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albucat wrote:Kino's putting out a special edition release of The Sacrifice, with the main feature being: "Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, a documentary on the making of THE SACRIFICE (102 minutes)." Does anyone know if this is worth watching?

If you like Tarkovsky and are interested in seeing his methods as a filmmaker then the documentary is essential. Since there is very little footage of Tarkovsky on-set for any previous film, it's extremely fortunate that behind-the-scenes footage was shot during his last.

Also, that doc is included as an extra on most if not all prior releases of the film.

Yeah it's good. It's not the most in depth, but it's fascinating watching him work with his crew and actors. There's even footage of the first unsuccessful take of the house burning. It also uses Sculpting in Time as it's guiding structure so I recommend reading that in tandem.

Something interesting I've been reading of that I hadn't come across before is Tarkovsky possibly having tried to work in Hollywood in the late 70s. I haven't watched Natalya Bondarchuk's interview on the Criterion release of Solaris in a while but here it's said she brings it up. The page also mentions Ken Russell's claim in his autobiography that Tarkovsky was considered for Altered States. Furthermore, Tarkovsky collaborator Andrei Konchalovsky directed a truly bizarre 2010 film The Nutcracker in 3D. Watching the making-of, he says that the genesis of making a Nutcracker movie originated between him and Tarkovsky, and that they shopped it around to Hollywood as an international co-production in the 70s. Konchalovsky of course did succeed in crossing over to be a Hollywood director, (at roughly the same time Tarkovsky left the Soviet Union, both of them made their final Soviet films in 1979) and the Nutcracker film he ended up making decades later doesn't resemble anything one would have expected from a Tarkovsky film (not even what one would imagine he might have made as a studio picture). It's well known that Tarkovsky wanted to make a film about ETA Hoffmann, who wrote the novella on which Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet was based. I do recall from Tarkovsky's diaries he wrote about visiting America and spoke of making a film there (he spoke of having Hamlet on his mind, and was particularly entranced by Monument Valley), but I don't recall anything regarding working in Hollywood. Can anyone shed any light on this period?

That's really fascinating. I can buy the story of Tarkovsky being on the long list for Altered States, as Paddy Chayefsky
had an enormous amount of autonomy over who was chosen to translate his material to the screen, and I imagine he couldn't
think of many other candidates at the time who could handle a story like that. I'm always interested in the path many international
filmmakers take in Hollywood, and I wonder if Tarkovsky had lived longer, that he may have sought ought financing from organizations
like Cannon or Miramax.

beamish14 wrote: Thu May 31, 2018 3:52 pm I wonder if Tarkovsky had lived longer, that he may have sought ought financing from organizations
like Cannon or Miramax.

I think of Tarkovsky's 98-minute (cut down from three and a half hours) 1996 erotic thriller starring David Caruso and Melanie Griffith that we never got to see and I weep.

Towards the end of the month, Seagull Books will be publishing Tarkovsky's Time within Time: The Diaries, 1970–1986.

That'd be republishing. That book came out decades ago, though I guess it's been out of print nearly as long.

Ideal for those who don’t want to pay 300 dollars for a copy. Plus you get to support an admirable publishing company.

Mr Sausage wrote: Sun Feb 03, 2019 11:24 pm Ideal for those who don’t want to pay 300 dollars for a copy.

zedz wrote: Sun Feb 03, 2019 11:09 pm I guess it's been out of print nearly as long.

I’m wondering where you all shop for books—I’ve seen the 2002 Faber and Faber edition of Time within Time available cheaply online for at least most of the time I’ve been aware of it (I acquired my first copy around eight years ago). You can still get brand new copies directly from the U.K. publisher, and it’s on Amazon U.S. right now for $33.00 (and with Prime shipping, you can get it in two days!).

For some reason the Faber edition didn't come up when I did an Amazon US search yesterday, though the original hardcover did. I'm surprised the British edition is being distributed in the US.

I honestly had no idea whether or not it was still in print (since I bought it when it first came out in English), but just assumed it was OOP if it was being republished.

Apparently the original Russian title of the volume was Martyrolog, which is extremely appropriate. Tarkovsky emerges as rather neurotic and self-pitying (which isn't to say he wasn't somewhat disadvantaged by the Soviet system) and more than a little nutty:

Spoiler

he was convinced that he'd been cursed by the ghost of Boris Pasternak

It's likely to change your view of the guy, but it's a fascinating read.

