The Exile And Death of Andrei Tarkovsky - 1988

In Search of Lost Time The Exile and Death of Andrei Tarkovsky Any artist attempts to depict the inner life of human beings as convincingly as possible. That's what all of us strive after. I discovered that within all these years I concerned myself with one basic subject. And generally the same kind of problems interest me. Even though I made various different films, all of them came into existence for one major reason. The idea was to report on the inner dichomoty of human beings. The dichotomy of animus and material. The discrepance between spiritual ideals and the necessity to persist in a material world. This dichotomy is of importance because all problems which we have throughout our lives basically accrue from it. "July 10th, 1986: Eschelbronn. Since the evening of July 7th I stay at an anthroposophic clinic in Germany, near Baden-Baden. I have augmented temperature, fever and cough, much heavier than in the past. The doctors told me that I'm in a state of remission. And that in no case I should undergo further chemotherapies. I'm really feeling miserably." "He was pretty alone here. Nobody spoke his language. He himself didn't speak German, barely English, no French, quite well Italian. His wife handed him over, then she didn't return. But he also wanted to be alone with himself. He was happy about the records I brought him and enwrapped in the music. Bach, Bach, Bach. He didn't want anything else. And reading: He leafed through the pages of Italian newspapers in a lethargic way. He demanded literature of German Romanticism, and re-read the few books that were available in Russian translation. His proxity which had remained in Paris divulged that he would already be recovering. Because which producer or film subsidy gives money to a terminally ill man? He was well aware of his condition, and so was I. Both of us knew that we wouldn't get to realize our plan to work on a documentary project about the questions of existence for an exiled artist. And to try to find answers in regards to his own example. It all began with longing, a longing for Italy and all the feelings which he associated with that country. With the wish to once again be able to make films. With the thought to earn some money. His notes from Moscow contain a long list of outstanding debts and his bad feelings about them. He who spent the most wonderful years of his life as a surveyor out in nature was looking for a country full of myths, magical places and landscapes. He was searching for it with a romantic soul. "We were all together at his home at Mosfilmovskaya Street, family and friends came by. I was there together with my husband and my daughter. To be honest, I didn't think that it would be our last encounter, and unfortunately I also didn't estimate it as such. We couldn't even make it to the airport due to other obligations. That was the last time we met and after that we only had phone calls. I remember that on this day Andrei was already getting into the mood for his work. He was a bit worried about the screenplay for "Nostalghia" and about the possible conditions which awaited him over there in Italy. I got the impression that this was a man who went abroad in order to be able to work under good conditions. But not someone who forever left his homeland and family." "I remember his farewell party, a lot of people were there. many friends visited him and it got very late. That evening Oleg Yankovsky came, and lots of others. There was also an man from Italian television, but unfortunately I can't recall his name. We sat at the table the whole evening and got to bed very late. The next morning at 6 or 7 we accompanied my father to the airport Sheremetyevo. There we saw each other for the last time. He took a plane which went to Rome. After that we never met again, from then on we only talked to each other on the phone." On the very first page of the first diary from Italy he pasted this picture of a ship. With sails full of wind heading into one single direction. Away from the affliction which didn't allow him to realize his ideas. Five films in twenty years, acclaimed everywhere, international prizes, except in the very country that meant so much to him where they were instead constrained and dispraised. That's where he wanted to escape from. He was allowed a temporary abscence for the duration of directing a film project in Italian- Soviet co-production. Bagno Vignoni: a spa bath from the middle ages on top of a Tuscan hill. A place with he can't forget after his first stay. He spends various weeks here. Near these sounds, this light and this water. He will make this place the center of his film. Thoughts about it from his diary: "Would it be good if they killed Gorchakov haphazardly on the street? Maybe he should die of a heart attack. He generally has a an ailing heart. Right now we're considering what we should leave in the film. The madmen with the horse, the Madonna del Parto, Bagno Vignoni together with the sickness, the dream, the man on the bicycle, the beginning at the hotel, Bagno Vignoni, just a bassin, rather shabby, intimate and provincial. Everything takes place at the hotel near the bassin. That means one would need to elaborate on the atmosphere of the place with all its details." "He first came here in 1981. He made a couple of shots which RAI broadcasted in the following spring. In autumn he returned to make the film called "Nostalghia" which was shot almost exclusively in the hotel "Le Terme" where he himself stayed as a guest in Room No. 30 and where we maintain a due respect and esteem for this great man. He lived a very humble life. He had a lot of understanding and a certain elementariness as I've seen in no other man of his status. He wasn't simply a friend to me, he was both a friend and a brother." At "his" landscapes in Italy and "his" places he takes pictures with a Polaroid camera. Only few of these don't bear evidence of perishableness and degeneration. "What actually is art? The good or the bad? Does it come from God or the devil? Does it generate from the potency or the weakness of man? Is it perhaps a pledge for human coexistence? A picture of social harmony? Is that perhaps its function? It is something like a love confession? Like a confession of dependency on other human beings. It's a confession, an unconscious act which at the same time mirrors the actual meaning of life. Love and sacrifice. Mankind hasn't created anything altruistic except the artistic image. And perhaps the meaning of human existence is indeed the creation of works of art. The arstic act which is purposeless and altruistic. Perhaps in it gets revealed that we were created in God's own likeness. I often think that those are right who say that aristic creation is a condition of the soul. Why? Maybe because man attempts to imitate the creator. But is that right? Isn't it ridiculous to imitate the creator whom we serve? Our sin against the creator is that we make use of our freedom to fight against the evil in ourselves. To get rid of all barriers and grow spiritually and overcome our low position. May God be with me! Send me a teacher! I'm tired of waiting for him. I aspired the "Nostalghia" screenplay to contain nothing insignificant or beside the point which could have distracted me from my main concern which is to report on a condition of a man who gets into conflict with himself and the world. A man who is incapable of striking a balance between reality and desired harmony and who therefore feels nostalghia which not only originates from his geographical distance away from the home country, but also a gobal mourning about integral existence. I was dissatisfied with the screenplay for quite some time until finally a metaphysical unity came into being." "Where am I? If not in reality and not in my fantasy. I'm making a new arrangement with the world. So that hat the sun may shine at night. And that there may be snow in august. The big things are going to end. And the little things are going to remain. Society needs to merge into a unity again. And can no longer remain splittered. One just has to observe nature to discover that life itself is pretty simple. And that one has to return to the point, that particular point in time, at which you've chosen to follow a wrong path. We need to return to the elemental principles of life without polluting the water. What kind of world is this if a madman needs to tell you "sane" people that you should be ashamed of yourselves. And now let the music play... From the first day I had a deep contact with him. And now let the music play... And now let the music play... We had no common language at all. And now let the music play... He spoke a little Italian, I spoke a little Italian. But he spoke no English, and I spoke no Russian. And obviously he didn't speak Swedish. But his intentions were clear. We communicated with our eyes, bodies and gestures. You had to be observant in a special way, and not look around. You had to look him in the face all the time. If you did this, then he was someone who could express himself very well. He had an ability to guide and enjoyed doing it. But he didn't dominate you. He just gave hints and suggestions. He created a platform for the actor to move around freely. You felt free because he gave you inspiration. Acting wasn't easy for me, together with him in the first film because I exaggerated the character. I was used to express as much as possible of a character. But he didn't want that much expression. He wanted to keep the secrets. He wanted to leave the audience in a mood of activity and curiosity. Not to explain too much of the characters or situations. Not to explain too much Not to explain too much He was always hunting like that, hunting expressions, hunting not only expressions of faces and actors, but also the expressions of nature. He could stand before a wall that was full of sign and expressions of time. He could see that the wall had a history. He could stand like this for 5-10 minutes finding many mysterious signs on the wall. He was looking for something, I don't know what. Often when we were visiting landscapes, especially when there was some water in the landscape, he loved water, then he deviated seperate rills, and created a new landscape. He was always out looking for things, it was a way to search and create at the same time. When I first saw the material of the finished film, the darkness of the images surprised me. The whole material corresponded to our mood and frame of mind while recording it. But to accomplish such a task I didn't even aim for. Though it seems symptomatic to me that the camera reacted irrespective of my concrete intentions to my inner state of mind during the filming. And as such to the torturous long separation from my family, the abscence of habitual living conditions, a kind of production that was new to