"The Color of Pomegranates," directed by Sergei Paradjanov (an Armenian director who was a good friend of Tarkovsky)is also amazing -- a visual portrait (also with no dialogue, but some voice-over) about the medieval Armenian poet Sayat Nova.
I'm on a hattrick of posts so I'd better see it through. Tarkovsky my choice of the single greatest artist of the last century. Unfortunately I can't get to see what I presume is a clip from this film at the moment, but vertianly one of the very few artistic geniuses of the 20th century to deserve an undisputable place alongside the El Grecos and Rembrandts of past centuries when Genius wasn't virtually a crime against humanity as it is now! What I mean being that the ethos of the age is that to be human is to be equal- the democratic principle, but for everyone to be equal, everyone must be more or less mediocre. And so, artistic genius is unacceptable. Idiocy on the other hand is to be nurtured. This might sound all a bit Ubermenscien(?), but the Superman of Tarkovsky very much one of empathy and compassion, rather than one exalting in his superiority.
Have you seen Sokurov's "Mother and Son"? An amazing film, with almost no dialogue.
ReplyDeleteNo, never heard of it. I haven't even seen Nostalghia in 20 years.
ReplyDelete"The Color of Pomegranates," directed by Sergei Paradjanov (an Armenian director who was a good friend of Tarkovsky)is also amazing -- a visual portrait (also with no dialogue, but some voice-over) about the medieval Armenian poet Sayat Nova.
ReplyDeleteI'm on a hattrick of posts so I'd better see it through. Tarkovsky my choice of the single greatest artist of the last century. Unfortunately I can't get to see what I presume is a clip from this film at the moment, but vertianly one of the very few artistic geniuses of the 20th century to deserve an undisputable place alongside the El Grecos and Rembrandts of past centuries when Genius wasn't virtually a crime against humanity as it is now! What I mean being that the ethos of the age is that to be human is to be equal- the democratic principle, but for everyone to be equal, everyone must be more or less mediocre. And so, artistic genius is unacceptable. Idiocy on the other hand is to be nurtured. This might sound all a bit Ubermenscien(?), but the Superman of Tarkovsky very much one of empathy and compassion, rather than one exalting in his superiority.
ReplyDeleteI should probably add that this is a defiling of the democratic principle, rather than an argument against it in its true form.
ReplyDelete