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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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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
Direct
Utterly
Emotional
Literary
Words
Received
Music
Symbols
Work
Allows
Like
Cinema
Concepts
Perception
Sensuous

More quotes by Andrei Tarkovsky

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Art is realistic when it strives to express an ethical ideal. Realism is striving for truth, and truth is always beautiful. Here the aesthetic coincides with the ethical.
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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The artist is always the servant, and is perpetually trying to pay for the gift that has been given to him as if by a miracle. Modern man, however, does not want to make any sacrifice, even though true affirmation of the self can only be expressed in sacrifice.
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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Becoming an artist does not merely mean learning something, acquiring professional techniques and methods. Indeed, as someone has said, in order to write well you have to forget the grammar.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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Where am I when I'm not in reality or in my imagination?
Andrei Tarkovsky
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Art is born out of an ill-designed world.
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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I am convinced that any attempt to restore harmony in the world can only rest on the renewal of personal responsibility.
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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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
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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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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 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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If the regular length of a shot is increased, one becomes bored, but if you keep on making it longer, it piques your interest, and if you make it even longer, a new quality emerges, a special intensity of attention.
Andrei Tarkovsky
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I think in fact that unless there is an organic link between the subjective impressions of the author and his objective representation of reality, he will not achieve even superficial credibility, let alone authenticity and inner truth.
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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All of us are infected today with an extraordinary egoism. And that is not freedom freedom means learning to demand only of oneself, not of life and others, and knowing how to give: sacrifice in the name of love.
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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Never try to convey your idea to the audience - it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they'll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it.
Andrei Tarkovsky