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, and the concentration is on its affective function rather than on the intellectual formulae of poetic cinema (where the aim is manifestly to provide a vessel for ideas) then it is possible for the audience to relate to that conception in the light of individual experience.
— Andrei Tarkovsky
For me the most interesting characters are outwardly static, but inwardly charged with energy by an overriding passion.
— Andrei Tarkovsky
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People have often asked me what the Zone is, and what it symbolizes, and have put forward wild conjectures on the subject. I'm reduced to a state of fury and despair by such questions. The Zone doesn't symbolize anything, any more than anything else does in my films: The zone is a zone, it's life, and as he makes his way across it a man may break down or he may come through. Whether he comes through or not depends on his own self-respect, and his capacity to distinguish between what matters and what is merely passing.
— Andrei Tarkovsky; on Stalker
Sven Nykvist | Andrei Tarkovsky
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, by Michal Leszczylowski, 1988
Unspoken feelings are unforgettable.
— Nostalghia; dir. by Andrei Tarkovsky in 1983
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Only one journey is possible: The journey within. We don't learn a whole lot from dashing about on the surface of the Earth. Neither do I believe that one travels so as to eventually return. Man can never reach back to the point of origin, because he has changed in the process. And of course we cannot escape from ourselves; what we are we carry with us. We carry with us the dwelling place of our soul, like the turtle carries its shell. A journey through all the countries of the world would be a mere symbolic journey. Whatever place one arrives at, it is still one's own soul that one is searching for.
— Andrei Tarkovsky
Donatas Banionis
* 28.04.1924 - † 04.09.2014
You mean more to me than any scientific truth.
— Kris Kelvin; in Solaris, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972
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I had the greatest difficulty in explaining to people that there is no hidden, coded meaning in the film, nothing beyond the desire to tell the truth. Often my assurances provoked incredulity and even disappointment. Some people evidently wanted more: They needed arcane symbols, secret meanings. They were not accustomed to the poetics of the cinema image.
— Andrei Tarkovsky; on Mirror
You are she who is not. But I am he who is.
— Nostalghia, dir. by Andrei Tarkovsky in 1983