The allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as an example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good. Andrei Tarkovsky More Quotes by Andrei Tarkovsky More Quotes From Andrei Tarkovsky What nobody seems to understand is that love can only be one-sided, that no other love exists, that in any other form it is not love. If it involves less than total giving, it is not love. It is impotent; for the moment it is nothing. Andrei Tarkovsky form moments giving If the regular length of a shot is increased, one becomes bored, but if you keep on making it longer, it piques your interest, and if you make it even longer, a new quality emerges, a special intensity of attention. Andrei Tarkovsky bored quality special Of course life has no point. If it had, man would not be free. Andrei Tarkovsky no-point courses men All of us are infected today with an extraordinary egoism. And that is not freedom; freedom means learning to demand only of oneself, not of life and others, and knowing how to give: sacrifice in the name of love. Andrei Tarkovsky sacrifice names mean When I speak of poetry I am not thinking of it as a genre. Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality. So poetry becomes a philosophy to guide a man throughout his life. Andrei Tarkovsky men philosophy reality If there are some who talk the same language as myself, then why should I neglect their interests for the sake of some other group of people who are alien and remote? They have their own 'gods and idols' and we have nothing in common. ... If you try to please audiences, uncritically accepting their tastes, it can only mean that you have no respect for them: that you simply want to collect their money. Andrei Tarkovsky idols mean people The artist has a duty to be calm. He has no right to show his emotion, his involvement, to go pouring it all out at the audience. Any excitement over a subject must be sublimated into an Olympian calm of form. That is the only way in which an artist can tell of the things that excite him. Andrei Tarkovsky pouring artist way The artist is always the servant, and is perpetually trying to pay for the gift that has been given to him as if by a miracle. Modern man, however, does not want to make any sacrifice, even though true affirmation of the self can only be expressed in sacrifice. Andrei Tarkovsky sacrifice artist men I am convinced that any attempt to restore harmony in the world can only rest on the renewal of personal responsibility. Andrei Tarkovsky harmony responsibility world Relating a person to the whole world: that is the meaning of cinema. Andrei Tarkovsky cinema persons world We have forgotten to observe. Instead of observing, we do things according to patterns. Andrei Tarkovsky observing patterns forgotten Why do people go to the cinema? What takes them into a darkened room where, for two hours, they watch the play of shadows on a sheet? The search for entertainment? The need for a kind of drug? ..I think that what a person normally goes to the cinema for is time: for time lost or spent or not yet had. He goes there for living experience; for cinema, like no other art, widens, enhances and concentrates a person’s experience-and not only enhances it but makes it longer, significantly longer. That is the power of cinema: ‘stars’, story-lines and entertainment have nothing to do with it. Andrei Tarkovsky stars art thinking Never try to convey your idea to the audience - it is a thankless and senseless task. Show them life, and they'll find within themselves the means to assess and appreciate it. Andrei Tarkovsky mean ideas art The film [Stalker] needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts. Andrei Tarkovsky theatre action needs People who grow bored in their own company seem to me in danger. Andrei Tarkovsky bored danger people A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books. Andrei Tarkovsky different book people 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 passing-by numbers people A literary work can only be received through symbols, through concepts - for that is what words are; but cinema, like music, allows for utterly direct, emotional, sensuous perception of the work. Andrei Tarkovsky cinema emotional perception I know only one thing. when i sleep, i know no fear, no, trouble no bliss. blessing on him who invented sleep. the common coin that purchases all things, the balance that levels shepherd and king, fool and wise man. there is only one bad thing about sound sleep. They say it closely resembles death. Andrei Tarkovsky kings wise sleep Modern mass culture, aimed at the "consumer", the civilisation of prosthetics, is crippling people's souls, setting up barriers between man and the crucial questions of his existence, his consciousness of himself as a spiritual being. Andrei Tarkovsky mass-culture spiritual men
