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Andrei Rublev

 
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Andrei Rublev

  • Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
  • AMG Rating: starstarstarstarstar
  • Genre: Historical Film
  • Movie Type: Biopic, Period Film
  • Themes: Political Unrest, Life in the Arts, Redemption
  • Main Cast: Anatoli Solonitsin, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolai Sergeyev, Nikolai Grinko, Nikolai Burlyayev, Irma Raush
  • Release Year: 1966
  • Country: SU
  • Run Time: 185 minutes

Plot

Widely recognized as a masterpiece, Andrei Tarkovsky's 205-minute medieval epic, based on the life of the Russian monk and icon painter, was not seen as the director intended it until its re-release over twenty years after its completion. The film was not screened publicly in its own country (and then only in an abridged form) until 1972, three years after winning the International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Calling the film frightening, obscure, and unhistorical, Soviet authorities edited the picture on several occasions, removing as much as an entire hour from the original. Presented as a tableaux of seven sections in black and white, with a final montage of Rublev's painted icons in color, the film takes an unflinching gaze at medieval Russia during the first quarter of the 15th century, a period of Mongol-Tartar invasion and growing Christian influence. Commissioned to paint the interior of the Vladimir cathedral, Andrei Rublev (Anatoli Solonitsyn) leaves the Andronnikov monastery with an entourage of monks and assistants, witnessing in his travels the degradations befalling his fellow Russians, including pillage, oppression from tyrants and Mongols, torture, rape, and plague. Faced with the brutalities of the world outside the religious enclave, Rublev's faith is shaken, prompting him to question the uses or even possibility of art in a degraded world. After Mongols sack the city of Vladimir, burning the very cathedral that he has been commissioned to paint, Rublev takes a vow of silence and withdraws completely, removing himself to the hermetic confines of the monastery. Rising quickly out of this mire, the film's final section (a short story in its own right) concerns a boy named Boriska (Nikolai Burlyayev) who convinces a group of travelling bell-makers that his father passed on to him the secret of bell-making. The men take Boriska along, mostly because they pity and are amused by him, but they are quickly enthralled by the boy's ambition, determination, and confidence that he alone knows how to build the perfect bell. Boriska is soon commanding an army of assistants and peasant workers, and, indeed, his fierce temperament and refusal to accept anything but the best possible work and materials from the men fools the viewer -- possibly Boriska himself is fooled -- into thinking that he does in fact possess the secret, and that on the appointed day when the silver bell is lifted from the ground and its mallet set in place, it will ring. Amid this maelstrom of activity and confusion, Rublev appears; at first standoffish and mistrustful of the boy, he finds himself drawn to Boriska's courage and unselfconscious desire to create. Moved to put aside his vow of silence, Rublev serves finally as the boy's confessor, and he finds that, through Boriska, his faith, and art, have been renewed. ~ Anthony Reed, All Movie Guide

Cast

  • Anatoli Solonitsin - Andrei Rublev
  • Ivan Lapikov - Kirill
  • Nikolai Sergeyev - Feofan Grek
  • Nikolai Grinko - Daniil Cherny
  • Nikolai Burlyayev - Boriska
  • Irma Raush
Yuri Nazarov; Yuri Nikulin; Rolan Bykov; Nikolai Grabbe; Mikhail Kononov; Stepan Krylov; Andrei Tarkovsky

Credit

Andrei Tarkovsky - Director, N. Beliava - Editor, L. Lararev - Editor, Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov - Composer (Music Score), Vadim Yusov - Cinematographer, Andrei Konchalovsky - Screenwriter, Andrei Tarkovsky - Screenwriter

Similar Movies

Ivan the Terrible, Part 1; Ivan the Terrible: Part 2; Petr Pervy - Chast 1; Petr Pervy - Chast 2; Krylya Kholopa; Boris Godunov; Daniil - Knyaz Galitskiy; Legenda O Tile; Minin I Pozharskiy; Rus Iznachalnaya; Yaroslav Mudryy
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Wikipedia: Andrei Rublev (film)
Top
Andrei Rublev
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
Produced by Tamara Ogorodnikova [A]
Written by Andrei Konchalovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky
Starring Anatoly Solonitsyn
Ivan Lapikov
Nikolai Grinko
Nikolai Sergeyev
Nikolai Burlyayev
Irma Raush
Music by Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov
Cinematography Vadim Yusov
Studio Mosfilm
Release date(s) December 24, 1971 (1971-12-24)
Running time 205 min. (original version)
Country Soviet Union
Language Russian
Budget 1,300,000 rubles

