April 4 - Andrei Tarkovsky

Happy Birthday, Andrei Tarkovsky! Born today in 1932 as Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky, this Russian film theorist, screenwriter and film director is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential directors in the history of Russian cinema. 

  

Among his credits, in the late 1960s, Tarkovsky was best known for directing the 1969 Soviet black and white biographical historical drama film 'Andrey Rublev' ('Andrei Rublev'), 

In the 1970s, he was best known for directing the 1972 Soviet science fiction/drama film 'Solyaris' ('Solaris'), the 1975 Russian drama/art film 'Zerkalo' ('The Mirror') and the 1979 Soviet science fiction/adventure art film 'Stalker'. 

  

Tarkovsky is also known for directing the 1962 Soviet black and white war drama film 'Ivanovo detstovo' ('Ivan's Childhood', his first feature film), the 1983 Soviet-Italian drama film 'Nostalghia' and the 1986 Swedish/French/British drama film 'Offret' ('The Sacrifice'). 

Tarkovsky passed from lung cancer in Paris, France on December 29, 1986. He was 54.     

  

Three of his films—'Andrei Rublev', 'The Mirror', and 'Stalker'—featured in Sight & Sound's 2012 poll of the 50 greatest films of all time. 

  

Tarkovsky's films explored spiritual and metaphysical themes, and are noted for their slow pacing and long takes, dreamlike visual imagery, and preoccupation with nature and memory. Even at its bleakest, his universe is suffused with faith and the idea of transcendence. 

  

Tarkovsky is almost certainly the most famous Russian filmmaker since Sergei M. Eisenstein. His visionary approach to cinematic time and space, as well as his commitment to cinema as poetry, mark his oeuvre as one of the defining moments in the development of the modern art film. 

  

Tarkovsky had been active from 1958–1986. 

  

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