me, and last but not least the foreign language. I was both surprised and delighted that the result gave clear evidence that my conception to use cinematic means in order to create an imprint of the human soul and thus reach a truly unique human experience was not just a spawn of idle thoughts, but undeniable reality." "One has to visit his father... For three years now the jacket is hanging in my closet. I will drive to Moscow and don it right away. I go nowhere, I don't see anyboby." "I studied the grass, opening my note book, And the grass began to ring like a flute, I caught the correspondences of sound and color And when the dragon-fly started its hymn Moving through the green tones like a comet, I knew that any dewdrop is a tear I knew that in any facet of its huge eye In each rainbow of the brightly rustling wings Dwells the word of the prophet And I discovered by miracle the secret of Adam. I loved my labor, this masonry of Words bound by their own light the riddle of vague feelings And the simple answer of the mind. In the word 'truth' I perceived the truth itself. My language was truthful like spectral analysis. And the words just lay there under my feet. And I would also say: my interlocutor's correct I heard a quarter of the noise, saw half the light. Yet I did not offend either my loved ones nor the grass Nor did I insult the earth with an indifference. And while I've been working on the earth, accepting Its gift of cold water or fragrant bread, The bottomless sky stood above me -- Stars were falling on my sleeve." "The countenance of the world has changed. Nobody doubts that. But I ask myself how it could happen that after thousands of years the world would get into such a horrible situation. It seems to me that man needs to alter his inner world before he can attempt to change the countenance of the world. That is the problem. This process has to be a parallel one. To develop in a harmonic way. And it mustn't be deviated by other problems. Our gravest present error is that we want to indoctrinate others, but are unwilling to learn ourselves. That's why it's hard for me to talk about whether I can change things with my art. In order to attempt changes with my art I myself need to change. I have to become more profound and spiritual. Only after that I can be of use. How can we attempt changes if we don't evaluate ourselves?" I wanted to report on the Russian form of nostalghia, the state of mind which is so specific about our nation and which we as Russians feel when far away from home. In it I saw my patriotic duty, as I feel it and understand it. I wanted to talk about the fateful bond of Russians with national roots, past and culture, native soil, family and friends. The strong bond which they won't get rid of throughout their entire lives, no matter where destiny may lead them. Russians aren't able to easily realign and adapt to the altered living conditions. The entire history of Russian emigration gives evidence that Russians are "bad emigrants" as they use to say in the West. Their tragical inability to assimilate and their awkward attempts to adapt to a foreign lifestyle are widely known. How should I have assumed that this condition of desperate sorrow which dominates the film would become the fate of my own life? How should I have imagined that I myself would have to suffer from this illness till the end of my days? "While shooting this film I realized that I would be able to express something distinctive which I didn't in my previous films. Thereby I expanded into myself. I became aware that a film can make the inner life of its author visible." I became aware that a film can make the inner life of its author visible." Rome, the first station of his exile. Together with his wife Larisa who had followed him in Sept 1982 he lived in the Via di Monserrato. His diary entries from that time give evidence of how torn we was: "May, 25th: A very bad day. Heavy thoughts. Fear. I am lost. I can't live in Russia, and I can't live here either." "May, 26th: On the 31st I need to fly to Milan and meet Alano. Berlin called. Someone wants to produce "Hoffmanniana". I demanded $50.000 in cash, but isn't that too little? In Moscow rumors are being spread that I underwent an upset in Cannes. I swear to God, those are the last drops." "May, 27th: Larisa and I talked to Moscow. They're spreading rumors everywhere that I failed in Cannes. Malicious agitation." "May, 30th: Franco called and reported that it won't work out with the cottage. Once again we remain without shelter, we don't know what to do." "June 2nd: Today I returned from Milan. I'm utterly exhausted. I met with Abado, we had good ideas. But I' tired. Totally exhausted. We have no shelter, we need to work, decide on something, somehow act. but I'm doing nothing. I'm waiting for something." What happened in Cannes? The festival with its marketing hype and vain ado that repulsed him, but with its Golden Palm that meant so much to him. He wrote in his diary: "I haven't yet found the countenance to put into words what happened there. Everything was terrible, and the details can be read in the press releases which published a lot about the festival. I own many of these press releases. Very tired. The film left a huge impression and got awarded with three prizes. They congratulated me. All the time Bondarchuk was against the film. They had delegated him directly to the festival in order to discredit my film, even though the