Leningrad Documentary Film Production
The war dream
The relatives of this woman, Maria lvanovna Vishnyakova,
were villagers.
They insisted she give birth in the village.
A boy was born, named Andrei,
in Zavrazhye,
Yurievets District, Ivanovo Oblast,
on April 4, 1932.
Soon after, his sister was born.
She was named Marina.
Their father
was a prominent Russian poet,
Arseni Tarkovsky.
The Tarkovsky family originated in Dagestan
at least seven centuries ago.
The Tarkovsky princedom existed in the Caucasus
up until the middle of the 19th century.
In Maria's family, there were generals and engineers.
Laura! This is Andrei.
Andrei Tarkovsky.
The Soviet filmmaker was invited to Italy
by RAI, an Italian state-owned TV and radio company,
to work on his film Nostalghia.
Talking with Tonino Guerra, poet and script-writer.
You know, Andrei, tonight I wrote a poem for you.
I'd like to read it now.
I write poetry in dialect, not in literary Italian.
Yet I want you to listen, perhaps you'll understand.
What's a home?
Perhaps it's a coat, or when it rains, an umbrella.
It's full of bottles, rags,
wooden ducks, curtains and fans.
No desire to ever leave here, it seems.
Then, is it a cage
for anyone who happens to come?
Even for a bird like you, with traces of snow...
It's very good, only too sad.
There's some hope.
We must have a programme, or we'll get no results.
We must look through all we saw during our trip,
all we may need for the script,
and leave out all we won't need.
We still need a general list,
to begin with Sorrento.
Toni, salute Michelangelo. Thank him for everything.
When the work on Nostalghia started,
he was already 50.
We travel all the time around tourist sites.
I haven't yet seen a single place
our character could come across.
I show him all these places
so he can absorb all the beauties of Italy.
Then, of course, he can forget it all.
However...
However, I'd like to ask you:
if a Russian comes here,
what's his purpose?
He may come for business.
Or he may have a cultural purpose.
I agree we must show some of Italy's beauty,
but I don't want our character to be abstract.
It's interesting to watch him.
His movements, his silence.
His speech.
One easily remembers his gestures, his smile,
his particular concentration.
His image is immediate and remains with us.
You're going to see some footage shot long ago.
It strikingly resembles
though it was long ago, many years ago
the images you have just seen.
A literary hero is not a superman.
Among literary heroes, there is Bashmachkin,
from Gogol's Overcoat,
Dostoevsky's Prince Myshkin,
Raskolnikov, Pushkin's Hermann.
One can't understand what's heroic
about Myshkin, or Raskolnikov, who killed an old woman.
Or about Bashmachkin, a clerk who had his overcoat stolen.
Or about Prince Myshkin, who wasn't quite sane.
It appears that art influences the public
not by contagion, that's wrong,
but through a kind of ethical enlightenment,
through one's encounter with the world
of artists...
This has such an impact on the human soul
that it changes, and...
one who's seen or read a work of art,
can no longer remain the same... as before.
It's hard to give advice.
Yet the main thing I would say to young directors,
is to learn not to separate their work,
their films, or cinema in general,
from life as it is.
One should try to avoid gaps
between one's work, one's own films,
and one's acts.
This is because a filmmaker is like a poet or a musician,
and total self-sacrifice is required.
It would be strange to see a filmmaker
consider his work as a special gift of fate,
follow a certain way of life,
but make his films in a different way.
I'd like to tell all the young filmmakers
to be morally responsible for the acts
they intend to transfer onto the screen.
That's the main thing. Besides...
They should get accustomed to the idea
that it's is a serious, difficult art,
with great sacrifices.
It's you who must belong to the art, not vice versa.
They should get accustomed to the idea
that cinema is too serious, too difficult...
It's cinema that makes use of you, not vice versa.
I think one's got to learn how to serve film,
not be its victim.
It makes use of you, not vice versa.
His life in the West was not a miraculous dream.
He shot Nostalghia freely, but not easily.
The great doubts and tragic clarity of thought
that had pursued Tarkovsky all his life,
followed him here.
No matter what he did, nor in what country he lived,
he remained a Russian humanist.
It was painful. He said:
"After all, happiness isn't all in life".
Listen, I want to ask you a question.
Why is it women who always ask for something?
You ask me'? I'm a simple sacristan, what can I know?
Perhaps you've already asked yourself?
Why women should be weaker than men?
You should know that best.
Because I'm a woman? But actually...
I never understood it.
