Celebrating the Art and Life of Andrei Tarkovsky

Much can be said for the artist that is Andrei Tarkovsky. The Russian filmmaker is deemed as one of the most influential people in the 20th-century cinema, and the recesses of his memory and style live on through contemporary filmmakers. The Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam is now preparing for the anticipated display, Andrei Tarkovsky to open on 14 September.

With the Khruschev era slightly loosening artistic censorship, Tarkovsky was able to consume and explore film. music and literature outside Russia, mostly done by American, English and Japanese filmmakers, thus enabling him to eventually break the conformities of social-realist Soviet cinema. For Tarkovsky, film was the ideal medium for capturing the reality of life.

Much of Tarkovsky's body of work can be seen as visual poetry. A true master of conveying and communicating thoughts, feelings and humanist stories through his slow, meaningful takes, dreamlike, painterly compositions (monochromatic or color) on the moving image -- much of this style maybe thanks to the influence of his poet of a father, who also translated poems from Turkoman, Georgian, Armenian and Arabic.

Thus, this exhibition from The Eye aims to encapsulate the very essence of Tarkovsky's life and work by going through his auteur filmography and personal photography. With the concept of memories being one of the core elements for Tarkovsky, the exhibit will be including the private photographic archive of his daily life, documents, scripts, letters, as well as other mementos provide by his son Andrei Andrejevich Tarkovsky.

Moreover, one of the highlights in the display is the accompanying screening of his filmography, mostly of digital restorations like the The Mirror, Solaris, and his last film, The Sacrifice. Works by other directors that inspired and influenced Tarkovsky's artistry will also be featured -- that of Sergei PArajanov and Robert Bresson -- as well as by filmmakers who were inspired by Tarkovsky himself -- auteur Lars von Trier and Alex Garland. The show will be open until 6 December.

The exhibition runs from the 14th of September until the 6th of December in the Eye Filmmuseum, IJpromenade 1, 1031 KT Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Images are from the press kit.

2019-09-05 #culture #cinema #russia #netherlands #andrei-tarkovsky #filmmaker