film functionaries from Moscow had assured me that Bondarchuk would at least be loyal. They talked so much about it that I came to realize they intentionally sent him to Cannes to harm me. For that I wouldn't win the prize which might have augmented my chances to work abroad. Bondarchuk caused exceptional damage, but also Bresson who declared he wanted either the Golden Palm or nothing at all. At a press conference I had to make the same declaration, so that our chances in front of the jury would be equal." That of all people Bresson whom he admired like few others had to become his adversary and that both ended up not winning the main award, but being compensated with a quickly invented prize for creativity deeply hurt him. This scene with Robert Bresson and Orson Welles as the award presenter mirrors his hurt feelings. "I don't know up to which point is is known in the West what happened to us throughout these past years. I'm afraid only a few people actually know about it. When I travelled to the West and made the film "Nostalghia" for Italian TV, Larisa and I didn't even think about remaining here. We never considered to not return to the Soviet Union after the job would be done, but our government, especially Goskino, the state-run film board, or more concretely a man named Jermasch, did everything to not just destroy our relations, but to prevent any opportunity that we might return home. We did get allowed to participate in Cannes and represent the Soviet Union, but for the jury they delegated the director Bondarchuk that didn't happen on demand of the Cannes Festival director, the Soviet Union demanded it for not having being nominated in 1983. It became clear to me that delegating Bondarchuk who turns pale and faints whenever he hears my name out of enviousness, was not just a coincidence. I knew that he came there to give me a hard time. But when I learned that he was fighting against "Nostalghia" in the jury, and tried to impede it would get awarded or mentioned, I realized the Goskino director had sent him solely to destroy the success of our film in Cannes. I was baffled, hurt and distressed, because I had made a film about a man who can't live outside the Soviet Union, but regardless Goskino did everything to compromise me in front of the festival, the audience and the press. I realized that back in the Soviet Union I would be forever without work and I already knew how terrible it is to be left without work there. San Gregorio, a little mountain village, 50 kilometres to the east of Rome. The seclusion as a next life station. Here Tarkovsky wants to buy a house, an old, small and ruinous tower in an enclosed park area. "July 6th, 1983: The accommodation is very narrow and meager. The kitchen is tiny. But what else should we do?" "July 11th: We relocated to San Gregorio in order to be closer to the house that we want to buy, and be able to supervise the repairs. I hope we won't miss out on this good opportunity." "July 12th: These days Lara and I are extremely tired and don't feel well. For three days we didn't get finished with unpacking the bags and boxes. Tomorrow we need to make the last effort. May God help us and give us the strength." The months in San Gregorio are a very busy and creative phase. In Cannes the Swedish Film Institute had offered him, to rewrite an old draft for a film called "The Witch". The newly planned film should now be named "The Sacrifice". It's full of ideas, Hamlet, St. Antonius, E.T.A Hoffmann. He wants to make up for missed opportunities, and here, as always, there are money troubles. The renovation of the little tower doesn't work out. "He always picked me up. He came by and said: "Let's drive some place." And we got into the car and drove up the mountains. Or we went out to pick blackberries or flowers. All these things. He didn't enjoy to live around too many people. He wanted a recluded life, you know. Maybe he also met with my family just because we were friends. But that doesn't mean he was unsocial, he always greeted everyone who came by, also the children. And then he wanted to do something with the village band, he estimated these things. He told me that he loved the music. But then he went away and it was all out. He had also wanted to make clothes for the village band. I remember him saying: "Now I want to design new clothes for them." He also wanted to buy a house, I promised to arrange that. It should be a small house, here in San Gregorio, near the statue." "Wouldn't it be lovely to occasionally take a rest? To turn toward some other conception of the meaning of life. The East was always closer to the eternal truth than the West. But the Western civilization dispatched the East with their materialist attitude. The West cries out: "Here, look at me! Look how I suffer and how I love! Look how happy or unhappy I can be! Me, me, me!!!" The East doesn't say a single word about itself. It entirely loses itself in God, nature and time. And it discovers itself in everything." "It is a foreigner, very close to me. It is a man who in every moment had some sort of ambition to create the world again and again. A man who wanted to create the rain, the clouds and the expressions on people's faces. A man who always wanted to create new things. In his presence you came very close to the miracle of life. He was always thinking about it. And at the same time he was joking, laughing, playing, a lot of coquetry. He liked himself, his own