Andrei Rublev (Russian: Андрей Рублёв, Andrey Rublyov), also known as The Passion According to Andrei, is a 1966 Russian film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky from a screenplay written by Andrei Konchalovsky and Andrei Tarkovsky. The film is loosely based on the life of Andrei Rublev, the great 15th century Russian icon painter. The film features Anatoly Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolai Sergeyev, Nikolai Burlyayev and Tarkovsky's wife Irma Raush.

Andrei Rublev is set against the background of 15th century Russia. Although the film is only loosely based on the life of Andrei Rublev, its depiction of medieval Russia is realistic. Tarkovsky created a film that shows the artist as "a world-historic figure" and "Christianity as an axiom of Russia’s historical identity"[1] during a turbulent period of Russian history, that ultimately resulted in the Tsardom of Russia. The film is about the essence of art and the importance of faith and shows an artist who tries to find the appropriate response to the tragedies of his time. The film is also about artistic freedom and the possibility and necessity of making art for, and in the face of, a repressive authority and its hypocrisy, technology and empiricism, by which knowledge is acquired on one's own without reliance on authority, and the role of the individual, community, and government in the making of both spiritual and epic art.

Because of the films's religious themes and political ambiguity, it was unreleased in the atheistic and authoritarian Soviet Union for years after it was completed, except for a single screening in Moscow. A cut version of the film was shown at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI prize.[2] In 1971 a censored version of the film was released in the Soviet Union. The film was further cut for commercial reasons upon release in the US in 1973. Because of this several versions of the film exist. Today Andrei Rublev is widely regarded as a masterpiece and one of Tarkovsky's best works.[3]

Contents

Plot

Note: The following synopsis refers to the original, 205 minutes version of the film.

Andrei Rublev is divided into seven chapters and a prologue and an epilogue only loosely related to the main film. The main film charts the life of the great icon painter through several episodes of his life. The background is 15th century Russia, a turbulent period characterized by fighting between rival princes and the Tatar invasions.

The film's prologue shows the preparations for a hot air balloon ride. The balloon takes off from the roof a church, with a man named Yefim (Nikolay Glazkov) roped beneath the balloon, at the very moment of arrival of an ignorant mob trying to thwart the flight. The man is highly delighted by the sight from the air, but can not prevent a crash landing. Yefim is the first of several creative characters, representing the daring escapist, whose hopes are easily crushed. After the crash, a horse is seen lolling by a pond, a symbol of life — one of many horses in the movie.

The Jester, Summer 1400: Andrei (Anatoly Solonitsyn), Danil (Nikolai Grinko) and Kirill (Ivan Lapikov) are wandering monks, looking for work. The three represent different creative characters. Andrei is the observer, a humanistic artist who searches for the good in people and wants to inspire and not frighten. Danil is withdrawn and resigned, and not as bent on creativity as on self-realization. Kirill lacks talent, yet strives to achieve prominence. He is jealous, self-righteous, very intelligent and perceptive. The three have just left the Andronikov Monastery, where they have lived many years, heading to Moscow. During a heavy rain they seek shelter in a barn, where a group of villagers is being entertained by a jester (Rolan Bykov). The jester, or skomorokh, is a bitterly sarcastic enemy of the state and the Church, who is earning a living with his scathing and obscene social commentary and by making fun of the Boyars. He ridicules the monks as they come in, and after some time Kirill leaves unnoticed. Shortly, the skomorokh is picked up by a group of soldiers, knocked out headfirst against a tree and taken away.

Theophanes the Greek, Summer-Winter-Spring-Summer 1405-1406: Kirill arrives at the Theophanes the Greek's workshop, where Theophanes the Greek (Nikolai Sergeyev), a prominent and well-recognized master, is working on another of his icons. Theophanes the Greek is portrayed as a complex character: an established artist, humanistic and God-fearing in his views yet somewhat cynical, regarding his art more as a craft and a chore in his disillusion with other people. His young apprentices have all run away to the town square, where a convicted criminal is about to be tortured and executed in public. Kirill talks to Theophanus, and the artist, impressed by his erudition, invites him to work as an apprentice on the decoration of Cathedral of the Annunciation in Moscow. Kirill refuses at first, but then accepts the offer on the only condition that Theophanus will personally come to the Andronikov Monastery and invite Kirill to work with him in view of all the fraternity and Andrei Rublev.

