После Тарковского

When a dedication to Andrei Tarkovsky appeared at the end of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, the audience at the Cannes premiere reacted with derisive laughter and booing. How could von Trier-a mocker, nihilist, provocateur and ardent post-modernist-be an heir to the irreparably serious Tarkovsky? The paper attempts to answer this question.

The mutations of cinema, philosophy and even literature from the second half of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st resulted in the fact that the only Tarkovsky possible today is indeed von Trier with his radicalism and intransigence, his hidden pain and metaphysical search. The Russian genius’s heritage is found where no one was looking for it: in a cinematic universe filled with skepticism and vitriol irony, quotes and genre games. Looking at it, we understand that the distance between the two Ts-Tarkovsky and Trier-is not that unbridgeable.

Tarkovsky’s Theatre of Boredom

Nathan Dunne is the editor of Tarkovsky (2008). He also organised The Art of Andrei Tarkovsky, a symposium that took place at Tate Modern. His most recent book is Lichtenstein (2012), a monograph that accompanied the artist’s retrospective in Chicago, London and Paris.

The state of boredom depends on the coexistence of the following components: a state of dissatisfaction and longing, a sense of emptiness, and a distorted sense of time in which time seems to stand still. This paper argues for a definition of boredom in relation to Tarkovsky’s films, particularly Solaris. In particular, the paper focuses on several key scenes within the film, including Burton’s meeting with the Solaris Space Council and the long highway sequence filmed in Tokyo.

Although there are different accounts of what boredom is and does, many thinkers agree that it is inimical to the modern industriousness on which national progress depends. It creates a restlessness or agitation that shifts the focus from the world, either its objects or nature, to the self. In this, we might say that such a focus on the self has the potential to give flight from the dependent mind and to create independence in its wake, where the self is perceptually and psychologically refigured. Tarkovsky’s aesthetic and philosophical sensibility created an alternative theatre for boredom, a space for the ideally «independent» viewer.

«Unplayable»: The Actor’s Living & Presence

Kirill Adibekov is a filmmaker, curator, translator, poet. Winner of the Elephant prize in the Sine Charta category (2013).

When talking about acting in theatre and cinema, Andrei Tarkovsky convinсingly demonstrated that in the former, the actor is largely their own director. Their task is to build and unfold their character in line with the general game. They know (and sometimes choose) what exactly do they play. This has traditionally been a part of the profession.

Cinema requires a different type of professionalism. One that can trust in the director who compiles their film from many fragments (including fragments with actors): separate shots, whole sequences, sounds, bodies, pauses. The director, according to Tarkovsky, is responsible for everything. In this case, the actor’s only task is to live. This requirement can only be understood by a non-traditional type of professional.

Tarkovsky: the actor is not only stripped of directorial functions; they must not show any trace of their attitude towards their character. Add to that the fact that they often do not know the screenplay. Such dictate leads to the uttermost importance of the result at the expense of, for instance, exercise. This approach is partly (and only partly) in tune with Robert Bresson’s experiments who worked with actors as he would work with a material, a physical substance that needs to be endowed with meaning (gestures and words).

On the Problem of Relations Between the Soviet Viewer & Tarkovsky’s Cinema