body, his own face. He knew very well how to express himself in the ambience. Because he was a very open-hearted man. Naive, like many artists. He was a very artistic and parodoxic man in the sense that he could be unreserved, mysterious and playful. he was touching you physically He had also such a tenderness, in a very nice way." London, September 1983. Musical director at Covent Garden, Claudio Abbado invites Tarkovski to create the staging of Moussrgsky's Boris Godounov Photos and short films survived from the production. "I never saw another director comparable to Tarkovsky. From the first rehearsal on he said: "Let's stage this scene with music. He didn't give any particular instruction. I asked him: "But which position to start with?" And he answered: "No, I just want to hear." So we did it with music, and slowly he began to make fine adjustments, corrected the movements of the actors and together we improvised. But always with a clear idea in mind. We obviously talked for a long time. And sometimes he had an ingenious idea, as for instance when Boris sleeps inside the Russian map, and children play, others aren't allowed on stage. That was ingenious and we decided that the idea has to be included in a film. And in the second scene with Dimitri and Pimen, a very difficult scene with two men talking, I told him that he would need to come up with something, and he thought about it for days. until he had an extraordinary idea. Very slowly he turned the lights down. and the actors on the stage began to move slowly The audience first didn't understand what was happening. And then suddenly when Pimen tells that the Zar has killed everyone, the light comes in and the bodys of the dead appear on stage. and among them the Dimitri who has also died. That idea was absolutely brilliant. He always asked me about my opinion, and if a scene would work with music. He had a great respect for music, as it is unfortunately not often the case if a film director decides to stage an opera." I wasn't easy to get an interview with Tarkovsky. I had to approach him indirectly through his assistants and long conversations on phone. And then came the condition that Tarkovsky wanted money, he wouldn't give the interview for free, but he wanted 800 Swiss francs. I didn't have this money and it was tough for me until a friend helped out. I flew to London and arrived behind the schedule at one of these terraced houses in a suburb of London, and a person of short stature opened the door, very unfriendly and covered in a blanket, telling me he didn't expect me, and that he wasn't willing to talk to me. But I had the money and put it on the table, and Tarkovsky had to talk to me. He felt humiliated and hated me for it, he always put that blanket between us, and told he he was ill and wanted to have nothing to do with journalists. And that all he has to say he had already expressed in his films. And that journalism itself would be a profession of minor value. And he asked me why I didn't stay at my husband's side as it would fit a decent woman. And as I do many diagnostic interviews as a psychologist, I decided that since I had prepared everything for that interview, I now had to make him talk. And I chose that doorway regarding the relation between man and woman, and first of all I made it clear to him, that I didn't come to him as a journalist, but as a human being who feels connected to him through his films, and he started to warm up a bit, because he wanted to hear compliments, and then I attacked him and said: "In your films the woman has no momentum, but is merely a satellite of the man, she has no right to exist for herself as a human being, but always exists by virtue of her love for a man. And then Tarkovsky spread his radical, chauvinist ideas telling me that a woman has no personal inner world and also shouldn't have it, and her inner state of being should dissolve enirely in that of a man. But the man should keep his inner world to himself. And we fought with our viewpoints, but then I understood that Tarkovsky demanded from a woman what he himself couldn't give, because in my opinion he was incapable of loving. And I also asked him: "Why don't you love yourself?" And he admitted that it was very difficult for him to love, and that it would be hard for him to make sacrifices, but that a woman were a symbol of life, the myth, the good and the beautiful, and therefore she should be the one who gives love." "The question is a very simple one: the one who gives love." the one who gives love." Where do you find the spiritual energy the one who gives love." the one who gives love." that is the source of your creative work? the one who gives love." that is the source of your creative work? Where are you rooted?" "My roots are that I dislike myself." "But that doesn't answer my question. Where do you draw...?" "Yes, that's my starting point that motivates me to pay attention to other things, it makes it possible to make steps away from myself." It permits me to not find energy in myself, but in what surrounds me. I certainly can't claim to find that energy in myself." "One more question." On invitation of various cultural institutions he visits West Berlin in late 1983. He gives lectures and faces up to discussions. He lives in Glienicke on the outskirts of the city that remains foreign to him. "Berlin is a devastated city. Some buildings could be preserved, as we know, but it's terribly ruined. And the