Andrei Tarkovsky
With associative films rich in imagery, such as Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972), The Mirror (1974) and especially Stalker (1979), Andrei Tarkovsky (1932‒1986) made his name as a leading innovator of the language of cinema. This autumn, Eye presents an exhibition and film programme devoted to the celebrated filmmaker and mystic, focusing specifically on Tarkovsky’s quest for existential truth. In addition to immersing the visitor in Tarkovsky’s imagery, the exhibition includes unique documents — letters, photos and Polaroids — that have never previously been displayed in the Netherlands. Moreover, the accompanying film programme features digitally restored films.
The work of Andrei Tarkovsky weaves together dreams and memories, past and present. The painterly beauty of his images, his metaphysical reflections on humanity, and his lucid observations about cinema still inspire new generations of filmmakers and artists. Filmmakers such as Béla Tarr and Alexander Sokurov are considered his most direct descendants in the world of film.
Andrej Tarkovski / Andrei Tarkovsky
Solaris (1972)
De jeugd van Ivan / Ivan's Childhood (1962)
inner voice, personal visual idiom
Beyond the straitjacket of social-realist Soviet cinema, Tarkovsky developed a unique body of work in which he saw life as a spiritual quest for truth and self-knowledge. He called it the ‘inner voice of humankind’, which could only be heard within range of the magical and transcendental. He saw his films as ‘hieroglyphics of absolute truth’, acts of non-rational creation that, more than analytical science, were capable of revealing existential meaning.
For Tarkovsky, who died in 1986, film was the ideal medium for getting close to ‘real’ life. Of all the arts, film comes closest to the laws and patterns of human thought and life, he contended — and that made it the most truthful form of art. The style of Tarkovsky’s films was determined by extremely long takes, a very slowly moving camera, remarkable use of sound and music, and an alternation of coloured and monochrome sequences.
Solaris (1972)
Stalker (1979)
Andrej Roebljov / Andrei Rublev (1966)
exhibition concept
The exhibition has been conceived to get as close as possible to Tarkovsky and his work. That is why it will immerse visitors in the director’s imagery, intoxicating them, as it were, with numerous precisely chosen fragments from his films. This approach follows the ideas of the filmmaker regarding the ‘poetry of the image’ and the necessity of a ‘poetic logic’ and a ‘poetic montage’.
private memories
Especially unique is the collection of Polaroids and photographs – never previously shown in the Netherlands – made by Tarkovsky in a private capacity and while filming. The exhibition will also include material from Tarkovsky’s private archives, including letters, scripts and other documents that have never before been presented. These mementos of Tarkovsky’s personal and professional life have been made available by Tarkovsky’s son Andrei Andrejevich Tarkovsky.
Het offer / The Sacrifice (1986)
Nostalghia (1983)
film programme
The accompanying programme features Tarkovsky’s entire body of work, mostly in the form of digital restorations, including The Mirror (1974), Solaris (1972), and his last film, The Sacrifice (1986). Also included are films by directors who inspired Tarkovsky (Sergei Parajanov, Robert Bresson) and by directors who Tarkovsky inspired (Lars von Trier, Alex Garland). Six of Tarkovsky’s films will be distributed nationally by Eye.
For those interested in Russia’s Soviet past, a six-part lecture series is being organized in collaboration with Russia expert Otto Boelen from Leiden University.
The art magazine Kunstschrift will publish a special issue devoted to Tarkovsky.
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was born on 4 April 1932 in Zavrazhye (close to Moscow). His father Arseny Tarkovsky was a prominent poet during the Soviet era and had previously worked as a translator of poems from Turkoman, Georgian, Armenian and Arabic. He left the family in 1937 when Andrei was still a young boy and volunteered for the Russian army in 1941. Andrei then moved with his sister to Moscow.
During the Second World War, the family fled Moscow and stayed with Andrei’s grandmother in Yuryevets. After the war, the family returned to the city, where, in November 1947, Andrei was admitted to hospital for a number of months with tuberculosis. The major and violent events of Tarkovsky’s youth resurface in a number of his films.
After aborting his studies in Arabic and undertaking an expedition to Siberia, Tarkovsky enrolled in 1954 in the directing programme at the film academy in Moscow. In 1957 he married Irma Rausch, an actress who played in his films Ivan’s Childhood (1962) and Andrei Rublev (1966). During the Khrushchev era of the early 1950s, censorship was temporarily relaxed, allowing literature, films and music from Europe and the US to reach the Soviet Union. That gave Tarkovsky an opportunity to see films by authors who heavily influenced his later work, among them Akira Kurosawa, Luis Buñuel, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson and Kenji Mizoguchi.
Tarkovsky’s graduation work at the film academy in Moscow, The Steamroller and the Violin (1960), brought him instant success and renown. The film won the first prize at the New York Student Film Festival in 1960. Ivan’s Childhood, his first feature film, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 1962 and won the Golden Lion. The Soviet authorities were less impressed, which meant that the film received almost no attention and enjoyed very limited circulation. His second feature film, about the life of the fifteenth-century iconographer Andrei Rublev (1966), enjoyed a better reception in the West than in his own country. The film was among the prize-winners at Cannes Film Festival but had to be shortened a number of times before being released in the Soviet Union.
In 1970, Tarkovsky married his second wife, Larissa Kizilova, who had been production assistant on the film Andrei Rublev. Their son, Andrei Andrejevich, was born that same year. It wasn’t until The Mirror (1974), his highly autobiographical masterpiece which he had been working on since 1967 but which he could only film in 1973-1974, that he got into serious difficulties with the censors. The authorities placed the film in the ‘third category’, ensuring it had an extremely limited distribution and also that the maker was in danger of being accused of wasting public money.
