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Tarkovsky Hardcover – March 25, 2008

by Nathan Dunne (Editor), Jean-Paul Sartre (Contributor), Marc Forster (Contributor)

11 ratings

4.3 on Goodreads

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Tarkovsky provides a collection of accessible academic essays by leading film studies professionals. A challenging, broadly illustrated book that fully captures the essence of this cinematic pioneer.

Andrei Tarkovsky is the most influential Soviet filmmaker of the post-war era, and one of the world's most renowned cinematic geniuses. He created spiritual, existential films of incredible beauty, repeatedly returning to themes of memory, dreams, childhood and Christianity. His films, such as Solaris, Mirror, Nostalghia and The Sacrifice make use of long, unedited shots and wide angles in uncompromisingly formalistic statements that are as striking today as they were when they were first made.

Print length

463 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Black Dog Publishing
Publication date

March 25, 2008
Dimensions

8.05 x 1.75 x 10.2 inches
ISBN-10

1906155046
ISBN-13

978-1906155049
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Andrey Tarkovsky
384
Paperback
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Editorial Reviews

Review

'An impeccably erudite tome.' -- The Times- London

'Beautifully designed, annotated and written...with illuminating contributions...and some quite stunning pieces of re-evaluation by academic film theorists...this is a seminal text.' -- The List

'Beautifully illustrated anthology...these essays offer acute and profound insights into Tarkovsky's world.' -- Sight & Sound, Book of the Month

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Black Dog Publishing (March 25, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 463 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1906155046
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1906155049
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.05 x 1.75 x 10.2 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,342,200 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #631 in Individual Directors
- #5,962 in Movie History & Criticism
- #16,782 in Actor & Entertainer Biographies

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11 ratings

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K Chiba

Huge Book! Huge Talent!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 18, 2008

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I own several books on this unique Russian filmmaker, but was not prepared for the sheer size and content of this one. The book arrived in a box so big that I assumed had several books in. Though I have only started to scan through it, the photographs are amazing and the text is the kind one who seriously enjoys films can read. Not over done with "social content" or metaphor interpretations, but rather focuses on the real skill of making each film. Choice of camera work, writing, etc.

I look forward to getting through this book. Though is going to take some time!

12 people found this helpful

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Steven E. Mosher

Great price for a used book compared to new

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 18, 2013

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This save us so much money compared to the new book and it was in very good condition. Glad to have save 100's of dollars!

One person found this helpful

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Tangy

Tarkovsky'simpressions

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 27, 2008

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Tarkovsky's images, even when they are still, they do impress for ever, like the ones in our family's picture book.

One person found this helpful

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straub

tarkovsky

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 27, 2008

an interesting collection of essays on tarkovsky. there are better books on him, i think.

One person found this helpful

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Pavel Shapko

Best Book on Tarkovsky

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 10, 2008

I was very excited to receive this book in the post the other day. It has a whole heap of large and beautiful images from Tarkovksy's movies. And it is also beautifully designed which makes the text easy to read. I have only read a couple of pieces so far (its a huge book) but the memoir section is amazing. The piece from the guy who worked on Stalker says a lot of interesting things - what a difficult production process and what a film! I own a number of books on Tarkovsky and I think this is by the far the most comprehensive and detailed. It goes deeper than the others and explores new territory, such as the other directors and artists that Tarkovsky is connected to. Some of the pieces deal with philosophy but they aren't hard going. I think this is the perfect book for someone who has seen one of Tarkovsky's movies and wants to get a sense of what they mean. Its not a short introduction thats for sure but I think its totally unique. Excellent and beautiful tome.

4 people found this helpful

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R. J MOSS

The Immortal Tarkovsky

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 17, 2008

This is a must have for the Tarkovskyphile. Splendid, decent-sized stills from the films, most not seen before, a selection of his dad's nostalgic poetry, and plenty of recollections from collaborators, followers, admirers, and analysts for mental fodder. It's big, bold and timely. It, of course assumes an experience of the films themselves. But if you have that, and they live inside you, this book is a welcome guest. Chapter headings;Russia and religion, Art and Nature, Music and Modernity, Memory and Awakening, are a foretaste of themes developed and the respondents are equal to the challenges without recourse to bewildering high-art jargon. I have often wondered how to articulate the drop-off in, Sacrifice' and found resonance in the pros and cons argued respectively by Bhaskar Sarkar's essay,'Thredony for Modernity' and James Quandt's,comparative piece on Bresson and Tarkovsky.Highly recommended.

7 people found this helpful

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MarkusG

Tarkovsky Coffeetable book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 5, 2008

Actually, I'm a little disappointed with this book. While it is big sized and full of fine pictures and good essays, I still miss something. I would have liked more pictures from the production of Tarkovsky's films, sketches and early concepts, and also more pictures from Stalker and Solaris. And also larger pictures. This may sound like complaining too much on a great book, but that's how I feel. 3.5 stars. My advise is: check it out inside before buying.

One person found this helpful

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Nicholas Casley

"Cinema would never look on a simple meadow in the same way again"

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 9, 2011

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This is a review of the heavy and chunky hardback edition of this multi-authored work on Tarkovsky, edited by Nathan Dunne. Its heaviness and chunkiness is often mirrored in its contents, but there are also some interesting comments and new insights into the work of the master of the long take and alluring profundity. This is not, therefore, an overview of the man and his work - the reader wanting such an introduction should look elsewhere. (I would recommend `Andrei Tarkovsky' by Sean Martin.) Rather this is a collection of essays that offer diverse and curious insights and approaches to the man's work and beliefs.

