60 Fun Facts About Andrei Tarkovsky

In which year was Andrei Tarkovsky born?

He was born in the village of Zavrazhye and grew up in Yuryevets and Moscow.

How many feature films did Tarkovsky direct in his career?

Five were made in the Soviet Union and two abroad.

What was Tarkovsky's first feature film, released in 1962?

He inherited the project from another director who had to abandon it.

Which prize did Tarkovsky's debut feature win at the 1962 Venice Film Festival?

It also won the Golden Gate Award in San Francisco the same year.

Under which filmmaker did Tarkovsky study at the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK)?

Romm taught many students who became major directors.

Tarkovsky's first student short, The Killers (1956), was adapted from a story by which writer?

Classmate Aleksandr Gordon, who married Tarkovsky's sister, co-directed it.

What was Tarkovsky's diploma film, sold to Mosfilm and co-written with Andrei Konchalovsky?

It won First Prize at the New York Student Film Festival in 1961.

Before film school, Tarkovsky worked as a prospector on a year-long expedition in which region?

It was there, on the river Kureyka, that he decided to study film.

What language did Tarkovsky briefly study at the Oriental Institute in Moscow before dropping out?

He was a troublemaker and poor student in his school years.

Tarkovsky's father Arseny was celebrated in which art form?

His poems are recited in voiceover in his son's most autobiographical film.

Andrei Rublev, Tarkovsky's 1966 epic, portrays the life of what kind of artist?

It was widely released in the Soviet Union only in a cut version in 1971.

What was the original 205-minute version of the 1966 medieval epic titled?

It was censored during the first decade of the Brezhnev era.

The final episode of Andrei Rublev follows the boy Boriska as he undertakes what task?

He falsely claims his dead father taught him the secret of the craft.

Andrei Rublev opens with a prologue in which a man named Yefim takes flight by what means?

An ignorant mob arriving from the river tries to stop the launch.

What appears in the colour epilogue that closes the otherwise black-and-white Andrei Rublev?

In 1966 Tarkovsky dismissed colour film as a commercial gimmick.

Solaris (1972) was adapted from a novel by which writer?

Tarkovsky worked on the screenplay with Friedrich Gorenstein from 1968.

Which 1968 Western film did Tarkovsky call 'phoney' and 'lifeless' while making Solaris?

He wanted to bring emotional depth to a genre he saw as obsessed with technology.

Who plays psychologist Kris Kelvin in Solaris?

The Lithuanian actor was ranked only fourth in Tarkovsky's private ranking of the cast.

Who plays Hari, the dead wife who reappears aboard the station in Solaris?

She had introduced Tarkovsky to the novel when they were students together, and he first judged her too young for the part.

Which prize did Solaris win at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival?

The Sacrifice won the same prize fourteen years later.

Which visual motif appears in several Tarkovsky films, most notably Solaris?

He valued such scenes for their photogenic power and magical inexplicability.

Which of Tarkovsky's films is highly autobiographical and built around his father's poems?

Its working titles included Confession and A White, White Day.

How did Soviet authorities restrict the 1975 autobiographical film on release?

It was shown only in third-class cinemas and workers' clubs.

Which real family member appears on screen in the 1975 autobiographical film?

His wife Larisa also appears; Margarita Terekhova plays the mother as a young woman.

Stalker (1979) was loosely based on which novel by the Strugatsky brothers?

Tarkovsky first planned to film their Dead Mountaineer's Hotel instead.

In Stalker, what lies at the heart of the Zone?

The Stalker guides a writer and a professor toward it.

What is the name of the Stalker's mentor, who grew rich from the Room and then hanged himself?

The trap known as the meat grinder kills anyone the Zone deems unworthy.

What disaster struck the production of Stalker, forcing almost the whole film to be reshot?

Tarkovsky replaced cinematographer Georgy Rerberg with Alexander Knyazhinsky.

Near which city were the Zone scenes of Stalker filmed?

Two deserted hydropower plants on the Jägala river served as the main location.

What has been blamed for the cancer deaths of Tarkovsky, his wife Larisa and actor Anatoly Solonitsyn?

Sound designer Vladimir Sharun was convinced the location poisoned them.

Who plays the title role in Stalker?