I'm an ordinary man. To my mind...
women were created to bear children,
and raise them patiently through self-sacrifice.
They're not good for anything else?
- I don't know. Thank you. You've helped me a lot.
You've asked me what I was asking myself.
You want to be happy.
This isn't all in life.
Wait!
Passed away the leader of the Soviet Communist Party,
of the Soviet State
a prominent figure of the world Communist movement,
a true fighter for peace.
In their Appeal to the Party and the Soviet people,
the Central Committee,
the Supreme Council of the USSR
and the Council of Ministers
called on the Communists and all the Soviet people
to rally closer around the Leninist Central Committee.
The Appeal said: "Our people are sure that
"no matter what the event, or ordeal, our Party...
remains at the height of its historical mission."
By the coffin, hundreds of wreaths from...
the Central Committee, the Supreme Council of the USSR,
from the Council of Ministers, from the Soviet Republics,
from Party bodies,
from our country's workers and public organizations,
and foreign states.
The awards honoring Leonid Brezhnev
for his numerous activities
as leader of the Communist Party
and Soviet State.
The funeral procession is approaching the Kremlin wall.
Paying last respects.
The mourning...
has stilled our country.
Before the Mausoleum, troops of the Moscow garrison
are marching.
Leonid Brezhnev's life and activity
will remain an inspiring example
of devotion to the cause of the Communist Party...
What're you reading?
Poems by Arseni Tarkovsky.
- In Russian? - No, in a rather good translation.
- No, it's a poor translation. - Why?
Verse can't be translated.
Perhaps I'd agree for poetry,
Here is someone coming down the hill...
What does it mean?
A Russian song.
But then, how shall we learn Tolstoy...
and Pushkin'? How to understand Russia?
You don't understand anything about Russia.
Then you know nothing about Italy,
if you don't need Petrarch, Dante or Machiavelli.
We simpletons are unable to understand this.
Then what should we do to know each other?
Remove the borders.
What borders?
The state borders.
- Good morning. - Good morning.
- This is the maid who set the master's house on fire.
- What house? - The one where she worked.
- Why? - Out of nostalgia.
She wished to return to her native Calabria,
so she set fire to the house that was preventing her.
Why did your Sosnovsky...
want to come back to Russia,
if he knew he was to be a slave?
Why don't you want to open up your heart?
May I know why?
- Read this, you'll see why. - What's this?
The letter from the Bologna Conservatory...
Tell me, I wanted to ask you.
When Sosnovsky came back to Russia,
was he successful? Was he happy?
He began to drink, then...
- Did he commit suicide? - He did.
March 7, 1982
was the last day at home
for Andrei Tarkovsky.
The Rome check-in was announced.
These are his passport photos.
Customs and passport control ahead.
That's that.
Here he looked back. Everyone does.
He was greeting his friends for the last time.
If only it were his most devoted and faithful friends,
those who accepted him as he was.
And no one knew what lay ahead.
March 1982.
Mum! There's a cuckoo...
Tarkovsky asked the Party officials many times
to find a solution,
as, with such little filming allowed,
it was impossible to feed his family.
If they saw no way to give him more work at home,
they would have to extend his stays abroad.
No reply came.
Many of his colleagues at home
were envious of his talent.
They envied even his dubious situation.
Each goes his own way.
A genius one way
and the others another.
In July 1984,
having no reply from Moscow,
Andrei Tarkovsky
held a special press conference
to announce that he would continue his work in the West.
Andrei Tarkovsky's mother, Maria Vishnyakova,
died in October 1979.
She lies here.
Vostryakovo Cemetery, Moscow.
Gotland, in March.
In Sweden, on the island of Gotland,
the set construction began for his film
that was to be called The Sacrifice.
On the island, the wind blows in all directions.
Stockholm, in April.
In a Stockholm studio, the main set was being built:
a neat and comfortable European house.
You call it a cloud. It'll not be here in time.
We have no time. Anyway, the cloud isn't even here.
Where's it'? The sun has come out already.
It will be covered today, but it won't be enough.
That, that, that! In that part!
The 1st Mosfilm Lane.
Here Tarkovsky and his second wife, Larisa Pavlovna,
came to stay in 1975.
Let's go to the 13th floor.
Filmed in 1987.
Only a few things.
An open space.
This room was their study and bedroom.
In the photo, you see the son
born of his second marriage, Andrei.
Andrei was born in 1970.
Now he lives in Paris.
So, the 1st Mosfilm Lane,
13th floor.
So, listen to me.
Listen, guys.
The actors, the film crew
revered him deeply.
