Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky , writer , director

1. Andrei Arsenyevich
Tarkovsky

2.  Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky
 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Soviet
and Russian film-maker, writer, film editor, film theorist,
theatre and opera director.
 Tarkovsky's films include Ivan's Childhood, Andrei
Rublev, Solaris, Mirror, and Stalker.
 He directed the first five of his seven feature films in
the Soviet Union; his last two films, Nostalghia and The
Sacrifice, were produced in Italy and Sweden, respectively.

3. Film school student
 Upon returning from the research expedition in 1954,
Tarkovsky applied at the State Institute of
Cinematography (VGIK) and was admitted to the film
directing program. He was in the same class as Irma
Raush whom he married in April 1957
 Tarkovsky's teacher and mentor was Mikhail Romm, who
taught many film students who would later become influential
film directors.
 In 1956, Tarkovsky directed his first student short film, The
Killers, from a short story of Ernest Hemingway. The short
film There Will Be No Leave Today and the
screenplay Concentrate followed in 1958 and 1959.

4. AS a film maker
 His work is characterized by spiritual and metaphysical themes, long takes,
lack of conventional dramatic structure, and distinctively authored use of
cinematography. His contribution was so influential that works done in a
similar way are described as Tarkovskian
 He is widely regarded as one of the greatest film-makers of all time.
 Tarkovsky became a film director during the mid and late 1950s, a period
referred to as the Khrushchev Thaw, during which Soviet society opened to
foreign films, literature and music, among other things. This allowed
Tarkovsky to see films of European, American and Japanese directors, an
experience which influenced his own film making. His teacher and mentor
at the film school, Mikhail Romm, allowed his students considerable
freedom and emphasized the independence of the film director.

5.  Tarkovsky was, according to Shavkat Abdusalmov, a fellow student
at the film school, fascinated by Japanese films. He was amazed by
how every character on the screen is exceptional and how everyday
events such as a Samurai cutting bread with his sword are elevated
to something special and put into the limelight.
 Tarkovsky has also expressed interest in the art of Haiku and its
ability to create "images in such a way that they mean nothing
beyond themselves
 In 1972, Tarkovsky told film historian Leonid Kozlov his ten
favorite films. The list includes: Diary of a Country
Priest and Mouchette, by Robert Bresson; Winter Light, Wild
Strawberries and Persona, by Ingmar Bergman; Nazarín, by Luis
Buñuel; City Lights, by Charlie Chaplin; Ugetsu, by Kenji
Mizoguchi; Seven Samurai, by Akira Kurosawa, andWoman in the
Dunes, by Hiroshi Teshigahara.

6. Cinematic style
 Tarkovsky's films are characterized by metaphysical themes,
extremely long takes, and memorable images of exceptional
beauty. Recurring motifs are dreams, memory, childhood,
running water accompanied by fire, rain indoors, reflections,
levitation, and characters re-appearing in the foreground of
long panning movements of the camera.
 He once said, "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.”

7. Film career in the Soviet Union
 Tarkovsky's first feature film was Ivan's Childhood in 1962. He
had inherited the film from director Eduard Abalov, who had
to abort the project. The film earned Tarkovsky international
acclaim and won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film
Festival in 1962.
 In 1965, he directed the film Andrei Rublev about the life
of Andrei Rublev, the fifteenth-century Russian icon painter.
 In 1972, he completed Solaris, an adaptation of the
novel Solaris by Stanisław Lem.
 In December 1976, he directed Hamlet, his only stage play, at
the Lenkom Theatre in Moscow

8. Awards
 Numerous awards were bestowed on Tarkovsky
throughout his lifetime. At the Venice Film Festival he
was awarded the Golden Lion for Ivan's Childhood. At
the Cannes Film Festival, he won the FIPRESCI
prize four times, the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury three
times (more than any other director), and the Grand Prix
Spécial du Jury twice. He was also nominated for
the Palme d'Or two times. In 1987, the British Academy
of Film and Television Arts awarded the BAFTA Award
for Best Foreign Language Film to The Sacrifice.

9. Passed away
29 dec 1986

10. Thanks