In his introduction, Tarkovsky states that he has written the material in the volume over a period of years, and was initially inspired to write because of letters from fans. Some fans expressed puzzlement or curiosity as to what Tarkovsky had tried to attempt to communicate in his films. Underwhelmed by existing critical literature, Tarkovsky embarked on his own attempt to define such things as art and cinema, and to comment on his films. Cada vez que usted vea en el cine -aunque cada vez es más escaso- un plano fijo larguísimo, en el que parece que no pasara nada, es Tarkovski. Puede ser un Tarkovski deformado, pero es él. Él es el hombre que esculpió en el tiempo. Es la mejor definición de su cine dada por él mismo, y que da título a este libro.

Music used correctly goes beyond intensifying the image by paralleling it with the same idea -- done correctly it transfigures the image into something different in kind. Properly used, music has the ability to change the whole emotional tone of a filmed sequence. What is the essence of the director’s work? We could define it as sculpting in time. Just as a sculptor takes a lump of marble, and, inwardly conscious of the features of his finished piece, removes everything that is not part of it — so the film-maker, from a “lump of time” made up of an enormous, solid cluster of living facts, cuts off and discards whatever he does not need, leaving only what is to be an element of the finished film, what will prove to be integral to the cinematic image. The aesthetic experience of their sounding environment has of course inspired music makers throughout the ages. This is reflected in the following quote by the twentieth-century French composer Olivier Messiaen, which echoes Tarkovsky’s statement from the beginning of this article: ​7​ El hecho referido es el siguiente: Su actor fetiche, Anatoli Solonitsin, con quien trabajó en casi todas sus películas, murió de cáncer, y a él mismo le dará cáncer después. Tal como el protagonista de Sacrificio, un hombre que tiene cáncer y para recobrar su salud hace un pacto con una bruja. Para Tarkovski, este acto poético es una anticipación a la realidad que solo puede ser explicado a través de la cualidad mistérica del arte. Esto lo sella con una cita de Pushkin en la que sentencia que "un artista verdadero es, en contra de su voluntad, un profeta". Está claro que su idea sobre el arte es algo que traspasa a la materia y al propio hombre.For Tarkovsky, the greatest challenge associated with developing a script is maintaining the integrity of the film’s inspiration — “it almost seems as if circumstances have been deliberately calculated to make [the director] forget why it was that he started working on the picture” (125). For this reason, he argues that the director must also be the writer, or he must develop a partnership that is founded on complete trust. The majority of this section is devoted to The Mirror — Tarkovsky uses it as a case study of his method. Fascinating reading. The Film’s Graphic Realisation Little by little that awareness led me to carry out my wish to make a feature film about a man whose dependence upon others brings him to independence, and for whom love is at once ultimate thrall and ultimate freedom. And the more clearly I discerned the stamp of materialism on the face of our planet (irrespective of whether I was observing the West or the East), the more I came up against unhappy people, saw the victims of psychoses symptomatic of an inability or unwillingness to see why life had lost all delight and all value, why it had become oppressive, the more committed I felt to this film as the most important thing in my life. It seems to me that the individual stands today at a crossroads, faced with the choice of whether to pursue the existence of a blind consumer, subject to the implacable march of new technology and the endless multiplication of material goods, or whether to seek out a way that will lead to spiritual responsibility, which ultimately might mean not only his personal salvation but also the saving of society at large: in other words, to turn to God. He has to solve this dilemma for himself, for only he can discover his own sane spiritual life. Solving it may take him closer to the state in which he can be responsible for society. That is the step which becomes a sacrifice, in the Christian sense of self-sacrifice. La experiencia del espectador para Tarkovski lo era todo, o casi todo. Y en este libro lo explica. Él no quería imbuir de sentido fijo a sus películas, creía que eso era una especie de trampa, el crear sentidos basados en la configuración del símbolo (a través de la yuxtaposición de imágenes), sino más bien apelaba a la imagen en limpio, para que sea el espectador quien la dotase de sentido. Es por ello que le huía al manierismo del cine y su estructura clásica, y de aquello que él mismo aprendió en la escuela de cine soviética, yéndose incluso en contra de las enseñanzas del propio Eisenstein, famoso cineasta soviético creador de la teoría del montaje (justamente la búsqueda del símbolo). Tarkovski, por el contrario, explica en este libro que en su cine no hay un solo símbolo, sino que más bien sus películas están más cercanas al acto poético, a la fuerza de la imagen per se, y a el cómo esa imagen se trabaja en un tiempo específico, el tiempo interno de la escena. Eso para Tarkovski es el ritmo, y lo que define al cine y lo diferencia del resto de las artes: el tiempo. El cine es un arte del tiempo.

