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What is art? (...) Like a declaration of love: the consciousness of our dependence on each other. A confession. An unconscious act that none the less reflects the true meaning of life—love and sacrifice.

Andrei Tarkovsky

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Andrei Tarkovsky
Age: 54 †
Born: 1932
Born: April 4
Died: 1986
Died: December 28
Actor
Biographer
Director
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Writer
Screenwriter
Theatrical Director
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky
Andrej Tarkovskij
Andrei Tarkovski
Andrej Tarkovszkij
And. Arsenʹevich Tarkovskiĭ
Andrey Arsenyevich Tarkovsky
Andreĭ Arsenʹevich Tarkovskĭi
Andrei Tarkovskij
Andreĭ Arsenévich Tarkovskiĭ
Andrey Tarkovsky
Andreĭ Arsen'evich Tarkovskiĭ
Andrej Tarkowskij
Andreiĭ Arsen'evich Tarkovskiĭ
Andrei Arsen'evich Tarko
Consciousness
Reflects
Less
Confession
Art
Dependence
True
Declaration
Love
Unconscious
Life
None
Like
Sacrifice
Meaning

More quotes by Andrei Tarkovsky

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An artist cannot be partially sincere any more than art can be an approximation of beauty.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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An artist needs knowledge and the power of observation only so that he can tell from what he is abstaining, and to be sure that his abstention will not appear artificial or false.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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People who grow bored in their own company seem to me in danger.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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The Stalker seems to be weak, but essentially it is he who is invincible because of his faith and his will to serve others.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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What nobody seems to understand is that love can only be one-sided, that no other love exists, that in any other form it is not love. If it involves less than total giving, it is not love. It is impotent for the moment it is nothing.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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We know perfectly well that neither love nor peace of mind can be bought with any currency.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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MORE CONSISTENTLY THAN EVER I WAS TRYING TO MAKE PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT CINEMA AS AN INSTRUMENT OF ART HAS ITS OWN POSSIBILITIES WHICH ARE EQUAL TO THOSE OF PROSE. I WANTED TO DEMONSTRATE HOW CINEMA IS ABLE TO OBSERVE LIFE, WITHOUT INTERFERING, CRUDELY OR OBVIOUSLY, WITH ITS CONTINUITY. FOR THAT IS WHERE I SEE THE POETIC ESSENCE OF CINEMA.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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AN ARTISTIC DISCOVERY OCCURS EACH TIME AS A NEW AND UNIQUE IMAGE OF THE WORLD, A HIEROGLYPHIC OF ABSOLUTE TRUTH. IT APPEARS AS A REVELATION, AS A MOMENTARY, PASSIONATE WISH TO GRASP INTUITIVELY AND AT A STROKE ALL THE LAWS OF THIS WORLD-ITS BEAUTY AND UGLINESS, ITS COMPASSION AND CRUELTY, ITS INFINITY AND ITS LIMITATIONS.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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A literary work can only be received through symbols, through concepts - for that is what words are but cinema, like music, allows for utterly direct, emotional, sensuous perception of the work.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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The artist has a duty to be calm. He has no right to show his emotion, his involvement, to go pouring it all out at the audience. Any excitement over a subject must be sublimated into an Olympian calm of form. That is the only way in which an artist can tell of the things that excite him.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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If you try to please audiences, uncritically accepting their tastes, it can only mean that you have no respect for them: that you simply want to collect their money.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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The allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, 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.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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MANY MANAGE TO SEPARATE THEIR LIFE FROM THEIR FILMS. THEY LIVE ONE WAY AND EXPRESS OTHER IDEAS IN THEIR WORKS. THEY ARE ABLE TO SPLIT THEIR CONSCIENCE. I CAN'T. TO ME CINEMA IS NOT JUST MY JOB: IT'S MY LIFE, AND EACH FILM IS AN ACT OF MY LIFE.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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The meaning of religious truth is hope.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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Art would be useless if the world were perfect.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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A man writes because he is tormented, because he doubts. He needs to constantly prove to himself and the others that he’s worth something. And if I know for sure that I’m a genius? Why write then? What the hell for?
Andrei Tarkovsky
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IN THE CINEMA A DIRECTOR EXPRESSES HIS INDIVIDUALITY FIRST AND FOREMOST THROUGH HIS SENSE OF TIME, THROUGH RHYTHM. RHYTHM GIVES COLOUR TO A WORK BY DISTINGUISHABLE STYLISTIC CHARACTERISTICS. RHYTHM MUST ARISE NATURALLY IN A FILM, A FUNCTION OF THE DIRECTOR'S INNATE SENSE OF LIFE AND COMMENSURATE WITH HIS QUEST FOR TIME.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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I have to say from the outset that not all prose can be transferred to the screen.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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History is not Time nor is evolution. They are both consequences. Time is a state: the flame in which there lives the salamander of the human soul.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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I have a horror of tags and labels. I don't understand, for instance, how people can talk about Bergman's symbolism. Far from being symbolic, be seems to me, through and almost biological naturalism, to arrive at the spiritual truth about human life that is important to him.
Andrei Tarkovsky