Sculpting in Time (Magill Book Reviews)

What does film have in common with other arts, and what qualities set it apart? Andrey Tarkovsky’s answer is evident in his title: Only film, he says, “appropriates time, complete with that material reality to which it is indissolubly bound, and which surrounds us day by day and hour by hour.” Real time is reproduced on the screen: Such, Tarkovsky suggests, is the cinema’s glory, often lost sight of as methods and expectations imported from other arts (primarily from drama and prose fiction) thwart film’s unique potential.

That senses of film’s enormous potential is central to SCULPTING IN TIME: REFLECTIONS ON THE CINEMA. Translated from the Russian by Kitty Hunter-Blair and illustrated with more than eighty photographs, this beautifully produced book is Tarkovsky’s overview of his career, from IVAN’S CHILDHOOD, his first feature film, to NOSTALGIA, his first film made in exile from his native Soviet Union. While his approach is roughly chronological, it is also thematic, covering topics such as “The film image,” “Time, rhythm, and editing,” “Scenario and shooting script,” and “The artist’s responsibility.” (Interspersed in the text are nine poems by Tarkovsky’s father, the Orientalist and poet Arseniy Tarkovsky; the Russian texts of these poems are included in an appendix.)

This book offers more, however, than a gifted director’s reflections on his medium. It is both an artistic manifesto (the appeal of which is by no means limited to film-makers) and a last testament, for Tarkovsky died of cancer in Paris in December, 1986, at the age of fifty-four. The extraordinary intensity and purity of his commitment will inspire many readers.

Bibliography

Birkos, Alexander S. Soviet Cinema: Directors and Films, 1976.

Green, Peter. “Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-86),” in Sight and Sound. LVI (Spring, 1987), pp. 108-109.

Insdorf, Annette. “Faith in Movies,” in The New York Times Book Review. XCII (September 20, 1987), p. 20.

Kennedy, Harlan. “Tarkovsky: A Thought in Nine Parts,” in Film Comment. XXIII (May/June, 1987), pp. 44-47.

Montagu, Ivor. “Man and Experience: Tarkovsky’s World,” in Sight and Sound. XLII (Spring, 1973), p. 89.