Tarkovsky’s difficulties with the Soviet authorities foreshadowed his eventual defection to Europe. Before he definitively left the Soviet Union, Tarkovsky made Stalker (1979), which turned out to be an instant classic. In 1982, he relocated permanently to Italy.
Tarkovsky made another two films, Nostalghia (1983) and The Sacrifice (1986), both of which were very well received internationally and won various accolades. He died of cancer in a Paris hospital on 29 December 1986.
The exhibition was made possible by:
Agenda
Thursday, 19 Sep 2019
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19:3019 Sep 2019
Friday, 20 Sep 2019
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10:3020 Sep 2019
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19:1520 Sep 2019
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21:0020 Sep 2019
Saturday, 21 Sep 2019
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11:0021 Sep 2019
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16:1521 Sep 2019
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18:3021 Sep 2019
Sunday, 22 Sep 2019
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10:3022 Sep 2019
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16:0022 Sep 2019
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18:1522 Sep 2019
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20:3022 Sep 2019
Monday, 23 Sep 2019
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14:0023 Sep 2019
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19:0023 Sep 2019
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21:3023 Sep 2019
Tuesday, 24 Sep 2019
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11:0024 Sep 2019
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19:1524 Sep 2019
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21:0024 Sep 2019
Wednesday, 25 Sep 2019
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16:0025 Sep 2019
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19:0025 Sep 2019
Thursday, 26 Sep 2019
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10:3026 Sep 2019
Saturday, 28 Sep 2019
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15:0028 Sep 2019
Sunday, 29 Sep 2019
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16:0029 Sep 2019
Monday, 30 Sep 2019
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11:0030 Sep 2019
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16:0030 Sep 2019
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21:0030 Sep 2019
Tuesday, 1 Oct 2019
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21:301 Oct 2019
Wednesday, 2 Oct 2019
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15:302 Oct 2019
Friday, 4 Oct 2019
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18:454 Oct 2019
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21:004 Oct 2019
Saturday, 5 Oct 2019
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16:455 Oct 2019
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21:005 Oct 2019
Sunday, 6 Oct 2019
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13:006 Oct 2019
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16:006 Oct 2019
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19:006 Oct 2019
Monday, 7 Oct 2019
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19:007 Oct 2019
Tuesday, 8 Oct 2019
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15:308 Oct 2019
Wednesday, 9 Oct 2019
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15:459 Oct 2019
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18:009 Oct 2019
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20:459 Oct 2019
Thursday, 10 Oct 2019
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15:4510 Oct 2019
Friday, 11 Oct 2019
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16:0011 Oct 2019
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19:3011 Oct 2019
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21:0011 Oct 2019
Saturday, 12 Oct 2019
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16:0012 Oct 2019
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19:1512 Oct 2019
Sunday, 13 Oct 2019
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16:0013 Oct 2019
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19:4513 Oct 2019
Monday, 14 Oct 2019
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15:3014 Oct 2019
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19:0014 Oct 2019
Tuesday, 15 Oct 2019
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15:3015 Oct 2019
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21:3015 Oct 2019
Friday, 18 Oct 2019
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16:0018 Oct 2019
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18:2018 Oct 2019
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19:4518 Oct 2019
Saturday, 19 Oct 2019
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16:0019 Oct 2019
Sunday, 20 Oct 2019
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18:0020 Oct 2019
Monday, 21 Oct 2019
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19:0021 Oct 2019
Sunday, 27 Oct 2019
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16:1527 Oct 2019
Monday, 28 Oct 2019
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19:0028 Oct 2019
Friday, 1 Nov 2019
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16:301 Nov 2019
Tuesday, 5 Nov 2019
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19:155 Nov 2019
Thursday, 7 Nov 2019
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19:007 Nov 2019
Saturday, 9 Nov 2019
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18:459 Nov 2019
Friday, 15 Nov 2019
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16:1515 Nov 2019
Sunday, 17 Nov 2019
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19:1517 Nov 2019
Full programme
From A to Z
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film
Andrei Rublev
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966 -
special
Digital Tarkovsky
special, 2019 -
film compilation
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film and music
Eye on Sound: City Lights
Charles Chaplin, US 1931 -
film and music
Eye on Sound: Earth (Zemlya)
Alexander Dovzhenko, 1930 -
film
Falling Leaves (Listopad)
Otar Iosseliani, 1966 -
film
Ivan’s Childhood
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1962 -
film
Japón
Carlos Reygadas, MX 2002 -
film
Le journal d'un curé de campagne
Robert Bresson, FR 1951 -
film
Long Day's Journey Into Night (3D)
Bi Gan, CN 2018 -
film
Melancholia
Lars von Trier, DK 2011 -
film
Nazarin
Luis Buñuel, MX 1958 -
film
Nostalghia
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983 -
film
One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich
Chris Marker, FR 1999 -
film
Shame (Skammen)
Ingmar Bergman, SE 1968 -
film
Solaris
Andrei Tarkovski, 1972 -
film
Solaris
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972 -
film
Stalker
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979 -
special
Tarkovsky & Tarkovsky
special, 2019 -
film
Tempo di viaggio
Andrei Tarkovski, IT 1983 -
film
The Color of Pomegranates
Sergej Paradzanov, 1969 -
film
The Mirror
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1974 -
film
The Return (Vozvrashcheniye)
Andrei Zvyagintsev, RU 2003 -
film
The Sacrifice
Andrei Tarkovsky, SE 1986 -
film and music
Torus scores Stalker
Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979 -
film
Ugetsu monogatari
Kenji Mizoguchi, JP 1953