Russian Men with Mustaches: Envisioning Russia at the Film Society of Lincoln Center
Click here for the program of Envision Russia
This week marks the final week of Envisioning Russia, a film festival of Russian films sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center at the Walter Reade theatre in New York City.
One of the most difficult things I’ve been trying to do is to get friends, family, co-workers, plumber or take-out-pizza-person to sit down and watch Russian movies with. I have stubbornly refused to give in and lead a life of mediocrity consuming Jerry Bruckheimer movies. Of course, not all Russian movies are good; however, when asked what it is that makes me admire my favorite Russian films (Tarkovski’s Zerkalo and Sacrifice, Sukorov’s Russian Ark), I think about all the wonderful music of J.S. Bach in Tarkovski’s films. Zerkalo, or Mirror, interweaves time slices from different generations to create a visual fugue of contrapuntal images taking the us through the filmmaker’s universe, like a multi-dimensional family album being flipped before our eyes.
I first learned about Tarkovski’s work when I was watching the pantheon of Ingmar Bergman’s filmography. Bergman himself quotes Bach in his works (Wild Strawberries). One day, I was watching a documentary about Bergman’s cinematographer Sven Nykvist (Light Keeps Me Company) when Tarkovski’s Sacrifice surfaced. Nykvist did the cinematography for this Tarkovski piece. I was instantly hooked.
Most mainstream viewers will know Tarkovski’s work from the George Clooney remake of his original 1972 Solaris. What also piqued my interest and love for Tarkovski’s work is the subject matter he choses to talk about: Memory, the survival of art, spirituality, the future of humankind.
When I was in Paris in the Marais arrondissement, I once watched a homeless man from my hotel window. He spent all day cutting out pieces of paper to create a white horse. I’ve always wondered: How does one stay concerned about creating art when there’s barely food or shelter? Both Tarkovski and Sukorov muses about this very lifeforce in their works.
Finally, there’s the beatific experience of the senses. Arseny Tarkovski (Andrei’s poet father) reciting his poems over sequences in Zerkalo. The great peace that arrives at the end of Sukorov’s 90+, single-take minute Russian Ark with a lonely piano playing in the distant. There’s Tarkovski’s interweaving of personal memories with Pieter Brueghel’s paintings. And of course, there’s the hypnotic long takes that has come to be coined as “Sculpting with Time.”
These are all things that should be experienced on a large scale screen, I believe. No need to wait for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD versions to enjoy in your own home. These were movies made from technology that is already 30 years old. The film quality varies to such an extent that websites have been set up to compare transfer versions and different regions of Tarkovski’s works. A comparison of different dvd versions of Mirror can be found here.
For those of you who don’t live near New York City, there’s still a chance to catch a good sampling of Russian films. I checked the Film Society’s roster with Netflix, and if you go to Foreign>Russian, you will find quite a few titles there for rent.