city didn't get rebuilt. Just the tenements got repaired and new houses were constructed. I sense the city as suppressive, it's obviously not the city it was back then. This Berlin is new, and there's a feeling in the air, as if war hasn't ended yet. Some kind of psychological climate." He simply couldn't stand the Berlin Wall, it was very difficult for him from an emotional point of view. And all that related to our personal difficulties. This wall was also between us. Impressions are always something personal. This wall was also between us. Impressions are always something personal. It also depends on your situation when you visit a city, and I think that was his case. He had one of those typical emotional responses to the city. He always claimed in Berlin he would sense the whole atmosphere, poverty and misery of the immediate postwar period. He said that he felt it with his skin. That distressed him quite a bit, and he said he wouldn't be able to live permanently in Berlin. That life here wasn't for him. He could only work here with exertion, he was always strained and nervous." He makes the city endurable for himself by visiting the museum, Dahlem and Charlottenburg Palace. The adoration for German Romantic literature and painting since an early age leads to strong emotional responses. Already in Moscow he had written a screenplay about E.T.A. Hoffmann. Here at Charlottenburg Place he wants to realize the project, while talking a stroll, he decides on shooting locations. But for the time being there's Sweden. His next film: "The Sacrifice". Also based on a idea that occupies his mind with for years. "Tolstoy held the view that in order to serve the the people and really be an outstanding personality one would need to improve oneself. To turn toward one's inner being. Only then one would be able to make a sacrifice. This problem is very important. And for me it's fixed that for my upcoming film I only want to be concerned with that particular problem." As the shooting location he decides on Gotland, an island as close as possible to Russia, a landscape which equals that beyond the horizon. "The film highlights that if we don't want to live like parasites on the body of society, nutured by the fruits of democracy, that if we don't want to become conformists and idiotic consumers, then we have to dispense with a lot. And we have to start with ourselves. We're quick to blame others, the society, our friends, but not ourselves. On the contrary, we like to indoctrinate others, give speeches about how to behave, want to be prophets, but have no right thereto, because we attend least to ourselves, and don't follow our own advices. It's a dramatic misunderstanding if one says: "That's a good person." Because what's that today, a good person? Only if one is willing to sacrifice oneself, one can claim to influence the general process of life, there's no other way. The prize is to pay is our material wealth. One at least has to live as one talks, so that the principles are not just idle talk and demagogy, but turn into reality." July 10th, 1984: Palazzo Serbelloni in Milan. He came from Sweden to declare on an international press conference that he would remain in the West. "It's the ugliest moment of my life.", he says Blimov and Rostopóvich sitting at his side notice him being muddle-headed and nervous. In a roundabout way he describes his failed attempts to find an agreement with the Soviet film board which resulted in them affronting him and leaving his letters unanswered. Cold silence, he states, was also the reaction of Party functionaries when he asked for the departure of his 13-year old son and his 82-year old mother-in-law. Resulting from all that, I had to realize that they hate me, he said. If they had just answered him once, then he wouldn't have decided to abandon his home country. He stated that it's a tragedy for him, and that they have disowned him. When a journalist asks him in which country he would want to live, Tarkovsky answers, he hasn't decided yet. "If one asked him why he stayed here anyhow, he answered: "In order to hurt them." "They", always "they". But these are people that can't be hurt. There's no way to change their minds. I don't think one should act solely out of pride, the pain he had to go through due to the loss of his familiar environment in which he had lived for almost 50 years stand in no relation to the dream of living in the West. He did find some kind of contentment, but once and again he told me, that here in the West a spirituality in the way of thinking was missing. He thought there was a primitivity of thinking, a petty bourgeois mentality which he couldn't stand. He became steadily unhappier, and his resumee was that there was no paradise on earth, that man was born to be unlucky and destined to misery and sadness since right from the beginning." "I undoubtly don't want to live with a clear idea of what life has in store for me. In that instance life would have lost any kind of meaning. Because if I know what will happen to me, what meaning is left? I'm obviously talking about my own, personal destiny. These words are surrounded by an aura of enormous sublimity in front which man stands as a child. A child which is vulnerable and defenselesss, but still gets protected. Everything got arranged in a way that our knowledge is incomplete, so that we don't blemish eternity, and a hope remains. Because not knowing means hope. Not knowing also means