TARKOVSKY’S

Ностальгия

Tayaz Fakhri
Jan 2011

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 Nostalgy: A Diagnosable
Disease
or A Sanctuary of Meaning?

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Some Quotes on Tarkovsky
• What his constant use of tracking shots, slow motion,
and never-ending pans - indeed his entire visual
rhetoric - seems to emphasize is that he is molding the
images. He is a virtuoso, and he wants us to be aware
of the fact.
• "Tarkovsky is the greatest of them all. He moves with
such naturalness in the room of dreams. He doesn't
explain. What should he explain anyhow?" Ingmar
Bergman.
• "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." - Andrei Tarkovsky.
• The inscription on his grave stone reads: To the man who
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 Andrei Tarkovsky's Madonna del
Parto
• Is an Article by James
Macgillivray from
Toronto.


• He is currently (2003)
finishing his Masters
in Architecture at
Harvard Design
School.
• “The Thing from Inner
space” by Slavoj
Zizek.

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• The Madonna del Parto is a fresco painting by the Italian
Renaissance master Pireo della Francesca, finished around
1460. It is housed in Tuscany, Italy.
• The portrayal of a pregnant Madonna was a theme depicted
sometimes in the early 14th century Tuscany. The Madonna
was portrayed standing, alone, with a closed book on her
belly, an allusion to the embodied Word. Piero della
Francesca's Madonna has neither books nor royal attributes
as in the medieval predecessors of the picture. At her side
are two angels, who are keeping open a pavilion decorated
with pomegranates, a symbol of Christ's passion. The upper
part of the painting is lost. The two angels are mirrored.
• M. Calvesi has suggested the theological symbolism behind
the representation that the tent would be a representation of
the Arc of the Covenant ( ‫ ;)صندوق عهد‬Maria would be thus
the new Ark of Alliance as mother of Jesus. For other
scholars the tent is a symbol of the Catholic Church and the
Madonna would symbolize the tabernacle (Portable dwelling
place), as she is portrayed containing Jesus' body.
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In 1979 Tarkovsky saw the fresco for the first time in


the sparse, cramped space of the chapel.



vWhat is it about the Madonna del Parto in

this state that eventually inspires him to
film it?
vOn a more basic level, what does it mean
to Tarkovsky to film a painting, and what
aesthetic and artistic rules does
Tarkovsky see at the intersection of film
and art?
vWhat is the main anti-feminist(?) theme
of the movie?
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A. T. 1932 - 1986  Born April 4,
Zavrazhe, Russia
• In July of 1984, Andrei Tarkovsky attended a press
conference in Milan where he announced to the world
that he would not return to the Soviet Union. When a
journalist asked him if he would be seeking political
exile in Italy, Tarkovsky answered, "I'm telling you a
drama. You cannot ask me bureaucratic questions.
Which country? I don't know. It's like asking me in
which cemetery I wish to bury my children”.
•
• This laconic announcement came at the end of the
drama that began in 1979 when he first chose to go to
Italy to film Nostalghia. The film itself stands as a
testament to his own experience of nostalgia during his
exile; in fact Tarkovsky calls the protagonist, Andrei
Gorchakov, a "mirror" of himself.
• 7
Resurrection by Pireo della
Francesca

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Reconstructive drawing of
original architectural
frame (Guido Botticelli,
1994)

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 Suture in Time and Explosion of
Architectural Space

Camera Movement

G o to Eugenia’s Move
5 ’: 3 0 ’’
http://www.youtube.co
m/watch?
v=IU1gNassY04&feat
ure=related
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Opening Sequence &Exploding
Architectural Space
• How is it then that, by the time the shot cuts, the
viewer has forgotten the empty apse at the
beginning of the shot?
• The answer lies in the fact that this shot is the longest
one in the scene (2:08 minutes compared to the
average of 0:32).
•
•
•
•
•
•
• Tarkovsky's appropriation of the Madonna del Parto
within the sexual dimension of his film should therefore
be understood as a radical adaptation of the painting's
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 12
Mise en abyme

s Meninas; Theology of painting

Is His View an Anti-feminist One?
• "What is a woman's driving force? Submission,
humiliation in the name of love. And a man's?
Creation".
• Artistic creation is visualized in terms of procreation and
conception. In Sculpting in Time he writes, "It is like
childbirth ... The poet has nothing to be proud of: he is
not master of the situation, but a servant".
• Not only is the creative force associated with childbirth
but also with the female trait of submission.
• Thus within Tarkovsky's concept of male artistic creation,
we find aspects that are similar to those of pregnancy
and childbirth: the work matures as a child does, and
the artist during the process of creation experiences
the same humility and submission that the woman does
in miraculous, selfless love for the man.
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Unfolded Mysteries
• Saving the World with a burning candle or burning
yourself?!
• Eugenia’s humiliation.
• Who is The Madman? Who is Sosnovsky?
• Dialogue with the child.
• Three Dreams: Andrei, Eugenia & Writer.
• Who is dreaming the Last Dream?
• Dialogue with God.
• Three Deaths: Andrei, Madman & Writer.
• Dogs, Winds, Drops of Water, Accidents, Miracles.
•
•

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 15
onna and Child by Flippo Lippi