Solonitsyn plays the Writer and Grinko the Professor.

What health crisis delayed Stalker in April 1978?

The film was finally completed in 1979.

Which disaster zone's cleanup workers called themselves stalkers, echoing Stalker's Zone?

The exclusion zone was created seven years after the film's release.

In which country did Tarkovsky shoot Nostalghia (1983)?

Mosfilm withdrew, so Italian broadcaster RAI financed it.

Which Italian screenwriter co-wrote Nostalghia with Tarkovsky?

They also made the documentary Voyage in Time together in 1979.

In Nostalghia's climax, Andrei Gorchakov tries to carry what across a drained mineral pool?

He is keeping a promise to the madman Domenico at Bagno Vignoni.

Who plays the Russian writer Gorchakov in Nostalghia?

His co-star as Domenico would later carry Tarkovsky's final film.

With which director did Tarkovsky share a special Grand Prix du cinéma de création at Cannes in 1983?

Soviet lobbying to block the Palme d'Or hardened his resolve never to work at home again.

Which opera did Tarkovsky stage at London's Royal Opera House in 1983?

Claudio Abbado conducted.

In which city did Tarkovsky announce in July 1984 that he would never return to the Soviet Union?

He insisted he was not a dissident but would be unemployed if he went home.

Where was The Sacrifice (1986) filmed?

The Swedish military refused him access to Bergman's island of Fårö.

Which Bergman cinematographer shot The Sacrifice?

He complained that Tarkovsky kept looking through the camera and directing actors through it.

Why did the climactic house-burning in The Sacrifice have to be shot twice?

The house had to be rebuilt in two weeks at great cost.

What does Alexander do in The Sacrifice after news of an apparent World War III?

He ends up burning his own house while the family is out walking.

Which award did The Sacrifice win in 1987?

Tarkovsky's son collected his Cannes prizes because the director was too ill to attend.

What is the title of Tarkovsky's 1986 book on cinema and art?

His theory held that cinema's unique power is to take our experience of time and alter it.

Under what title were Tarkovsky's diaries published?

His last entry, on 15 December 1986, read: But now I have no strength left.

What inscription did Tarkovsky's wife choose for his gravestone in France?

He is buried in the Russian Cemetery at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois near Paris.

Which Soviet honour was Tarkovsky awarded posthumously in 1990?

A retrospective in Moscow in autumn 1986 had finally recognised him at home shortly before his death.

Which director called discovering Tarkovsky's first film 'like a miracle' and named him 'the greatest'?

He said Tarkovsky captured life as a reflection, life as a dream.

What was Tarkovsky's only stage production, mounted at Moscow's Lenkom Theatre in 1976?

Anatoly Solonitsyn, a regular in his films, played the lead.

With which cinematographer did Tarkovsky collaborate closely from 1958 to 1972?

Tarkovsky would spend two days preparing a single long take, so usually only one take was needed.

Which three Tarkovsky films appeared in Sight & Sound's 2012 poll of the 100 greatest films?

All three were made in the Soviet Union.

What celestial object was named after Tarkovsky?

3345 Tarkovskij was discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina in 1982.

Which Bergman regular starred in both Nostalghia and The Sacrifice?

In The Sacrifice he plays Alexander, the man who burns his house.

Tarkovsky's unfilmed 1974 screenplay Hoffmanniana was based on the life of which German author?

Tallinnfilm liked the script but agreed nobody except Tarkovsky could direct it, and he later toyed with reviving it in exile.

Which French filmmaker made the 1999 documentary One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich?

Aleksandr Sokurov paid his own homage with Moscow Elegy in 1987, the year after Tarkovsky died.

Which poet, later famous, was a school classmate of Tarkovsky's in Moscow?

The young Tarkovsky was a troublemaker and a poor student who nonetheless studied piano and attended art classes on the side.

Where in France was Tarkovsky buried in January 1987?

He died at a clinic in Neuilly-sur-Seine on 29 December 1986; his funeral was held at the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Paris.

Tarkovsky's 1958 entrance-exam screenplay Concentrate drew on which experience?

It earned the top grade 'excellent' but was never filmed, though fragments were shot for a 1994 documentary by his sister Marina.