Here's some info on the diaries, with excerpts:

http://www.nostalghia.com/TheDiaries.html

Isn't the Faber & Faber edition edited down from the Seagull Books edition? The link above says this is from Seagull; I have the original Seagull "Calcutta" edition, and it's 397 pp. with index, including the bits mentioned in this listing on Hamlet, The Idiot, and interviews on Mirror, Stalker, and a 1966 interview too.

This new one is 416 pp. I would hope it has newly-translated material, but it says nothing of the sort in the listing. Maybe it's just newly typeset.

I went through this last year as a bedside read. It has its moments, but they come amid lots of tedious worry over money and career. John Gianvito's edited volume of interviews is much more helpful in understanding the films, though the interview with Irena Brezna is a jaw-dropper.

Does anyone have an opinion on the best-looking Blu-ray edition of Tarkovsky's NOSTALGIA? It has been released by Kino Lorber, Artificial Eye/Curzon and Potemkine. I've only seen the film in 16mm (and DVD, of course), so I'm less confident about how it is supposed to look overall.

AE > Kino

swo17 wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2020 2:16 amAE > Kino

Thanks!

Disagree. The AE is a smeary, digitized mess. The Kino, while from an old and damaged print, at least looks like a film.

Caps may help:
AE vs Kino: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film5/blu-ray_ ... lu-ray.htm
Kino vs French release by Potemkine of same restoration as AE: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0 ... 77&i=4&l=0

FWIW, I haven't seen the AE in motion, but I'm with GoodOldNeon on preferring the Kino from caps and seeing their disc.

Just for completeness sake: there's also a "Nostalghia" blu from the Swiss Trigon label: https://www.trigon-film.org/de/shop/Blu-ray/Nostalghia

I have that disc, and image quality is excellent (natural colours, great clarity, no scratches I was aware of), miles ahead of any dvd version I've ever seen. And it certainly doesn't look like the AE on the caps, either, so it must be a different source than AE or Kino. BUT: in order to clean up the crackly audio, they clearly overdid it; thus the sound is unnaturally hollow and filtered. It's not unlistenable , but just to let you know that even this otherwise wonderful edition has it's shortcomings. Another for many here would be that there are only German subs.

The Trigon truly excels in terms of extras, though. There's a 90-minute documentary called "Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky" which as far as I know isn't available anywhere else (and it's a great one!), and an extensive and knowledgeable booklet in German, too.

jsteffe wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2020 3:37 am

swo17 wrote: Wed Aug 12, 2020 2:16 amAE > Kino

Thanks!

My apologies. In the absence of filmaf.com I was working from memory. All of my Tarkovsky collection is from Criterion or AE, except Nostalghia where the Kino is superior. I hope you didn't rush to buy based on my recommendation

Everyone, thanks for weighing in! I should have thought check the screen comparisons first, but your observations are helpful in any case. Based on the stills, I agree that that the Kino looks more natural even if it's from an older transfer. That seems important for this film. I'd like to see a 4K restoration based on a new scan of the negative, but those can come with unpleasant surprises.

"The Drenching Richness of Andrei Tarkovsky", Alex Ross' reflections in The New Yorker on both his personal history with and some of the latest books on the director's work.

Also: updated and cleaned up the first post, including some links to some long video interviews, an hour-long 2012 documentary, and a 2019 translation of a previously unpublished 1967 interview.

Having at last exorcised the final echoes of Wagner from his psyche or so he hopes, how unfortunate that Ross has bundled over to film to take 5000 words to tell us nothing new about Tarkovsky or his work, but the same old story about Ross itself and what Tarkovsky means to him. This new trend of criticism where several majestically rich pieces of art are reduced to simply what they affirm (or in Ross's case, reaffirm) about the critic's own sense of themself is quite fitting for this time.

I'm enjoying Johnson and Petrie's Tarkovsky - A Visual Fugue. I know it has fans and critics alike, in this thread.

One thing about it baffled me: The Appendix has synopses for 6 films, but not Mirror. Did the authors address this omission?

(The main chapter on Mirror provides a very detailed overview of course.)

The Top 100 podcast that's working its way through the Sight & Sound Top 100 devotes just over two hours to discussing Stalker, and for some reason I was invited as guest speaker. If that doesn't put you off right there, you can hear it via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other outlets.