sublimity, because knowledge is ordinary and cheap." He got invited to the St. James Church in London to hold a lecture about the apocalypsis. He talked about himself, the Book of Revelation became his personal matter. His life had become apocalyptic in his opinion. "Blessed are those who read and listen to the words of the prophecy, because the time is near." He related those words directly to himself. Winter of 1984/85: Once again in Berlin. He rarely leaves his tenement in the Hektor Street, at the Paris Bar he meets up with the few people he wants to have around. Making plans and plans. He wants to make a film about Rudolf Steiner together with Alexander Kluge. There'no progress regarding "Hoffmanniana". He realizes that money rules the film business in Germany, an obstacle for poets. Ullstein publishes his book "Sculpting in Time: Reflections on art, esthetics and poetics of cinema" It mostly consists of texts which he had already written in Moscow. He feels ignored at the Berlin Film Festival. He assumes it has been decided to sacrifice him because of the East-Western festival relations. He is often depressed and argues with his wife, he feels tired and isolates himself in his furnished tenement. He's still leading a portable life. "February 27th, 1985: Berlin is a terrible city. I need to abandon it as soon as possible. They insulted me on the festival. They interacted with me as they do in Moscow. My flight is on March 1st. There's an absolute lack of clarity in regard to a possible collaboration with the Germans." At last Gotland, at last the work on his film "The Sacrifice". Here they're filming the final sequence. He leaves the impression that he wants to put everything into this single film: the denunciation of the materialism, the impiousness and lack of spirituality of our age, also a denunciation of his wife whom he seriously regards as a witch, his love-hate relationship to her for whom he raises a questionable monument in this film with the portrayal of a hysteric and self-serving egocentric. He is like obsessed, his emotions alter by leaps and bounds. At times he is happy, warm, friendly, then again repellent, cold and mean. "March 6th, 1985: The Swedes are lazy and slack, and only care about fulfilling formalities. One has to start with the shooting at 8 o'clock, and not one minute later, and that around nature. It's probably the only country in which working on a film equals the work of public servants, without even thinking about the circumstances of creation, which doesn't allow space for any kind of reglementations. And the same viceversa, they work really badly." "Now you can come and help me, my boy. Once upon a time, you know, an old monk lived in an Orthodox monastery. His name was Pamve. On a mountain he planted a barren tree, just like this. Then he told his pupil, a monk called Ioann Kolov, that he should water the tree each day until it came to life. Put a few stones there, will you? Anyway, early every morning Ioann filled a bucket with water and went out. He climbed up the mountain and watered the withered tree and in the evening when darkness had fallen he returned to the monastery. He did this for three years. And one fine day, he climbed up the mountain and saw that the whole tree was covered with blossoms. Say what you will, but a method, a system, has its virtues. You know, sometimes I say to myself, if every single day, at exactly the same time, one were to perform the same single act again and again, just like a ritual, unchanging, systematic, every day at the same time, the world would be changed. Yes, something would change. It would have to." "This house at the sea mirrors the story of our own rural house, and the characters in that film are drawn from our lives. The little boy, that was me. In the film, the main character dearly loves the boy, and talks to him about various serious issues, whose meaning the boy doesn't even understand. These kinds of conversations also took place between my father and me, while I was little, and we often went out for a walk. He always told me something. A lot of different, interesting stories. At times I understood him, at times not. But it was always interesting to listen. That remains in my memory for my entire life, those conversations during our walks. I think that he also remembered it, and made use of it for his film." "Are you ready or not? Sven? Erland?" "I remember he was looking for a place where he could shoot the dream of the catastrophy. In the scene there was a bridge with many people crossing, together with the cinematographer and the producer he searching all the places in Stockholm for a fitting shooting location. But he didn't find anything. And then one morning he came and said: "I found the place for the catastrophe." We shot the sequence, and he put the camera about 10 metres from where Olof Palme was murdered six months later, and he shot toward the direction of the steps over which the murderer disappeared." And I asked him, because it was such a shock for me, how he had found that location, and whether it were a presentiment. And he answered that some places are made for catastrophies. And that this were such a place. He possessed many gateways for comprehending history, politics, and human behaviour which were of a dramatic rather than an intellectual nature. He was an intellectual man, very intelligent, with a clear mind, but he also another sort of instrument, which was very