The three monks are back at the Andronikov Monastery. Theophanes the Greek sends a messenger to Andrei to ask him for his assistance in decorating Cathedral of the Annunciation. Both Danil and Kirill are agitated by the recognition Andrei experiences. Danil refuses to accompany Andrei and reproaches him for accepting Theophanes's offer lightly and without considering his fellows, but soon repents of his temper and wishes Andrei well. Kirill is jealous and in great anger, and he leaves the monastery for the secular world, throwing the accusations of greed in the face of the monks. Andrei leaves for Moscow with his young apprentice Foma (Mikhail Kononov). Foma is another creative character, representing the light-hearted and practical-minded commercial artist. Still he seems to be contemplative enough to get along with Andrei.

The Holiday, 1408: During a nightly walk Andrei encounters a group of naked pagans, whose celebration implies sensuality and lust. Andrei feels attracted by the rituals he witnesses. He is caught by the pagans and tied to a cross, and threatened to be drowned in the morning. A woman named Marfa (Nelly Snegina), only dressed with a mantle approaches Andrei. She drops her mantle, kisses and then frees him. The next morning as Andrei leaves a group of soldiers arrives and rounds up the pagans. Marfa tries to escape by running into the river and swimming near Andrei’s boat. He and his fellow monks look away in shame.

The Last Judgement, Summer 1408: Andrei and Danil are working on the decoration of a church in Vladimir. Over months, work is not progressing, as Andrei is doubting himself. He confides to Danil that his painting disgusts him and that he is unable to paint a subject such as the Last Judgement, as he doesn’t want to terrify people. He comes to the conclusion that he has lost the ease of mind that an artist needs for his work. He has a flashback during which he remembers his time working for the Grand Prince, who put out the eyes of artisans to prevent them from reproducing their beautiful work for someone else. As the flashback ends, Durochka (Irma Raush), a holy fool or Yurodivy, wanders into the church. Her feeble-mindedness and innocence leads Andrei to the idea to paint a feast.

The Raid, Autumn 1408: While the Grand Prince is away in Lithuania, the Grand Prince’s brother and a group of Tatars raid Vladimir. The invasion and the resulting carnage is shown in great detail. One famous scene shows a horse falling from a flight of stairs and being stabbed by a spear. Another famous scene shows a cow set on fire. The tatars enter the church. Andrei prevents the rape of Durochka by a Russian by slaying the perpetrator. Shaken by this event Andrei falls into self-doubt and decides to give up painting and takes a vow of silence.

The Silence, Winter 1412: Andrei is once again at the Andronikov Monastery. He neither paints nor speaks and keeps Durochka with him. After several years of absence, Kirill shows up at the monastery and asks to be taken in. The father superior allows him to return, but requires him to copy the scriptures fifteen times. One day, Tatars stop at the monastery while traveling through. One of the Tatars takes Durochka away as his eighth wife.

The Bell, Spring-Summer-Winter-Spring 1423-1424: Andrei's life turns around when he witnesses the casting of a bell. As the bellmaker has died, his son Boriska (Nikolai Burlyayev) lies to the men that he knows the secret of casting a bell. Boriska is another creative character. He is aware of his own importance and the difficult task at hand. He is able to create through a combination of natural skill and pure faith. Boriska supervises the digging of the pit, the selection of the clay, the building of the mold, the firing of the furnaces and the hoisting of the bell. Boriska collapses in tears when the bell rings perfectly at the inauguration ceremony. Witnessing the ceremony Andrei breaks his vow of silence and tells the boy that they should go together. "You’ll cast bells. I’ll paint icons."

The epilogue is the only part of the film in color and shows details of several of Andrei Rublev's icons. The icons are shown in the following order: Enthroned Christ, Twelve Apostles, The Annunciation, Twelve Apostles, Jesus entering Jerusalem, Birth of Christ, Enthroned Christ, Transfiguration of Jesus, Resurrection of Lazarus, The Annunciation, Resurrection of Lazarus, Birth of Christ, Trinity, Archangel Michael, Paul the Apostle, The Redeemer. The final scene crossfades from the icons and shows four horses at a river during rain.