Maria is the antithesis of Adelaide: modest, timid, perpetually uncertain of herself. At the beginning of the film anything like friendship between her and the master of the house would be unthinkable—the differences that separate them are too great. But one night they come together, and that night is the turning-point in Alexander’s life. In the face of imminent catastrophe he perceives the love of this simple woman as a gift from God, as a justification for his entire life. The miracle that overtakes Alexander transfigures him. My hope is that those readers whom I manage to convince, if not entirely then at least in part, may become my kindred spirits, if only in recognition of the fact that I have no secrets from them. — Tarkovsky Tarkovsky decided to write this book in part to explain, or give insight, to his puzzled audience on the nature of his films. In the Introduction of his book, he cites many letters he received throughout the years, both of appraisal and discouragement. [2] The letters, regardless of their nature, seemed to agree on one thing: the people did not understand what was going on in the film. This book, as Tarkovsky explains, is a response to the questions of an audience that is willing to dialogue with him. [2] Tarkovsky has also cited film critic Olga Surkova as an inspiration for the creation of the book and that discussions with her greatly influenced the work's content. [2] Reception [ edit ] He is pro realism and anti symbolism in film. He believes the most impactful way to portray a situation is with the reality of events rather than obtuse metaphors.Andrey Tarkovsky, the genius of modern Russian cinema--hailed by Ingmar Bergman as "the most important director of our time"--died an exile in Paris in December 1986. In Sculpting in Time, he has left his artistic testament, a remarkable revelation of both his life and work. Since Ivan's Childhood won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1962, the visionary quality and totally original and haunting imagery of Tarkovsky's films have captivated serious movie audiences all over the world, who see in his work a continuation of the great literary traditions of nineteenth-century Russia. Many critics have tried to interpret his intensely personal vision, but he himself always remained inaccessible.

He was never a fan of american style adventure movies and wanted to create inward attention rather than outward. Once seen and recorded, time could now be preserved in metal boxes over a long period (theoretically for ever).” (Photo: Pexels) This aesthetic is directly reflected in Tarkovsky’s oeuvre, such as in the extremely sparse use of film music in the traditional sense in his films Solaris (1972), Stalker (1979), and The Sacrifice (1986). Without additional context, Tarkovsky’s statement could therefore be understood to stand in contradiction to this special issue’s premise that music forms “an intricate component” of Russian cinema that is “weaved into” the very fabric of its films. The following account of a conversation with Tarkovsky by his musical collaborator Eduard Artemyev seems to further support such an argument. ​2​ To what degree Tarkovsky himself was aware of these parallels is a question that his own writing provides only few hints on, even though it does include detailed reflections on cinema’s relation to literature, theater, and also music. While he evidently discusses the latter from a perspective of tender passion, he does not reflect in much detail on concurrent developments in experimental or electronic music – perhaps due to boundaries between disciplines (film; music), geographic-political contexts (East; West), and professional roles (director; composer; sound designer). Looking beyond Tarkovsky’s oeuvre, it appears to me that more often than not, aesthetic discourses in music and film follow separate trajectories with surprisingly little overlap. ​4​ For example, Tarkovsky’s text has, to my knowledge, not been widely discussed in the field of electroacoustic music composition – even though its notion of sculpting in time seems particularly relevant in such a context.Art, in a broad sense, is spirituality. It seeks to awaken the spirituality of the spectator, to uplift them, to make them feel more alive. The modern world, with its material comforts and technology, is in desperate need of the spiritual awakening promised by great art.

The basic element of cinema is rhythm. The director brings his own rhythm to a picture, as do the subjects photographed as well as the editing imposed upon the footage.For me, the true, the only music has always existed in the sounds of nature: The harmony of the wind in the trees, the rhythm of the waves of the ocean, the timbre of the raindrops, the breaking branches, the impact of stones, the different animal cries are for me the real music […]. Cabe destacar que este poeta en el cine, fue llevado al exilio por su renuncia a acatar dogmas culturales y las limitaciones ideológicas de su país en ese entonces, por lo que se dedicó en esos lentos años de angustia a escribir su libro "Esculpir en el tiempo" donde explica detalladamente sus ideas acerca de, no solo creo yo, del séptimo arte, sino de sus inquietudes respecto a la vida misma. David Kollar and his solo album “Sculpting in Time“ (Hevhetia 2019) – extraordinary guitar player composing/sculpturing extraordinary music with exceptional collaborators: Erik Truffaz and Arve Henriksen (both trumpet), Christian Fennesz (guitar & electronics), Pat Mastelotto (drummer of King Crimson, this time even reading Pasternak´s poem…). This piece of musical art is inspired primarily by the poetics of legendary film director Andrey Tarkovsky in many explicit and implicit levels: nevertheless Kollar´s inclination to his movies (especially Stalker and Mirror) is not either accidental, neither conjectural, but significative. It is connected with inner energy of nostalgia, desire and constant searching for deeper sense of our unpredictable lives. His introspective musical compositions are an expression of questioning our the most hidden, burning existential tensions. Sometimes they sounds conciliatorily, sometimes very disquietly, gradually they will bring you over deeply inside, where you can find maybe something forgotten, but important ultimately evoking unusual catharsis.." Cada vez que usted vea en el cine -aunque cada vez es más escaso- un plano fijo larguísimo, en el que parece que no pasara nada, es Tarkovski. Puede ser un Tarkovski deformado, pero es él. Él es el hombre que esculpió en el tiempo. Es la mejor definición de su cine dada por él mismo, y que da título a este libro. Una gran influencia para muchos cineastas que quisieron seguir/copiar su estilo. Aún recuerdo siendo una estudiante universitaria, la mística alrededor de Tarkovski. Seguía siendo un outsider ya a finales de los noventa y entrado en los dosmiles. Ver sus películas era una especie de ritual para pocos, pero, a la vez, para algunos no era más que un snobismo trasnochado. Los Bergmans, Antonionis, Buñeles y Bressones estaban en ese punto de quiebre que marcaba el nuevo milenio, y que empezaba a darle una fuerza irreductible a la entrada de las nuevas tecnologías, llámese la revolución de lo digital. Entonces, todo aquello con un ritmo análogo y con intención de "el arte por el arte"parecía entrar al terreno de lo caduco, para algunos enfrascados en la novedad y el ritmo cada vez más acelerado de los tiempos.