THE SCHOOL OF TARKOVSKY PART 4

Nostalghia / Tree Of Live

Nostalghia / Wild At Heart

Ivan's Childhood / The Ascent

The Mirror / Silent Light

Solaris / Creepshow

Andrei Rublev / Battle In Heaven

Andrei Rublev / Punch Drunk Love

Stalker / Tree Of Life

THE SCHOOL OF TARKOVSKY

In this sense, cinema is the art of reality, the medium in which reality’s beauty is captured, where you can film marble or a face, or record someone’s voice, a sunset, the innate beauty of what you’re contemplating. Tarkovsky achieved this.   - Carlos Reygadas 

 JAPON is the best Tarkovsky film Tarkovsky never made - Nigel Andrews on Carols Reygadas' feature film debut 'Japon'

(Tarkovsky's work) was rather a confirmation of my own vision - Alexander Sokurov (mentored by and also a friend to Andrei Tarkovsky)

Dedication to Tarkovsky that appears at the end of Lars Von Trier's 'Antichrist'

One thing i love about mubi.com (the facebook inspired social networking site geared towards movie nerds) is the list making feature. A while back i made a list called; "The School Of Tarkovsky" (a list of films that i felt were inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky's work) and got some pretty decent feedback on it. Although he may be one of the best at it, Quentin Tarantino isn't the first & only director to use or lift imagery, music, characters and scenes from other people's movies and put them in his (even if people act like he invented it). In the early films of Lars Von Trier (nocturne, image of relief and the element of crime), you can see traces of 'The Mirror', 'Stalker' and 'Sacrifice'. If you've been reading my blog recently, you've seen that I've compared Micahel Haneke's work to Robert Bresson and Jim Jarmusch's work to quite a few different directors (wim wenders, senji suzuki, akira kurosawa, etc). This blog is partially inspired by Jim Jarmusch's quote regarding stealing & inspiration. Its easy to say "so & so" was inspired by "so & so" and leave it at that. But sometimes you gotta go a little further and show images from 2 different movies next to each other to really drive the point home. Note certain similarities like the placement of the actors in picture, the colors, background, etc.

Sometimes i think people like to just name-drop Andrei Tarkovsky and blindly say how influential he is without putting too much thought into it. I get the feeling people just like to say his name sometimes because it sounds nice, and makes people sound smart when they talk about movies. I mean think about it...a last name like Tarkovsky sounds like it could be the last name of a famous Russian composer, painter, sculptor, etc. And on the flipside, i don't think too many people who've seen recent films like 'There Will Be Blood' or 'Antichrist' are familiar with Tarkovsky and didn't know where some of the great imagery they saw in those movies came from. Some directors, like Carlos Reygadas and Lars Von Trier have flat out admitted to how much they've ripped off his work early on in their careers, while others make his influence so obvious (Elem Klimov and Alexander Sokurov) that they don't even need to say anything. Even a weirdo like Terrence Malick has been inspired by his work. Ever since Terrence Malick reemerged in the late 90's, all of his film since 'The Thin Red Line' have had this poetic quality about them that can only be compared to Tarkovsky's work. 

So we're gonna look at some of my favorite scenes from various films placed alongside scenes from Andrei Tarkovsky's work so you can really see how influential he truly is. There were a few pictures i couldn't get, like Jessica Chastain floating in air in 'The Tree Of Life' (which reminded me of a scene in 'The Mirror'), but i think i got a enough pictures below for you to get the point... 

Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky)

The Element Of Crime (Lars Von Trier) 
'Antichrist' wasn't the first time Von Trier made a direct reference or a dedication to Andrei Tarkovsky. Both 'Andrei Rublev' and 'The Element Of Crime' start off with a scene of a donkey struggling to stand up.

The Mirror

Tree Of Life

The Sacrifice (Tarkovsky)

There Will Be Blood (PT Anderson)

The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke)

Sacrifice

Farewell (Elem Klimov) 
This one is interesting because its as if Elem Klimov took the scene of the burning house and mixed it with the imagery of the tree from 'Sacrifice' in one scene.

Solaris (Tarkovsky)

Antichrist (Von Trier)

Stalker (Tarkovsky)

The New World (Terrence Malick)
some of these images from 'The New World' are repeats from an older Terrence Malick blog, but they're so relevant to this entry that i had to include them again

Antichrist (Von Trier)

Nostalgia (Tarkovsky)

Antichrist (Von Trier)

Sacrifice

Mother & Son (Alexander Sokurov)

Solaris

Japon (Carlos Reygadas)

The Mirror (Tarkovsky)

Nocturne (Von Trier)

The Element Of Crime (Von Trier)

The Mirror 

Antichrist (Von Trier)

Time Of The Wolf (Haneke)

Ivan's Childhood (Tarkovsky)

The Ascent (Laris Shepitko)

LARISA

No man can grasp some of the phenomena of human psychology and nature  as woman can - Larisa Shepitko

In this documentary Elem Klimov takes us on a personal journey in to the life of his wife and fellow director; Larisa Shepitko, who was killed in a car accident during the filming of what would have been her third film. For the last couple of years her films have found a new audience in the form of criterion collectors. In 2008 criterion released her only 2 features: 'Wings' (the story of a former female communist pilot who hasn't quite adjusted to her "normal life" as the headmaster of a school) and 'The Ascent' (her last film about 2 Russian soldiers who's loyalty and friendship are put to the test). I'll admit i wasn't familiar at all with her work, and had no idea she was married to the director of 'Come & See'. Like so many other Russian directors (including her husband), Shepitko was clearly inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky, but unlike Elem Klimov, Alexander Sokurov, Ilia Khrzhanovsky or other modern Russian directors, she seemed to be more inspired by Tarkovsky's earlier films like 'Ivan's childhood' and 'Andrei Rublev' than his later work like 'The Mirror' and 'The Sacrifice' which you can see in so many Russian film like '4' (Khrzhanovsky), the "leaders trilogy" (Sokurov) and 'Come & See' (Klimov).

If you're familiar with Elem Klimov's work, you know his fictional films are very emotionally draining (see my review for Come & See). This documentary is no exception. Right away, the opening music mixed with old photos of Larisa play with our emotions and we're already sad 2 minutes in. At the time of Shepitko's death she had been working on a film titled 'Farewell to Matyora" (the story of a Siberian village that's being evacuated to make room for a DAM). According to Klimov (who also serves as the narrator), Larisa had been preparing for this film all of her life. The documentary has the typical interviews with people who she worked with, audio excerpts, and personal photos. One audio excerpt that stood out to me the most was Shepitko talking about being a female director (which is something we cover quite a bit in this blog). She states: There is nothing of me that is not of a woman. In every frame of my films. I never tried to imitate men, because all attempts of women directors to imitate a man's cinema were senseless. 

Elem Klimov was extremely active in the first half of the 80's, but after 'Come & See' came out in 1985 he would never make another film again. He was quoted saying that he had; lost interest in making films, because; Everything that was possible I felt I had already done. I'm willing to bet the death of his wife (who he also collaborated with) played a role in his inactivity as a director later on in life.

Thankfully someone posted this up on youtube. I'd watch this as soon as possible before someone ends up having it taken down...

Excerpts from Laris Shepiko's films...
I apologize for the constant non-subtitled clips on these blog entires, but at the same time a lot of Shepitko's work is based on emotion (like many other Russian films). So even though you cant understand what people are saying, you can still get the basic premise of each scene and appreciate the acting.