In his introduction, Dunne writes "This collection of essays ... explores the potentialities for research on Tarkovsky's corpus." He says he has sought not to be too reverential, and has divided the twenty essays up into four sections of five chapters each. (This structure does not really work and is too contrived to be meaningful. Indeed, Dunne's summary of the chapters within each section reveals that the sheer diversity of their coverage is too wide to be contained within their sectional headings.) Dunne's hope "is to establish a platform whereby future research on Tarkovsky may be taken in a wider interdisciplinary context."

The first section - Russian and Religion - includes a comparative essay between Tarkovsky's `Mirror' and Arnshtam's `Zoya', as well as Sartre's response to a review of `Ivan's Childhood'. In his essay on `Virtualisation of Space and Self in Tarkovsky's `Solaris'' - despite such horrific sentences as "Tarkovsky finds the retreat from techno-science, which has been fundamental to the West's and Soviet outlook on life, in art, which functions as a site of resistance to the subjugation of Being to theoretical knowledge" - Vlad Strukov does have much of interest to say about that film's attitude and intellectual orientation. `Solaris', he writes, "continues the Romantic tradition with its reaction against the scientific rationalisation of nature." The title of Gerard Loughlin's essay is `Tarkovsky's Trees'. What other director could have their name appear in such a title? (Visconti's villas, anyone?) But trees DO of course have a subtle presence in Tarkovsky's films, and Loughlin surveys the films with a "theological eye". Alastair Renfrew, in the final essay in this section, looks at how Tarkovsky subverted the essence of genre in his earliest three films - war-film, historical epic, sci-fi - and sees the stutterer's cure at the start of `Mirror' as an autobiographical reference, drawing a line under all the films that went before.

Art and Nature are the supposed subjects of the second section. There is an essay on Tarkovsky and the `Madonna del Parto' that appears in `Nostalghia', and another on how Tarkovsky uses paintings in the medium of film, focussing on `Andrei Rublev' and `Solaris'. But it was only when reading Stephanie Sandler's essay that I suddenly realised the obvious: that the narratives in Tarkovsky's films are poetic in form rather than prose. Another interesting essay is by Vladimir Golstein, who wonders aloud how much the West's praise for Tarkovsky was a product of Cold War politics. If Tarkovsky had been British, would he ever have been able to have just one film made? (But Derek Jarman did.) But Tarkovsky was (in truth) "hardly a dissident, a persecuted artist, a religious or spiritual leader."

My notes on the essays in the third section - Music and Modernity - are not so extensive, but the essays here link Tarkovsky with Bresson, Flaubert, and others. David Miall notes in his contribution the uncanny way that Tarkovsky's characters are `assumed' by the viewer. Meanwhile, Dunne's own essay in the collection is a fascinating review of how Tarkovsky used music and sound effects in his films, or, in Dunne's own words, "an exploration of the acoustic details through which Tarkovsky attempted to go beyond the banal and the perfunctory, to convey the profundity of human experience."

The final section addresses Memory and Awakening, which "presents a range of personal encounters with Tarkovsky's working process." Thus, we have Tarkovsky's assistant director on `Stalker' commenting on how "cinema would never look upon a simple meadow in the same way again"; we have Tarkovsky's assistant director on his opera production of `Boris Godunov' remarking on Tarkovsky's vision of the work; we have a report on a week's workshop held in Berlin in 1984 by someone who was there and left "fascinated and irritated with Tarkovsky"; we have the art director on `Solaris' who informs us that, "In each of Tarkovsky's films there is, without fail, present a painting which, in concentrated form, expresses the idea of the entire film"; and finally we have the film director Marc Forster remarking how Tarkovsky has influenced his own work, but also concluding that he "is unlikely ever to have an effective imitator", for such a person would require "the totality of his aesthetic, and even the totality of his metaphysic."

The book comes with a complete filmography and a generous selection of stills. There is also a timeline, endnotes, and an index. A real plus for this book is the charming presentation of a selection of six poems by Arseny Tarkovsky, accompanied by photos from the family album.

3 people found this helpful

MarkusG

Tarkovsky Coffeetable Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 5, 2008

Verified Purchase

Actually, I'm a little disappointed with this book. While it is big sized and full of fine pictures and good essays, I still miss something. I would have liked more pictures from the production of Tarkovsky's films, sketches and early concepts, and also more pictures from Stalker and Solaris. And also larger pictures. This may sound like complaining too much on a great book, but that's how I feel. 3.5 stars. Check it out before buying.

2 people found this helpful

S. Rogers

Fascinating subject, researched comprehensively but woeful shipping and handling!

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 9, 2009

Verified Purchase

I have put off writing anything about this purchase; both copies that I ordered were slow in being processed and both were damaged during shipping within Canada. Amazon's standard wraparound packaging simply does not protect the corners of books such as this; the upper front corner and the first four inside pages were bent. Anyone wanting to have a testimony to T's lifeworks will welcome this book, especially if it is received in its original condition.

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Tarkovsky Hardcover – March 25, 2008

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