THE SACRED CINEMA OF ANDREI TARKOVSKY

<p>THE SACRED CINEMA OF ANDREI TARKOVSKY</p><p><br></p><p>By Jeremy Robinson</p><p><br></p><p>A major new study of Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) director of seven feature films including Mirror Andrei Rublev Solaris and The Sacrifice.</p><p><P> This book explores every aspect of Andrei Tarkovsky's output in the most detailed fashion - including scripts budget production shooting editing camera sound music acting themes symbols motifs and spirituality. Tarkovsky's films are analyzed in depth with scene-by-scene discussions.</p><p><P> This is an important addition to film studies the most painstaking study of Andrei Tarkovsky's work available.</p><p><P> Andrei Tarkovsky is one of the most fascinating of filmmakers. He is supremely romantic an old-fashioned traditional artist - at home in the company Leonardo da Vinci Pieter Brueghel Aleksandr Pushkin Fyodor Dostoievsky and Byzantine icon painters. Tarkovsky is a magician no question but argues for demystification (even while films celebrate mystery). His films are full of magical events dreams memory sequences multiple viewpoints multiple time zones and bizarre occurrences.</p><p><P> As genre films Andrei Tarkovsky's movies are some of the most accomplished in cinema. As science fiction films Stalker and Solaris have no superiors and very few peers. Only the greatest sci-fi films can match them: Metropolis King Kong Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Tarkovsky happily and methodically rewrote the rules of the sci-fi genre: Stalker and Solaris are definitely not routine genre outings. They don't have the monsters the aliens the visual effects the battles the laser guns the stunts and action set-pieces of regular science fiction movies.</p><p><P> No one could deny that Andrei Rublev is one of the greatest historical films to explore the Middle Ages up there with The Seventh Seal El Cid The Navigator and Pier Paolo Pasolini's 'Life' trilogy. If you judge Andrei Rublev in terms of historical accuracy epic spectacle serious themes or cinematic poetry it comes out at the top. Finally in the religious film genre The Sacrifice and Nostalghia are among the finest in cinema the equals of the best of Ingmar Bergman Luis Bunuel Robert Bresson and Carl-Theodor Dreyer.</p><p><P> Contains 150 illustrations of Andrei Tarkovsky's films Tarkovsky at work his contemporaries and his favourite painters. This edition has 23 new pages of illustrations.</p><p><P> Bibliography filmographies and notes. Illustrated. 696pp.</p><p><P> www.crmoon.com</p><p><br></p><p>REVIEW:</p><p><br></p><p>Robinson's book on the sacred cinema of Tarkovsky is one of the best on the subject. </p><p><br></p><p>Professor Prakash Kona English and Foreign Languages University</p>