They liked him being active and sociable.
They knew whom they were working with
and valued every minute
and tried to capture everything possible.
The making of The Sacrifice...
Gotland Island.
There should be a strange pause.
What do you think, Sven?
OK then. I say it for you.
Point with your finger. As if he were dumb.
This was because you told us that like that.
Fine. Once more:
when we'll be there...
filming Gudrun, when they'll be trailing him there...
How that, who will?
Susan and Sven will.
Remember his look, the way he talks.
Soon we'll show you an excerpt...
filmed 20 years ago.
Then Tarkovsky...
held a somewhat different role.
An island. An open space.
The never-ending wind blows...
When he was a kid, he had weak lungs.
You mustn't let them catch you.
You can shuffle like that.
- They keep trying. - All right.
- Sven is there all the time. - Yes, of course.
It's important to run after him in a compact group.
You mustn't disengage from each other.
We haven't enough time to get there.
Parents exist to borrow money from.
- They give it to you'? - No.
- Perhaps... - Do you have children?
We have no nurse, we look after our son.
It's like guard duty.
If three are born at once, they give you a flat.
A good chance to get rid of neighbours.
You never know how many children you'll get.
Here's a man who could have a huge family.
You're wrong. I am that man.
- Why, I have my flat. - Is Dolgoruky's coming'?
- Who? - Yuri Dolgoruky.
- From where'? - From there. Straight here.
I don't drink. I'm fine without.
- Hello, darling potato! - Hello!
A scene from Marlen Khutsiev's...
llyich Gates,
Great! Where from'?
Métropole restaurant,
"Potatoes é la russe".
- Take off your coat. - I've 3 more visits!
I can't even work. - You mustn't.
Potatoes onto the table!
You keep silent all the time.
I know almost no one here.
It's better. One's own company is so dull.
No strangers here!
- How are you'? - So-so. Where have you been'?
- Couldn't you ask something else? About what?
That's quite enough. Let's have a toast: To what?
- To potatoes. - Maybe to turnips?
- I prefer to potatoes. - Perhaps better in verse:
For sure, love is no potato...
Potatoes!
A fierce toast.
A skilled orator's fist would make a hole.
I don't see what you mean.
I do. At a guess.
At yours?
Without details, explanations and assertions,
I'd sum up your diverse ideas about potatoes as
"petty patriotism." - What?
It can't be taken seriously.
Perhaps it can't.
Then, what can'?
What can be taken seriously?
Now don't you give us that civic nonsense.
Don't play the fool.
I can also talk like that. We all can.
What next? Do you have things to speak about seriously?
Can you give me an answer?
If there's nothing to speak about seriously,
life's not worth living. Is it'?
- It's a provocation. - I'll reply.
I take the Revolution seriously.
The International.
The repressions of 1937. The war. The soldiers.
The fact that almost all of us have no fathers.
And the potatoes that helped us to survive the famine,
and... - But what about turnips?
- What? - You said nothing about turnips.
Here, in these two small rooms,
they lived many years, all three together:
Maria lvanovna, Andrei, and Marina.
Friends and relatives referring to that time, say
"they lived on Shchepok"; flat number 2.
Somewhere stood Andrei's bed,
Marina's and their mother's.
It was warm and cosy,
not like now.
The two lower windows...
belong to their room, to their little flat.
Shortly before leaving, Andrei Tarkovsky came here.
This photo was taken at that time.
A photo at the door of his home...
This is how he looked when they moved in.
A photo of him at the VGIK Film Institute.
While living here, Andrei graduated from school,
entered one college, left it,
went on a geological expedition...
On his father's advice, he applied...
to Romm's workshop, and in 1954
he entered the Film Institute.
He continued to live here until his marriage.
This district is called Zamoskvorechye.
There were once many such houses in Moscow.
This staircase led to the second floor.
Many people lived here.
Behind a door we discovered
this old washstand.
Your positions!
Let's get into position.
To deserve God's love,
a sacrifice must be offered to Him.
Abraham was going to kill his son,
but an angel stopped him.
Beginning to work on a new film,
Tarkovsky was not to know that the title of this film,
The Sacrifice,
was an ominous foreboding
of his own fate.
Though one can hardly believe it,
at that time Andrei Tarkovsky was already seriously ill.
Once more.
Eh... What is his name? Allan!
To the right.
Sven, listen to what I say.
I want to form a small group, like a small clot,
so that they all overlap. - Good.
There's one more thing.
One more thing.
When we arrive at the last position for Susan...
each time I see...
