sculpting in time, soviet brutalism, cinema --ar 3:2 --sref 811417151
By Andrei Tarkovsky
5/1/25
Review: ⭐
Andrei Tarkovsky, the noted Soviet film director, compiled a number of disparate essays on how he goes about his craft, as well as broader views of what it means to be an artist and the qualia of making cinema. I personally am not super familiar with his work, having only seen his film Solaris, but I found this to be one of the most coherent texts on what the obligation of an artist is in society. While he was referencing art in a literal sense, some of his observations clearly apply more broadly towards any act of creation.
In his essay “Art - a yearning for the ideal” (Chapter 2), he provides some incredibly lucid definitions for what he thinks the role of art and the artist is, and his criticims of (then) contemporary art. Here are some of my favorite quotes:
Modern art has taken a wrong turn in abandoning the search for the meaning of existence in order to affirm the value of the individual for its own sake. What purports to be art begins to look like an eccentric occupation for suspect characters who maintain that any personalized action is of intrinsic value simply as a display of self-will.
The artist is always a servant, and is perpetually trying to pay for the gift that has been given to him as if by miracle.
Art is a meta-language, with the help of which people try to communicate with one another; to impart information about themselves and assimilate the experience of others.
In aggregate, I take this to mean that all great works (art or otherwise) are ultimately in service of some thing/one other than oneself. I’ve never personally been a huge fan of post-modern art, largely because I feel it’s a little too self indulgent, and is effectively a snarky way for the artist to remind the audience that they are not a part of the artist’s inner world.
The contemporary concept of “IYKYK” is probably the most salient modern example of this. Bad art at its extreme is exclusionary (limiting its legibility only to its artist) while good art at its extreme is inclusionary (allowing everyone to appreciate it). Art in that sense is somewhat of a public/common good, in that the utility provided is usually non-rivalrous. This is most true of products like cinema (or arguably even software) that have no marginal cost of production. All art is about - in some form - the human condition, and the best art succesfully defines that as broadly as possible.
In his essay “The author in search of an audience” (Chapter 6), he takes this idea - of creating primarily for others - and adds an elegant nuance. Tarkovsky says:
There is no contradiction in the fact that I do nothing in particular to please an audience, and yet hope fervently that my picture will be accepted and loved by those who see it.
At its limit, one can correctly criticize the creation for a customer as being somewhat soulless hill-climbing. One can do as many market studies as possible or talk to as many customers as possible, but if the artist is not exercising some editorial or aethetic judgement somewhere, then they don’t really have the right to call themselves a creator. This is of course easier said than done - how can anyone build for the attention of others without becoming beholden to it?
In Tarkovsky’s case, this amounts to speaking up to the audience. Tarkovsky himself notes that this is not trivial to pull off - as a Soviet director, he has to deal with the Scylla and Charybdis of creating cinema that the Soviet establishment finds culturally valuable and aligned with their agenda while also making something that the average impoverished and uneducated Soviet resident found entertaining, and while trying to retain some creative control and agency. Despite this all, the audience has an incredible capacity to “get” complex themes. Quoting Goethe, Tarkovsky notes “if you want an intelligent answer you must ask an intelligent question.”