Production

In 1961, while working on his first feature film Ivan's Childhood, Tarkovsky made a proposal to Mosfilm for a film on the life of Russia's greatest icon painter, Andrei Rublev. The contract was signed in 1962 and the first treatment was approved in December 1963. Tarkovsky and his co-screenwriter Andrei Konchalovsky worked for more than two years on the script, studying medieval writings and chronicles and books on medieval history and art. In April 1964 the script was approved and Tarkovsky began working on the film.[4] At the same time the script was published in the influential film magazine Iskusstvo Kino, and was widely discussed among historians, film critics and ordinary readers. The discussion on Andrei Rublev centered on the sociopolitical and historical, and not the artistic aspects of the film.

According to Tarkovsky, the original idea for a film about the life of Andrei Rublev was due to the film actor Vasily Livanov. Livanov proposed to write a screenplay together to Tarkovsky and Konchalovsky while they were strolling through a forest on the outskirts of Moscow. He also mentioned that he would love to play Andrei Rublev.[5] Tarkovsky did not intend the film to be a historical or a biographical film about Andrei Rublev. Instead, he was motivated by the idea of showing the connection between a creative character's personality and the times through which he lives. He wanted to show an artist's maturing and the development of his talent. He chose Andrei Rublev for his importance in the history of Russian culture.[6]

Tarkovsky cast Anatoli Solonitsyn for the role of Andrei Rublev. At this time Solonitsyn was an unknown actor at a theater in Sverdlovsk. According to Tarkovsky everybody had a different image of the historical figure of Andrei Rublev, thus casting an unknown actor who would not remind viewers of other roles was his favoured approach. Solonitsyn, who had read the film script in the film magazine Iskusstvo Kino, was very enthusiastic about the role, traveled to Moscow at his own expense to meet Tarkovsky and even declared that no one could play this role better than him.[7] Tarkovsky felt the same, saying that "with Solonitsyn I simply got lucky". For the role of Andrei Rublev he required "a face with great expressive power in which one could see a demoniacal single-mindedness". To Tarkovsky, Solonitsyn provided the right physical appearance and the talent of showing complex psychological processes.[8]

Tarkovsky chose to shoot the main film in black and white and the epilogue, showing some of Andrei Rublev's icons, in color. In an interview he motivated his choice with the claim that in everyday life one does not consciously notice colors.[9] Consequently Rublev's life is in black and white, whereas his art is in color. The film was thus able express the co-dependence of an artist's art and his personal life. The color sequence of Rublev's icons begins with showing only selected details, climaxing in Rublev's most famous icon, The Trinity. One reason for including this color final was, according to Tarkovsky, to give the viewer some rest and to allow him to detach himself from Rublev's life and to reflect. The film finally ends with the image of horses at river in the rain. To Tarkovsky horses symbolized life, and including horses in the final scene (and in many other scenes in the film) meant that life was the source of all of Rublev's art.[7]

Filming did not begin until April 1965, one year after approval of the script.[10] The initial budget was 1.6 million Rubles, but it was cut several times to one million Rubles (In comparison, Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace had a budget of eight million Rubles). As a result of the budget restrictions several scenes from the script were cut, including an opening scene showing the Battle of Kulikovo. Other scenes that were cut from the script are a hunting scene, where the younger brother of the Grand Prince hunts swans, and a scene showing peasants helping Durochka giving birth to her Russian-Tatar child.[10] In the end the film cost 1.3 million Rubles, with the cost overrun due to heavy snowfall, which disrupted shooting from November 1965 until April 1966. The film was shot on location, on the Nerl River and the historical places of Vladimir/Suzdal, Pskov, Izborsk and Pechory.[11]

Several scenes within the film depict violence, torture and cruelty toward animals, leading to controversy and censorship attempts upon completion of the film. Most of these scenes took place during the raid of Vladimir, showing for example the blinding and the torture of a peasant. Most of the scenes involving cruelty toward animals were simulated. For example, during the Tatar raid of Vladimir a cow is set on fire. In reality the cow had an asbestos-covered coat and was not harmed. However, one scene depicts the real death of a horse. The horse falls from a flight of stairs and is then stabbed by a spear. To produce this image, the horse was shot in the neck and pushed from the stairs, then shot in the head afterward. This was done to avoid the possibility of harming a stunt horse. The horse was brought in from a slaughterhouse, killed on set, and then returned to the slaughterhouse for commercial consumption. In a 1967 interview for Literaturnoe obozrenie, interviewer Aleksandr Lipkov suggested to Tarkovsky that "the cruelty in the film is shown precisely to shock and stun the viewers. And this may even repel them." To this Tarkovsky responded: "No, I don't agree. This does not hinder viewer perception. Moreover we did all this quite sensitively. I can name films that show much more cruel things, compared to which ours looks quite modest."[11]

