The best of Tarkovsky is seen on “A Poet in the Cinema: Andrey Tarkovsky”, an interview with Master Director Andrei Tarkovsky conducted in 1983 by Donatella Baglivo. There you get to hear very personal views of what makes this human being such a great, authentic, humanitarian film director.
Here are some excerpts from the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEpkrrmXTAE.
The world is not a place where we can be happy. The world was not created for man’s happiness, though many believe that is the reason for our existence. I think we are here to fight – its a fight between good & evil in us, so that we can grow spiritually.
This is no different than the non-dualism that has been preached for thousands of years by eastern spiritual teachers. Throughout the interview, Andrei explains his view of life, existence, objectivity & the essence of his creativity in such plain but sharp tones.
Around the age of 20, Andrei recalls, he fell into bad company. His mother came to his rescue & sent him to Siberia. Andrei worked very cheap labor but slowly transformed his life there. There is so much practical philosophy right there! Self isolation, remoteness from anything disturbing, even from one’s own family, turns the mind inwards. It helps much to focus on the fundamentals of ones existence, to look deep within & discover the true identity & the meaning of the Self.
As a fine arts photographer I can relate to how he visualized cinema as a sequence of images, drawn from the simplicity of a child’s imagination & the carefulness of a elegant artist who avoided the “much too philosophical approach” of Sarte. He contrasts himself from contemporary artists who lived & represented a dual life – one for the society & another for their profession. Andrei kept the innocence of a child in his thoughts, life & his works.
I am writing this at a time when the world is torn by the deadly Covid-19 virus that already killed close to half a million people worldwide now. And close at home, in America, the citizens are battling years of oppression, racialism, brutality from organized agencies, tortures & an undeniable sense of falsified freedom that always ended up in severe hatred & separation between men & women of the country.
Common people are standing up for such brutality & systemic torture only to face more deaths & reprimands in the hands of the politically motivated goons. The country that was always envied for its richness & freedom, is now challenging the truth & vitality of any of these.
Towards the end of the film, Tarkovski provides a striking yet realistic view, that is so relevant to this day. I quote below.
The solution lies in balancing the two lines of development: the inner spiritual & the outer material. This is the message in most of my films. This attempt to balance out spiritual & material needs.
Andrei Tarkovsky on “Solaris” & “Stalker”