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I discovered Tarkovsky only last year. I didn't "get" him until the death of my father. Roiling in ineffable grief, I struggled to find meaning, to sum up the a

I discovered Tarkovsky only last year. I didn't "get" him until the death of my father. Roiling in ineffable grief, I struggled to find meaning, to sum up the arc of my father's life. The experience had (and still has) a timeless, absurd quality to it. Tarkovsky's films seem to exist in a different type of time orthogonal to our own, and the experience of engaging with them is difficult to describe. They are both powerful and ineffable. From his writings, he could be mistaken for a practitioner of Zen. I would like to share my favorite Tarkovsky quote: "Everybody asks me what things mean in my films. This is terrible! An artist doesn't have to answer for his meanings. I don't think so deeply about my work - I don't know what my symbols may represent. What matters to me is that they arouse feelings, any feelings you like, based on whatever your inner response might be. If you look for a meaning, you'll miss everything that happens. Thinking during a film interferes with your experience of it. Take a watch into pieces, it doesn't work. Similarly with a work of art, there's no way it can be analyzed without destroying it."

pm90 7y ago
That is quite a beautiful quote! I suspect we search for meanings and interpretations mostly to communicate what we feel to others we may try to share the experience with, although it seems that the best way to do this might just be to be honest about it and describe the feeing rather than the interpretation. (Also, I’m sorry for your loss. Losing a parent seems un fathomable to me although I know it will happen to me too).
papito 7y ago
Well, he is asking us to be shallow, but going down that route is also dangerous if you go too far. Then you can end up like a certain current president of the United States. "I try to step back and remember my first shallow reaction. The day I realized it can be smart to be shallow was, for me, a deep experience."
- jamesakirk 7y ago
  There is a difference between awareness and judgement. What Tarkovsky is asking you to do is shut down your judgement to gain awareness. In the words of Alan Watts "You must go out of your mind to come to your senses." If by shallow you mean bringing your awareness to something other than your thoughts, you are correct. Gaining awareness of emotions is the first step in understanding how thoughts and conditions induce emotional states. This understanding facilitates ownership of one's own emotional responses. Harsh self-judgement shuts down this process, which is why narcissists are incapable of self-reflection. I think you have it backwards.
forgottenpass 7y ago
>there's no way it can be analyzed without destroying it. Almost all art analysis I see has to penetrates my zone of not seeking it out. So maybe it's being done impeccably somewhere, but in the stuff I see, the "analysis" is really a lossy description of the person doing the analyzing. It tells me their frame of reference. The parts of the work they'll care about, and their analytical blindspots. It tells me about their views on hot contemporary issues, their pet peeves and hobby horses. It shows me the types of conclusions they were taught to draw. Very rarely does the analysis tell me anything about the work beyond the unambiguous facts visible to every layperson.

pm90 7y ago

That is quite a beautiful quote! I suspect we search for meanings and interpretations mostly to communicate what we feel to others we may try to share the experience with, although it seems that the best way to do this might just be to be honest about it and describe the feeing rather than the interpretation. (Also, I’m sorry for your loss. Losing a parent seems un fathomable to me although I know it will happen to me too).

papito 7y ago

Well, he is asking us to be shallow, but going down that route is also dangerous if you go too far. Then you can end up like a certain current president of the United States. "I try to step back and remember my first shallow reaction. The day I realized it can be smart to be shallow was, for me, a deep experience."

jamesakirk 7y ago
There is a difference between awareness and judgement. What Tarkovsky is asking you to do is shut down your judgement to gain awareness. In the words of Alan Watts "You must go out of your mind to come to your senses." If by shallow you mean bringing your awareness to something other than your thoughts, you are correct. Gaining awareness of emotions is the first step in understanding how thoughts and conditions induce emotional states. This understanding facilitates ownership of one's own emotional responses. Harsh self-judgement shuts down this process, which is why narcissists are incapable of self-reflection. I think you have it backwards.

forgottenpass 7y ago

>there's no way it can be analyzed without destroying it. Almost all art analysis I see has to penetrates my zone of not seeking it out. So maybe it's being done impeccably somewhere, but in the stuff I see, the "analysis" is really a lossy description of the person doing the analyzing. It tells me their frame of reference. The parts of the work they'll care about, and their analytical blindspots. It tells me about their views on hot contemporary issues, their pet peeves and hobby horses. It shows me the types of conclusions they were taught to draw. Very rarely does the analysis tell me anything about the work beyond the unambiguous facts visible to every layperson.