In that sense "The Sacrifice" is, amongst other things, a repudiation of commercial cinema. My film is not intended to support or refute particular ideas, or to make a case for this or that way of life. What I wanted was to pose questions and demonstrate problems that go to the very heart of our lives, and thus to bring the audience back to the dormant, parched sources of our existence. Pictures, visual images, are far better able to achieve that end than any words, particularly now, when the word has lost all mystery and magic and speech has become mere chatter, empty of meaning, as Alexander observes. We are being stifled by a surfeit of information, yet at the same time our feelings remain untouched by the supremely important messages that could change our lives.

— Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Rublev, dir. by Andrei Tarkovsky in 1966

Andrei Tarkovsky, a genius in life, a myth after his death. A great director who created his own world in cinema, totally understandable and yet much misunderstood. [...] Only the closet ones knew his suffering.

— Denis Trofimov

When I speak of poetry I am not thinking of it as a genre. Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality.

— Andrei Tarkovsky

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

sqq. *

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

sqq. *