Distribution

The first cut of the film was completed in July 1966 and was named The Passion According to Andrei. This cut had a length of approximately 205 minutes. It then took five years for the film to be officially released in a cut version in the Soviet Union. The first, original version of Andrei Rublev was criticized by Goskino for its length and explicit depiction of violence.[12] Demands were made for several cuts, resulting in a film length of 190 minutes. Despite Tarkovsky's objections expressed in a letter to Alexey Romanov, the chairman of Goskino, further cuts were demanded, resulting in a film length of 186 minutes.[13] For film professional the film premiered at the Dom Kino in Moscow in 1966. Audience reaction was enthusiastic, despite some criticism of the film's naturalistic depiction of violence.[4] In February 1967 Tarkovsky complained with Alexei Romanov that the film was not yet approved for an official release and refused to cut further scenes from the film.[13] This resulted in Andrei Rublev not being released for years, although the film was discussed on the top level of Mosfilm, Goskino and even during a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

The film was invited to the Cannes Film Festival in 1967 for a retrospective of Soviet film on occasion of the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. The official answer was that the film was not yet completed and could not be shown at the film festival. A second invitation was made by the organizers of the Cannes Film Festival in 1969. Soviet officials accepted this invitation and allowed the film shown on the festival out of competition. The audience response was enthusiastic and the film won the FIPRESCI prize. Soviet officials tried to prevent the official release of the film in France and other countries, but were not successful as the distributor had legally acquired the rights in 1969.[12]

Despite Tarkovsky's refusal to make the demanded cuts, Andrei Rublev was finally released on December 24, 1971 in the 186 minutes version of 1967. Reasons for the final release include the pressure of influential admirers of Tarkovsky's work, including the film director Grigori Kozintsev, the composer Dmitri Shostakovich and Yevgeny Surkov, the editor of Iskusstvo Kino.[10] Tarkovsky and his second wife, Larisa Tarkovskaya wrote letters to influential personalities. Larisa Tarkovskaya even went with the film to Alexey Kosygin, then the Premier of the Soviet Union. As Tarkovsky successfully resisted any further cuts from the 1966 version with a length of 186 minutes, all versions of the film were cut by Tarkovsky and no one else. Although some of the cuts made from the original 205 minutes version were demanded by Goskino, Tarkovsky was in the end convinced that the latest version with a length of 186 minutes was the best and most successful.[7] When the film was released Tarkovsky complained in his diary that in the entire city not a single poster for the film could be seen, he also noticed that all theaters were sold out.[14] The film was released in 277 copies and sold 2.98 million tickets.[15] In 1973 the film was also shown on Soviet TV, in a version of 101 minutes that was not authorized by Tarkovsky. Notable scenes that were cut from this version were the raid of the Tartars and the scene showing naked pagans. The epilogue showing details of Andrei Rublevs icons was shown only in black and white as the Soviet Union had not yet fully transitioned to color TV. In 1987, when Andrei Rublev was once again shown on TV the epilogue was once again in black and white, despite the Soviet Union having completely transitioned to color TV. Another difference from the original version of the film was the inclusion of a short explanatory note at the beginning of the film, detailing the life of Andrei Rublev and the historical background.[16]

When the film was released in the U.S. and other countries in 1973, the distributor Columbia Pictures cut another twenty minutes from the film. This resulted in a 146 minute version, which made the film an incoherent mess in the eyes of many critics and leading to unfavorable reviews.[1] Only in 1999 the original, 205 minute version of 1966 was released as part of the Criterion Collection. This version is sometimes also known as the director's cut. According to Tarkovsky's sister, Marina Tarkovskaya, one of the editors of the film, Lyudmila Feiginova, secretly kept a print of the first, original cut in her home, under her bed.[17]

Awards

Andrei Rublev won several awards. In 1969 the film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Due to pressure by Soviet officials the film could only be shown out of competition, and was thus not eligible for the Palme d'Or or the Grand Prix. Nevertheless it won the prize of the international film critics, FIPRESCI. In 1971 Andrei Rublev won the Critics Award of the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, and in 1973 the Jussi Award for best foreign film.

