Astrid van Nimwegen - part one of draft 2 Quotes Tarkovsky

Astrid van Nimwegen April 8th, 2012

‘Sculpting in time’ Tarkovsky, Andrey, 1986

->Some quotes from ChapterVII ‘The artist’s responsibility’ that helps me clarify my own thoughts about art:

“A film is an emotional reality, and that is how the audience receives it – as a second reality” (p.176 The artist’s responsibility)

“We are talking about the different kinds of correlation with reality on which each art form bases and develops its own distinct set of conventions. In this respect I classify cinema and music among the immediate art forms since they need no mediating language.” (p.176 The artist’s responsibility)

“Cinema uses the materials given by nature itself, by the passage of time, manifested within space, that we observe about us and in which we live.” (p.176 The artist’s responsibility)

“Why else would some groups of people turn to art only for entertainment, while others look for an intelligent interlocutor?” (p.178-179 The artist’s responsibility)

“And is it possible to help such people to experience inspiration and beauty, and the noble impulses that real art touches off in the soul?” (p.179 The artist’s responsibility)

“….. for it seems to me that if you have chosen artistic work you find yourself bound by chains of necessity, fettered by the tasks you set yourself and by your own artistic vocation.” (p.180 The artist’s responsibility)

“…. But that sort of freedom demands powerful inner resources, a high degree of self-awareness, a consciousness of your responsibility to yourself and therefore to other people.” (p.180 The artist’s responsibility)

“And it’s only possible to communicate with the audience if one ignores that eighty per cent of people who for some reason have got it into their heads that we are supposed to entertain them.” (p.181 The artist’s responsibility)

“…. And saw his task as an artist as ‘fighting’ with all his strength, to the last breath, with the material of life, in order to express that ideal truth which lies hidden within it.” (p.182 The artist’s responsibility)

“… You have to impart your own experience with the greatest possible sincerity.” (p.183 The artist’s responsibility)

“Anyone who wants can look at my films as into a mirror, in which he will see himself. When the conception of a film is given forms that are life-like, ……………. Then it is possible for the audience to relate to that conception in the light of individual experience” (p.184 The artist’s responsibility)

“A phenomenon is recreated truthfully in a work of art through the attempt to rebuild the entire living structure of its inner connections.” (p.184 The artist’s responsibility)

“….. is that nobody can reconstruct the whole truth in front of the camera” (p.184 The artist’s responsibility)

“Every artist is thus limited in his perception, in his understanding of the inner connections of the world about him.” (p.185 The artist’s responsibility)

“… it’s not up to me to keep the public happy. On the contrary: what I have to do is tell people the truth about our common existence as it appears to me in the light of my experience and understanding. That truth hardly promises to be easy or pleasant; and it is only by arriving at that truth and that ‘realism’ that one can achieve a moral victory over it within oneself.” (p.186 The artist’s responsibility)

“The artist’s inspiration comes into being somewhere in the deepest recesses of his ‘I’. It cannot be dictated by external, ‘business’ considerations. It is bound to be related to his psyche and his conscience; it springs from the totality of his world-view.” (p.188 The artist’s responsibility)

“An artist is only justified in his work when it is crucial to his way of life: not some incidental side-line, but the one mode of existence for his reproductive ‘I’.” (p.189 The artist’s responsibility)

“Art symbolizes the meaning of our existence.” (p.192 The artist’s responsibility)

“And the more precisely the central idea is formulated, the more clearly the meaning of the action is defined for me, the more significant will be the atmosphere that is generated around it. Everything will begin to reverberate in response to the dominant note: things, landscape, actors’ intonation. It will all become interconnected and necessary.” (p.194 The artist’s responsibility)