on the tape that Werner Herzog listens to. This withholding of information also allows us to engage with the film by filling in the gaps.
My point being that one of Tarkovsky's strengths is that he trusts the viewer and trusts himself enough to withhold information from us. This means much more than not including exposition. His characters talk a lot about matters that concern them, but they don't spend a lot of time giving us spurious justifications or backstories to justify their behaviour and motives. This to me is one of the more deadening aspects of conventional cinematic narrative, that every action has to have a motive provided for it, and that every emotion has to be underlined. In Tarkovsky people behave much more like real people - we don't know their motives and they don't attempt to explain them in simplified psychological abstracts like 'trauma' or 'closure'.
Another realisation was how deliberately artificial Tarkovsky's films are. There are a lot of fairly static scenes where characters talk to one another while stood in fairly unnatural groupings, and may from time to time move to set up another fairly unnatural grouping. For the most part it's not something that I ever notice, although for some reason I find it very apparent and very grating in Sacrifice. I have no explanation why this should be. I can however think of a couple of reasons why Tarkovsky may have found such a static and artifical way of staging characters necessary. Firstly the dialogue tends to be unnatural and philosophical, and combining it with naturalistic movements would probably jar very badly with the audience. Secondly the space inhabited by the characters and the objects within that space to name only two elements are every bit as important as the characters. To have the actors moving about in a more obviously naturalistic way would again draw attention to the characters and away from other elements of the film.
It's probably not coincidental that these two films are documentaries. The reactions of the people involved are not mediated through actors, and probably more importantly our reactions as viewers are reactions to what we believe to be 'true' as opposed to the way we might react to fiction. I think there is something here relevant to cinematic fiction though. This is that there is no need to fill in all the detail for the viewer. We don't need to be shown what Sabine is watching at the same time as she does, and we don't need to be told what she is thinking. She may in fact be crying for reasons quite different from what we project onto her, what's important is her reaction. Likewise we certainly don't need to hear what's on the tape that Werner Herzog listens to. This withholding of information also allows us to engage with the film by filling in the gaps.
My point being that one of Tarkovsky's strengths is that he trusts the viewer and trusts himself enough to withhold information from us. This means much more than not including exposition. His characters talk a lot about matters that concern them, but they don't spend a lot of time giving us spurious justifications or backstories to justify their behaviour and motives. This to me is one of the more deadening aspects of conventional cinematic narrative, that every action has to have a motive provided for it, and that every emotion has to be underlined. In Tarkovsky people behave much more like real people - we don't know their motives and they don't attempt to explain them in simplified psychological abstracts like 'trauma' or 'closure'.
Another realisation was how deliberately artificial Tarkovsky's films are. There are a lot of fairly static scenes where characters talk to one another while stood in fairly unnatural groupings, and may from time to time move to set up another fairly unnatural grouping. For the most part it's not something that I ever notice, although for some reason I find it very apparent and very grating in Sacrifice. I have no explanation why this should be. I can however think of a couple of reasons why Tarkovsky may have found such a static and artifical way of staging characters necessary. Firstly the dialogue tends to be unnatural and philosophical, and combining it with naturalistic movements would probably jar very badly with the audience. Secondly the space inhabited by the characters and the objects within that space to name only two elements are every bit as important as the characters. To have the actors moving about in a more obviously naturalistic way would again draw attention to the characters and away from other elements of the film.
There may be more to say about Andrei Rublev soon.
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