Historical accuracy

Andrei Rublev was not intended to be an historically accurate biography as little is known about Andrei Rublev. Even what is known about him is obscure and mysterious. This allowed Tarkovsky to construct his story relatively free and to imagine Rublev's biography. Moreover, in the film Andrei is shown more as an observer of the events of his time than as an acting person. This is especially evident in the last scene showing the casting of the bell.[11] Tarkovsky indicated some inconsistencies between the history of science and technology and metaphoric elements in his film with devices such as having the hot air balloon being made of both period and obviously modern materials, as hot air balloon technology did not yet exist at the time the film is set in.

Medieval life is shown in great detail and in a naturalistic setting. Tarkovsky and Konchalovsky collected material on medieval history and art, and studied all kind of works on this epoch. They were mostly concerned with representing medieval life and customs and to a lesser extent specific events in a realistic and naturalistic way. Appropriately for a medieval setting, religion takes the center stage, with many references to the Bible and characters discussing issues of religion and the church.

The spoken language is natural and not artificial or scripted. Thus it is rather crude and primitive. All foreign languages, that is Tatar and Italian, are spoken in the original. Tarkovsky’s love of the Renaissance and Italy gets a tongue-in-cheek reference with the presence of Italian ambassadors in the scene showing the casting of the bell.

Historical and political context

Before Rublev, Tarkovsky made his first feature film, Ivan's Childhood. Tarkovsky made Ivan in the social and political context of recent Stalinist purges, followed by Siberian imprisonment for artists who exercised artistic freedom, or freedom of speech. Tarkovsky had included overt political protest in the first instant of Ivan, where even before the film's first formal image, a cuckoo sound is superimposed over the Mosfilm symbol of the heroically posed communist man and woman with hammer and sickle. Tarkovsky's most important predecessor was director Sergei Eisenstein, who worked with composer Prokofiev. The two made artistic works in constant fear of execution by the paranoid Stalin, if they were to include any remotely “subversive” element. The Soviets were at war with Hitler, so Germanic music was considered subversive, so this meant music must not perceptibly be influenced by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, etc., a difficult task. After Rublev, Tarkovsky made Solaris, which began with the Germanic Bach’s most religious work, one of his organ choral preludes, written to his God, not for the court.

  • Tarkovsky created a history for the historical painter Andrei Rublev. Tarkovsky was an artist who made works for the Soviet government, severely hostile to Christianity, and to artistic freedom. Andrei Rublev is about an artist, of the same name, who made works for the Christian church. Both Tarkovsky and his protagonists in Rublev made technologically advanced mega art projects within an artistically repressive system, made for the authoritarian repressors, of epic proportion, and requiring huge government subsidy and participation by large numbers of people working for very little. Tarkovsky directed an artistically and technologically advanced epic film with cast of thousands, for the young protagonist in Rublev, the son of a dead bell maker, directing the epic project of construction of a huge technologically advanced church bell.
  • Rublev is a film about an artist who took a vow of silence and refused to make art, in protest of a repressive and false government, which literally gouged out the eyes of his artistic predecessor (see Taj Mahal post-construction).
  • Candles appear together with bells repeatedly in Rublev. The pairing is standard iconography for film (see Sight & Sound). In the rotten apples starvation scene, iconic of Soviet corruption, malicious authoritarian horsemen ride by. Their cinematic image is shown by camera obscura, via a pinhole in the door, mimicking classic images from early zoetropes.
  • Tarkovsky squandered massive funds in the making of the film. He had the most expensive actors in the Soviet bloc digging ditches in visual obscurity within the frame. The excuse was stated by the bell maker’s son, “the secret of bell making is that the bell maker must dig the ditch”, a metaphor for the necessity of living life with the common people to understand it. Set in the period in the history of science when epistemology was shifting from total reliance on authority to reliance on experiment and observation, trial and error, the teen learns to make a bell empirically, from the ditch up, with no reliance on knowledge derived from authority. The Kremlin at the time lived in aloof luxury, as well as those in the compliant artistic community not in Siberia. The notable prima donna actors were handed shovels and directed to dig ditches and pits by a teenager. The film ends with the audience in reflection of the religious beauty of the true historic remnants of images made by Rublev, an audience sitting in positions of genuflection.[18][19][20]

Tarkovsky’s other works have more literal autobiographical elements (see related sections in Solaris, Nostalghia, and The Mirror).

