A collection of interviews with the Russian filmmaker who directed Andrei Roublev, Solaris, and The Mirror

A director reveals the original inspirations for his films, their history, his methods of work, and the problems of visual creativity

"Johnson and Petrie have produced an admirable book. Anyone who wants to make sense of Tarkovsky's films—a very difficult task in any case—must read it." —The Russian Review "This book is a model of contextual and textual analysis. . . . the Tarkovsky myth is stripped of many of its shibboleths and the thematic structure and coherence of his work is revealed in a fresh and stimulating manner." —Europe-Asia Studies "[This book,] with its wealth of new research and critical insight, has set the standard and should certainly inspire other writers to keep on trying to collectively explore the possible meanings of Tarkovsky's film world." —Canadian Journal of Film Studies "For Tarkovsky lovers as well as haters, this is an essential book. It might make even the haters reconsider." —Cineaste This definitive study, set in the context of Russian cultural history, throws new light on one of the greatest—and most misunderstood—filmmakers of the past three decades. The text is enhanced by more than 60 frame enlargements from the films.

A volume of sixty Polaroid photographs of the late Russian filmmaker's friends and family consists of images taken between 1979 and 1984 in his native land and Italy, where he spent time in political exile. Original.

A concise study of the work of the most celebrated Russian filmmaker since Eisenstein, and one of the most important directors to have emerged during the 1960s and 1970s Considering the whole of Tarkovsky's oeuvre, this book covers everything from the classic student film The Steamroller and the Violin, across the full-length films, to the later stage works and Tarkovsky's writings, paintings, and photographs. This study seeks to demystify Tarkovsky as a "difficult" director, while also celebrating his radical aesthetic of long takes and tracking shots, which Tarkovsky was to dub "imprinted" or "sculpted" time, and to make a case for his position not just as an important filmmaker, but also as an artist who speaks directly about the most important spiritual issues of our time. Although he made only seven features, each one was a major landmark in cinema. Since his death in Paris in 1986, his reputation continues to grow.

This book provides a fresh look at the director's legacy, with critical essays by both world-famous and early-career film scholars.

The films of Andrei Tarkovsky have been revered as ranking on a par with the masterpieces of Russia's novelists and composers. His work has had an enormous influence on the style and structure of contemporary European film. This book is an original and comprehensive account of Tarkovsky's entire film output.

Tarkovsky pays tribute to the substantial legacy of Andrei Tarkovsky, the most important Soviet filmmaker of the post-war era, and one of the world’s most renowned cinematic geniuses. His reputation has grown significantly since his death twenty years ago in Paris. Tarkovsky created spiritual, existential films of incredible beauty, repeatedly returning to themes of memory, dreams, childhood and Christianity. Hugely influential on directors such as David Lynch, Steven Soderburgh and Lars Von Trier, he is particularly known for his re-imagining of the science fiction genre in films such as Solaris and Stalker. Tarkovsky provides a collection of accessible academic essays by leading film studies professionals that explore aspects of Tarkovsky's films including their sociological and psychological dimensions, their cinematic language and their rich symbolism. Contributions include the first ever English translation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous essay on the film Ivan’s Childhood, along with pieces by Harvard professor Stephanie Sandler, film critic and curator James Quandt, and Evgeny Tsymbal, assistant director to Tarkovsky on Stalker. Tarkovsky is illustrated with original stills along with studio shots, lobby cards, posters and other rare ephemera and contains a wealth of previously unseen material from Soviet archives, making it the definitive text on Tarkovsky’s singularly complex body of work.

“If you look for a meaning, you’ll miss everything that happens.” Almost twenty-five years after the death of Andrei Tarkovsky, the mystery of his films remains alive and well. Recent years have witnessed an ever-increasing number of film theorists, critics and philosophers taking up the challenge to decipher what these films actually mean. But what do these films actually show us? In this study Thomas Redwood undertakes a close formal analysis of Tarkovsky’s later films. Charting the stylistic and narrative innovations in Mirror, Stalker, Nostalghia and The Sacrifice, Redwood succeeds in shedding new light on these celebrated but often misunderstood masterpieces of narrative film. Tarkovsky is revealed here both as a cinematic thinker and as an artistic practitioner, a filmmaker of immense poetic significance for the history of cinema.