The wrong position.
Mark the place, please.
I want the car to catch fire then.
So better keep to the right.
A bit to the right. - Yes, I will.
Better composition, too.
The car will burn there, Sven.
The last position with Gudrun.
Along with them.
In autumn 1985,
while editing The Sacrifice,
Tarkovsky went to the doctor:
chest pain.
"Put your affairs in order."
the doctor said to his patient.
Tarkovsky returned to Italy
and told his wife he wouldn't take any treatment,
that he had come to die.
But soon, with Larisa Pavlovna's insistence,
he was put in the care
of a well-known Parisian oncologist, Schwartzenberg,
who undertook to cure his lung cancer.
Tarkovsky after the first treatment,
which seemed successful at the time.
We in Russia...
knew almost nothing about his health.
The Swedish director of photography Sven Nykvist,
with whom Tarkovsky worked on The Sacrifice.
With color, to break this long sequence...
- When he goes to see Maria'? - Yes.
He will show you. - I see.
- You can show him. - Yes.
We'll see. I understand the danger...
of being too long without color.
It will be too long. That's my feeling.
I understand you very well.
We should make a decision. Would you think it over'?
We need a decision, perhaps you'll think it over.
I've been thinking already.
Indeed.
Perhaps there aren't...
such mathematically perfect correlations between shadows...
But there is, you know...
such an atmosphere! This is magnificent.
It's rare, there's no other film waiting for him.
He has nothing at present.
Something will surface within a week.
I've just refused to work for a production.
At that time, in his diary
Tarkovsky wrote he was dying...
of the same illness as his actor Solonitsyn.
French Television, January 5, 1987.
Tarkovsky moved to Paris in 1984.
His numerous friends came here today
to pay him their last respects.
At the Russian church,
the Tarkovsky family and their compatriots,
and French filmmakers.
The Russian funeral rites.
His wife...
and his two sons do not hide their grief.
The youngest came to the West only a year ago.
In 1984, Andrei Tarkovsky chose exile.
He was neither an official artist,
nor a dissident.
His way was that of a mystic director,
a Russian one, above all.
Their compatriot, who lived in exile
and died from cancer at the age of 54.
This afternoon, the funeral took place
in the Russian church, 8th arrondissement of Paris.
90 km from Ryazan,
there is this house in a small village.
The house where...
the Tarkovsky family lived.
They used to come here in summer and in spring.
This house has had several alterations,
even a fire.
The house is empty now.
It's very cold inside.
We couldn't get warm
even with the fire.
We didn't open the shutters
and didn't touch anything.
This is his tomb.
He lies here, at a Paris cemetery.
Here is a tree.
Andrei Tarkovsky planted it some years ago.
I was a child, and I fell ill from hunger and fear.
I would take the crust off my lips, and lick them.
I remembered that cool and salty taste,
and I kept on walking.
I went in the entrance to get warm.
I walked, as if
to the Pied Piper's tune, into the river.
I'd warm myself in the entrance.
Yet I'd still shiver.
My mother beckons me.
She's close, I can't approach.
When I draw near, she's seven steps away.
Come closer, she's moved away and beckons me.
Then I felt hot, undid my collar and lay down.
Then trumpets sounded, and light struck my eyelids.
The horses dashed.
Above the street my mother beckons.
She ﬂew away. Now, what I see in my dream:
a hospital with apple-trees,
white sheets,
a white doctor looks at me
and a white sister at my feet,
flapping her wings in the air. She came to stay.
My mother came, beckoned me and ﬂew away.
Written and directed by Alexander Sokurov
Archive research: Maria Chugunova
Photography: Alexander Burov, Alexei Naidenov,
Liudmila Krasnova
Sound: Vladimir Persov, Alexei Pugachev,
Mikhail Podtakuy
Editors:
Liudmila Feiguinova, Tatiana Beloussova,
Alexandra Zhikhareva, Leda Semionova, Lida Volkova
Production supervisor: Anatoly Nikiforov
Production managers: Georgi Bagaturia,
Vladimir Mikhailov, Tatiana Alyoshkina
The film team thanks Yuri Arabov, Livia Zvonnikova
the Lenfilm and Mosfilm staff,
the staff of the Central Documentary Productions,
and of the Union of Cinematographers
for their generous help.
Excerpts from films by Andrei Tarkovsky
Nostalghia, The Mirror,
and from The Time of Travel,
the making of The Sacrifice, courtesy of
Anne-Len Vibum and Chris Marker.
© Leningrad Documentary Film Production, 1988