See also

References

Footnotes

A  In the Soviet Union the role of a producer was different from that in Western countries and more similar to the role of a line producer or a unit production manager.[21]

Notes

  1. ^ a b Hoberman, Jim. "Andrei Rublev". The Criterion Collection. http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=34&eid=50&section=essay. Retrieved 2007-12-06. 
  2. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Andrei Rublev". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/2659/year/1969.html. Retrieved 2009-04-10. 
  3. ^ Georgaris, Bill; Vicki Platt. "The Top 100 Films". They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?. http://www.theyshootpictures.com/gf1000_top100films26-50.htm. Retrieved 2007-12-06. 
  4. ^ a b Turovskaya, Maya (1989). Tarkovsky: Cinema as Poetry. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 0571147097. 
  5. ^ Ciwilko, Artur (1965). "Interview Andrzej Tarkowski — o filmie "Rublow"". Ekran 12: 11. http://www.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/On_Rublov.html. Retrieved 2007-12-09. 
  6. ^ Bachman, Gideon (1962). "Begegnung mit Andrej Tarkowskij". Filmkritik 12: 548–552. http://www.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/On_Rublov.html. Retrieved 2007-12-09. 
  7. ^ a b c Ciment, Michel; Schnitzer, Luda & Jean (October 1969). "Interview L'artiste dans l'ancienne Russe et dans l'URSS nouvelle (Entretien avec Andrei Tarkovsky)". Positif 109: 1–13. http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/On_Rublov.html. Retrieved 2007-12-08. 
  8. ^ Veress, Jozsef (1969). "Hüsség a vállalt eszméhez". Filmvilág 10: 12–14. http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/On_Rublov.html. Retrieved 2007-12-08. 
  9. ^ Chugunova, Maria (December 1966). "On Cinema - Interview with Tarkovsky". To the Screen. http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/On_Color.html. 
  10. ^ a b c Johnson, Vida T.; Petrie, Graham (1994). The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253331374. 
  11. ^ a b c Lipkov, Aleksandr. "Strasti po Andreiu (Interview with Andrei Tarkovsky on February 1, 1967, transl. by Robert Bird)". Literaturnoe obozrenie (1988): 74–80. http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/PassionacctoAndrei.html. Retrieved 2007-12-07. 
  12. ^ a b Le Fanu, Mark (1987). The Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky. London: BFI. ISBN 0851701930. 
  13. ^ a b Vinokurova, Tatyana (1989). "Khozdenye po mukam Andreya Rublyova". Iskusstvo Kino (Moscow) 10: 63–76. 
  14. ^ Tarkovsky, Andrei; translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair (1991). Time Within Time: The Diaries 1970-1986. Calcutta: Seagull Books. ISBN 8170460832. 
  15. ^ Zemlianukhin, Sergei; Miroslava Segida (1996) (in Russian). Domashniaia sinemateka 1918–1996 (Домашняя Синематека 1918–1996). Moscow: Duble-D. p. 20. ISBN 5-900902-05-6. 
  16. ^ (In Russian) Мир и фильмы Андрея Тарковского, Сост. А. Сандлер. М., издательство: Искусство, 1990.
  17. ^ Blasco, Gonzalo (November 10, 2003). "An Interview with Marina Tarkovskaia and Alexander Gordon". www.andreitarkovski.org. http://www.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Marina_and_Alexandr.html. Retrieved 2007-12-10. 
  18. ^ handout for Pacifica Film Archive 2003 Tarkovsky Festival
  19. ^ The Solaris Effect: Art and Artifice in Contemporary American Film. University of Texas Press, Austin. 2006 ISBN 0292713444
  20. ^ ``Andrei Rublev``, Robert Bird, British Film Institute Film Classics Series, 2004
  21. ^ Johnson, Vida T.; Graham Petrie (1994), The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue, Indiana University Press, pp. 57–58, ISBN 0253208874 

Bibliography

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