Best Andrei Tarkovsky Quotes
Perhaps cinema is the most personal art, the most intimate.
No amount of discussion about Tarkovsky's ideology or body of work will suffice. Tarkovsky, a genuine film pioneer, evokes a response in us each time we view his films or read about him. He was, without a doubt, one of the greatest directors to ever live. With only nine films, he stretched the boundaries of the cinematic medium, demonstrating that there is no limit to where cinema may take us.
The following are a few of the most memorable quotes from the most renowned filmmaker of all time:
“In a certain sense the past is far more real, or at any rate more stable and more resilient than the present. The present slips and vanishes like sand between the fingers, acquiring material weight only in its recollection.”
“The director’s task is to recreate life, its movement, its contradictions, and its dynamic and conflicts. It is his duty to reveal every iota of the truth he has seen, even if not everyone finds that truth acceptable. Of course an artist can lose his way, but even his mistakes are interesting provided they are sincere. For they represent the reality of his inner life, of the peregrinations and struggle into which the external world has thrown him.”
“The allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, or to serve as an example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good.”
“Perhaps cinema is the most personal art, the most intimate. In cinema, only the author's intimate truth will be convincing enough for the audience to accept.”
“If a writer, despite his natural gifts, gives up writing because no one will publish him, then he is no writer. The artist is distinguished by his urge to create, which by very definition is a concomitant of talent.”
“Art affirms all that is best in man—hope, faith, love, beauty, prayer… What he dreams of and what he hopes for… What is art?… Like a declaration of love: the consciousness of our dependence on each other. A confession. An unconscious act that nonetheless reflects the true meaning of life—love and sacrifice.”
“My aim is to place cinema among the other art forms. To put it on a par with music, poetry, prose, etc.”
“No other art can compare with cinema in the force, precision, and starkness with which it conveys awareness of facts and aesthetic structures existing and changing within time.”
“Cinema is a very difficult and serious art; it requires sacrificing yourself. You should belong to it; it shouldn't belong to you. Cinema uses your life, not vice versa.”
“Filmmakers can be divided into two categories: those who strive to imitate the world they live in, to re-create the world that surrounds them... and the directors who create their own worlds. Those who create their own worlds are generally the poets... that is why they have trouble getting their films out. Because the audience is used to a symbolic, nonexistent film world... the result of the audience’s own interests and tastes.”
