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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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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
Needs
Observation
Appear
False
Sure
Knowledge
Artist
Abstaining
Tell
Abstention
Power
Artificial

More quotes by Andrei Tarkovsky

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It is obvious that art cannot teach anyone anything, since in four thousand years humanity has learnt nothing at all.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual...
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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My function is to make whoever sees my films aware of his need to love and to give his love, and aware the beauty is summoning him.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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It is perfectly possible to be a professional director or a professional writer and not to be an artist: merely a sort of executor of other people's ideas.
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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Juxtaposing a person with an environment that is boundless, collating him with a countless number of people passing by close to him and far away, relating a person to the whole world, that is the meaning of cinema.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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Art is born out of an ill-designed world.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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IN CINEMA IT IS NECESSARY NOT TO EXPLAIN, BUT TO ACT UPON THE VIEWER'S FEELINGS, AND THE EMOTION WHICH IS AWOKEN IS WHAT PROVOKES THOUGHT.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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Knowledge is truthful only if it’s based in morality.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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Modern mass culture, aimed at the consumer, the civilisation of prosthetics, is crippling people's souls, setting up barriers between man and the crucial questions of his existence, his consciousness of himself as a spiritual being.
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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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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IN ALL MY FILMS, IT SEEMED IMPORTANT TO ME TO REMIND THE AUDIENCE TO THE FACT THAT THEY ARE NOT ALONE, LOST IN AN EMPTY UNIVERSE, BUT THAT THEY ARE CONNECTED BY INNUMERABLE THREADS WITH THEIR PAST AND PRESENT, THAT THROUGH CERTAIN MYSTICAL WAYS, EVERY HUMAN BEING REALIZES THE RAPPORT WITH THE WORLD AND THE LIFE OF HUMANITY.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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The meaning of religious truth is hope.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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I'VE NOTICED, FROM MY EXPERIENCE, IF THE EXTERNAL, EMOTIONAL CONSTRUCTION OF IMAGES IN A FILM ARE BASED ON THE FILMMAKER'S OWN MEMORY, ON THE KINSHIP OF ONE'S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE FABRIC OF THE FILM, THEN THE FILM WILL HAVE THE POWER TO AFFECT THOSE WHO SEE IT.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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Unlike all the other art forms, film is able to seize and render the passage of time, to stop it, almost to possess it in infinity. I'd say that film is the sculpting of time.
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