"The pressure Rublev is subject to, is not an exception. An artist never works under ideal conditions. If they existed, his work wouldn`t exist, for the artist doesn`t live in a vacuum.
Some pressure must exist: the artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn`t look for harmony but would simply live in it.
Rt is born out of an ill designed world. This is the issue in "Rublev": the search for harmonic relationships among men between art and life, between time and history. That`s what my film is all about.
Another important theme is man`s experience. In this film my message is that it`s impossible to pass on experience to others or learn from others. We must live our own experience we cannot inherit it. People often say: use your father`s experience! Too easy: Each of us get it`s own. But once we`ve got it, we no longer have time to use it. And the new generations rightly refuse to listen to it: They want to live it, but then they also die. This is the law of life, it`s teal meaning.
We cannot impose our experience on other people, or force them to feel suggested emotions. Only through personal experience we understand life.
Rublev, the monk, lived a complex life. He studied with his master Radonevsky at the Holy Trinity. But he lived at variance with his teaching. He got to see the world through his master`s eyes. Only at the end of his life that he lived his own way."



Interview`s with Andrei Tarkovsky (Excerpt from " A poet of the Cinema")


"Before difining art or any concept, we must answer a far broader question: what`s the meaning of man`s life on earth? Maybe we are here to enhance ourselves spiritually. If our life tends to this spiritual enrichment, then art means to get there. This, of course, in accordance with my definition of life. Art should help man in this process. Some say that art helps man to know the world, like any other intellectual activity. I don`t believe in this possibility of knowing, I´m almost an agnostic. Knowledge distracts us from our main purpose in life. The more we know, the less we know: Getting deeper our horizon becomes narrower. Art enriches man`s own spiritual capabilities and can then rise above himself to use what we call " free will".
Cinema is an unhappy art as it depends on money. Not only because a film is very expensive but is then also marketed like cigarettes, ect... .
But if cinema is art, such an approach is absurd: it`d mean that art is good only if it sells well. Knowing this very well, I don`d complain: I can`t demand special terms for my film since these terms don`t exist. The film for the large audience cannot be poetical. Some films have seen by millions of people, but this happened at the dawn of silent cinema, when each new film attrcted people`s curiosity.
Now it`s difficult to surprise the spectator and good films are not seen by the masses."

About his favorite Directors:

"First of all, i have to recollect..., not recollect,... I always remember ingenious Dovzhenko, Alexander Dovzhenko, " La Terra" by Dovzhenko. The mute movie. Outstanding director. In that era of silent movies, he made miracles, in my optinion. Poetic cinema.
I`ll be brief in answering this question. Then ... Bresson, Robert Bresson. Bresson has always astonished me and attracted me with his ascetics. It seems to me that he is the only director in the world, that has achieved absolute simplicity in cinema. As it was achieved in music by Bach, in art by Leonardo da Vinci... Tolstoy achieved ist as a writer. For me, Tolstoy, do you understand? There for me he`s always been an example of ingenious simplicity. Ascetics... .
Antonioni, for sure. Because Antonioni has made a strong impression on me with his films, especially with adventures, for which you, by the way, wrote a script. Yes you helped and made the script. i find the movie very intersting. I realised then, watching this film, that „action“, the meaning of action in cinema is rather conditional. There`s practically no action on in Antonioni films. And this is the meaning of action in Antonioni films. More precisely, in those Antonioni films that i like the most.
i like Fellini for his kindness, for his love of people, for his, let`s say, simplicity and intimate intonation. If you would like to know - not for popularity, but rather for his humanity. I value him tremendously. His baroque, exuberant, beautiful... . His movie „ Pale Moon Tales“ is astounding in its simplicty, elegance and wonderful nobleness of picture and acting. I remember Vigo (Jean Vigo 1905-1934) with tenderness and thankfulness, who, in my opinion, is the father of modern French cinema. First the new wave, then what this wave has thrown out on the shore, what has left this wave.
Vigo has foundet the french movie and nobody farther than him. Then with great pleasure and thankfulness I always remember the films of Sergei Paradzhanov (1924-1990), that I like very much. His way of thinking is very paradox and poetic. His ability of loving the beauty. His skill of being completely free inside his own creation."


Paradshanow - ein Requiem 1994 from Director Ron Holloway

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