'Andrei Rublev' this Sunday and Monday at the Belcourt

posted by Jett Loe

At the start of every week’s show my voice proclaims during the title sequence that Tarkovsky’s ‘Andrei Rublev’ is the best film ever made.

That sounds a bit limiting though – I’ll go further and say it’s one of the greatest of all artworks – and feeling the way I do about it I’ll have no choice but to suspend my self-imposed monastic ways and introduce the film this Sunday as it plays on the big screen, 12pm and 6pm at the Belcourt here in Nashville.

Now, if you’ve never seen an film by Andrei Tarkovsky you really should.

Watching ‘Andrei Rublev’ one begins to realise that we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what cinema can do.  This summer’s dire crop of films may seem to imply that the filmic art form is [played out/worn out] – but that’s not the case – so many recent films are actually dire because their ‘tricks’ are worn out – they’ve got nowhere to go; for you see, contemporary commercial cinema is all about what happens next, (do we have Hitchcock to blame for this – the focus on tension and suspense aka when’s the next cut coming? hmmm), whereas Tarkovsky’s films are about the now.

That’s why ‘Andrei Rublev’ feels as if it’s actually shot on location in the 15th Century.  It’s not constrained by the need to [impress/divert] using the standard grammar of cinema that dictates novelty – it is content to allow the viewer to live in the space it’s photographing.

If you’re not prepared for this Tarkovsky’s films this can seem boring – it’s understandable if you’re used to the ‘what happens next’ form of cinema – but if you allow yourself to be in the now – to be in the frame – in the place and time of the film then you’re in for some thing extraordinary.

Listen to Tarkovsky’s advice to young people – given in Donatella Baglivo’s documentary ‘Andrei Tarkovsky, Poet of the Cinema’:

Learn to love solitude – to be more alone with yourselves.  The problem with young people is their carrying out noisy and aggressive actions not to feel lonely – and this is a sad thing – the individual must learn to be on his own as a child – for this doesn’t mean to be alone: it means not get bored with oneself which is a various dangerous symptom, almost a disease.

The same can be said for much of widely seen cinema.  Current films would be so much more effective if they were less aggressive, less worried about gaining attention and allowed themselves the time to unfold, and discover their own internal rhythm, design and spirit.

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Ok, that’s enough highfalutin’ talk – hope to see you at the Belcourt this Sunday:

‘Andrei Rublev’ at the Belcourt / Showtimes and Directions

If you’d like to find out more about Tarkovsky’s work I recommend this podcast, an interview Gareth and I did with Dmitry Trakovsky, director of ‘Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky’:

The Film Talk – Part 74 – Meeting Andrei Tarkovsky

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 12:06 am. It is filed under Belcourt Theatre, Best Film Ever, Blog, Directors, Drama, Jett Loe, Nashville. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.