Tarkovsky ’ s

Носталь
гия

Tayaz Fakhri
Jan 2011

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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
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who saw the Angel.
 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 5
 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.

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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 10
 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
meaning. The Madonna finds itself, as it were, between
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Mise en abyme

s; 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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d Child by Flippo Lippi