Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (Russian: Андрей Арсеньевич Тарковский, pronounced [ɐnˈdrʲej ɐrˈsʲenʲjɪvʲɪtɕ tɐrˈkofskʲɪj] ; 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter of Russian origin. He is widely considered one of the greatest directors in cinema history. His films explore spiritual and metaphysical themes and are known for their slow pacing and long takes, dreamlike visual imagery and preoccupation with nature and memory.
Tarkovsky studied film at the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography under filmmaker Mikhail Romm and subsequently directed his first five features in the Soviet Union: Ivan's Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), Solaris (1972), Mirror (1975), and Stalker (1979). After years of creative conflict with state film authorities, he left the country in 1979 and made his final two films—Nostalghia (1983) and The Sacrifice (1986)—abroad. In 1986, he published Sculpting in Time, a book about cinema and art. He died later that year of cancer, a condition possibly caused by the toxic locations used in the filming of Stalker.
Tarkovsky was the recipient of numerous accolades throughout his career, including the FIPRESCI prize, the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival in addition to the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for his debut film, Ivan's Childhood as well as the BAFTA Film Award for The Sacrifice. In 1990, he was posthumously awarded the Soviet Union's prestigious Lenin Prize. Three of his films—Andrei Rublev, Mirror, and Stalker—featured in Sight & Sound's 2012 poll of the 100 greatest films of all time.
Andrei Tarkovsky was born on 4 April 1932 in the village of Zavrazhye, near the town of Yuryevets, located about 500 kilometres (310 mi) east from Moscow. His father was the poet and translator Arseny Aleksandrovich Tarkovsky, and his mother was Maria Ivanovna (née Vishnyakova). Both his parents were graduates of the Moscow Literature Institute. Shortly before his birth, Andrei's parents moved to the village as Maria's father, a doctor, lived there. His sister, Marina, was born in 1934.
Andrei's paternal grandfather, Aleksandr Karlovich Tarkovsky (Polish: Aleksander Karol Tarkowski), was a Polish nobleman who worked as a bank clerk. His wife, Maria Danilovna Rachkovskaya, was a Romanian-language teacher who had arrived from Iași. Andrei's maternal grandmother, Vera Nikolayevna Vishnyakova (née Dubasova), belonged to the old Dubasov family of the Russian nobility, which traced its history back to the 17th century. Among her relatives was Admiral Fyodor Dubasov, a fact she had to conceal during the Soviet period. She was married to Ivan Ivanovich Vishnyakov, a native of Kaluga Governorate, who studied law at Moscow University and served as a judge in Kozelsk.
According to the family legend, Tarkovsky's ancestors on his father's side were princes from the Shamkhalate of Tarki, Dagestan, although his sister, Marina, who conducted detailed research on their genealogy, called it "a myth, even a prank of sorts," stressing that no document confirms this narrative.
Tarkovsky's father left the family for another woman in 1936–1937. Although his father remarried, his mother did not, instead choosing to devote herself to her children and her work. Tarkovsky later recounted: "I lived with mother, grandmother, and sister. Family without a man. This had a considerable impact on my character [...] That was a difficult time. I have always missed my father. When father left us, I was three years old. Life was incredibly difficult in any possible way."
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Tarkovsky's family evacuated to Yuryevets, which became his childhood home. He lived with his maternal grandmother until 1943. Tarkovsky had spent most of his life in Moscow and had spent most of his time indoors, but in Yuryevets, he was left alone and exposed to street life. He saved his mother from drowning in a river, which became one of his most traumatic experiences in Yuryevets. Tarkovsky hoped that his father, who was fighting in the war, would return home. Arseny lost his leg and received a medal, but he never returned home or met his son, which caused Andrei great pain.
Tarkovsky remained with his mother, moving with her and his sister Marina to Moscow, where his mother worked as a proof-reader at a printing press. Tarkovsky continued his studies at his old school, Moscow School No. 554, where the poet Andrei Voznesensky was one of his classmates. He studied piano at a music school and attended classes at an art school. The family lived on Shchipok Street in the Zamoskvorechye District in Moscow. From November 1947 to spring 1948 he was in the hospital with tuberculosis. Many themes of his childhood—the evacuation, his mother and her two children, the withdrawn father, the time in the hospital—feature prominently in his film Mirror.
In his school years, Tarkovsky was a troublemaker and a poor student. He still managed to graduate, and from 1951 to 1952 studied Arabic at the Oriental Institute in Moscow, a branch of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. He did not finish his studies and dropped out to work as a prospector for the Academy of Science Institute for Non-Ferrous Metals and Gold. He participated in a year-long research expedition to the river Kureyka near Turukhansk in Krasnoyarsk Krai. During this time in the taiga, Tarkovsky decided to study film.
Upon returning from the research expedition in 1954, Tarkovsky applied at the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) and was admitted to the film-directing program. He was in the same class as Irma Raush (Irina) whom he married in April 1957.
The early Khrushchev era offered good opportunities for young film directors. Before 1953, annual film production was low and most films were directed by veteran directors. After 1953, more films were produced, many of them by young directors. The Khrushchev Thaw relaxed Soviet social restrictions a bit and permitted a limited influx of European and North American literature, films and music. This allowed Tarkovsky to see films of the Italian neorealists, French New Wave, and of directors such as Kurosawa, Buñuel, Bergman, Bresson, Wajda (whose film Ashes and Diamonds influenced Tarkovsky) and Mizoguchi.
Tarkovsky's teacher and mentor was Mikhail Romm, who taught many film students who would later become influential film directors. In 1956, Tarkovsky directed his first student short film, The Killers, from a short story of Ernest Hemingway. The longer television film There Will Be No Leave Today followed in 1959. Both films were a collaboration between the VGIK students. Classmate Aleksandr Gordon, who married Tarkovsky's sister, in particular directed, wrote, edited, and acted in the two films with Tarkovsky.
During his third year at the VGIK, Tarkovsky met Andrei Konchalovsky. They found much in common as they liked the same film directors and shared ideas on cinema and films. In 1959, they wrote the script Antarctica – Distant Country, which was later published in the Moskovskij Komsomolets. Tarkovsky submitted the script to Lenfilm, but it was rejected. They were more successful with the script The Steamroller and the Violin, which they sold to Mosfilm. This became Tarkovsky's graduation project, earning him his diploma in 1960 and winning First Prize at the New York Student Film Festival in 1961.
Film career in the Soviet Union
Tarkovsky's first feature film was Ivan's Childhood in 1962. He had inherited the film from director Eduard Abalov, who had to abort the project. The film earned Tarkovsky international acclaim and won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival in the year 1962. In the same year, on 30 September, his first son Arseny (called Senka in Tarkovsky's diaries) Tarkovsky was born.
In 1965, he directed the film Andrei Rublev about the life of Andrei Rublev, the fifteenth-century Russian icon painter. Andrei Rublev was not, except for a single screening in Moscow in 1966, immediately released after completion due to problems with Soviet authorities. Tarkovsky had to cut the film several times, resulting in several different versions of varying lengths. The film was widely released in the Soviet Union in a cut version in 1971. Nevertheless, the film had a budget of more than 1 million rubles – a significant sum for that period. A version of the film was presented at the Cannes Film Festival in 1969 and won the FIPRESCI prize.