well developed." - "What is it?" - "No, no, no." - "Stay calm." - "No, no. I can't" "I can't. I can't. I can't!" I remember many times he would sometimes call me and say: "I had a dream." And then he told me about his dream. For example, once he dreamt that he was lying dead on a bed, and saw his wife sitting at the edge of the bed. And when she turned around it was somebody else. And those who watch the film can see the realization of that dream, when Adelaide turns around, and then we see the witch Maria. of that dream, when Adelaide turns around, and then we see the witch Maria. And another very complicated scene which was left out even though we shot it, is also based on a dream he told me, in which he was dead,lying on a coach, and lots of people were coming into the room and they were kneeling as some kind of sign of respect." "September, 29th: Stockholm. Everything is terribly difficult. "September, 29th: Stockholm. Everything is terribly difficult. I'm so tired. I just can't continue without being with Androuscha. I don't want to live anymore." "November 8th: Today I had a terrible, sad dream. Again I saw a Northern lake, apparently somewhere in Russia, at dawn. At the shore on the other side there were two Orthodox monasteries and churches of immense beauty, and I became so sad and sore. "November 10th: For the time being no news concerning Androuscha. Tomorrow I have a second meeting with Palme. In Rome, Larisa and I were at the foreign ministry, they want to help us. We visited a lawyer and senator who has excellent connections to the government. Andreotti asked to wait a couple of before undertaking steps regarding the invitation of our family members. Bad news are coming from Moscow. Terrible days, a terrible year, may God help me." "November 18th: I'm sick. Bronchitis and something absurd with the back of my head. The muscles press in the nerves which causes neck and shoulder pain. A cough. The snuffles. And at the same time I need to do the sound editing for the film. Time goes by..." "November 19th: I went to a masseur. Because of the permanent stress my shoulders and back are in bad shape. It looks as if I need to undergo a little operation at my right clavicle. He says it's dangerous to leave it like this. I talked to Moscow, but there are no news to report on. At the film institute the work makes no progress without me." "November 24th: I'm seriously ill. Terrible tensions between me and the producer because of the film's length of 2 hours and 10 minutes. The conversations between Gorbachov and Reagon have finished. There's a hope for next year." "November 30th: Dreadful bickering because of the film's length. I'm ill. I had to make a general blood test, and undergo x-raying of my lungs. The results aren't known yet." "December 10th: The doctor told me that on Friday 13th - he chose a good day - I would have to visit a specialist in respiratory medicine. I received a demanding letter from the director of the film institute, and responded him in a cold tone that I can't understand his attitude. That he may either want a film by Tarkovsky, or some kind of commercial 1h30m film." "The older I get the more mysterious the human being seems to me. It seems as if he deprives from my observations. That means my value system collapses, and I begin to lack the ability to make conclusions. On the one hand it is good if a value system collapses. But can it be good if all systems break into pieces? May God protect me from losing everything." "What do I suffer from? A new outbreak of tuberculosis? A pneumonia? Or maybe even cancer? I will get to know on December 13th." "I'm ill and lying in the bed. Painful aches in my lungs. Today I saw Vasili Schukshin in my dream, we played a game of cards. I asked him if he were currently writing anything. "I write, I write." he answered distracted, his thoughts concentrated on the game of cards. And then I think the other players stood up, and one of them said: "Now is the time for accounting.", in the sense that the game was over, and the final scores had to be counted." "December 12th: A couple of days ago I was lying in the bed though not asleep. Suddenly I could see the inner of my lungs. Or rather the part of one lung which had a hole with coagulated blood in it. Before I never had such visions. I'm in a very bad shape. Heavy cough and a painful ache in the lungs. Headache." "Deceber 13th: This is really a "black friday". I went to the doctor in the clinic. They were very attentive and friendly to me. Perhaps a bit too much. They made an analysis aside their usual working time. Apparently Slava Rostropovich had used his influence. There's something in my left lung. The doctor said that it's either a pneumonia which is likely wrong, since the dark spot didn't disappear after I took antibiotics, or a tuberculosis, or a tumor. He asked me at which part I would prefer an operation in the worst of cases. I'm thinking that maybe I shouldn't consent to an operation. It's just tantalizing, without any results. Afterall it's the lungs, and not the *** of a woman. They also took bipsy samples of the mysterious swelling on my head which suddenly appeared a month ago without any evident cause. They tested me for tuberculosis, and want to clear it up until Dec 20th. But somehow I'm prepared for the worst. This vision I had when I saw my lungs in front of me seemed like a cavern rather than a tumor, though I'm not entirely convinced. I don't know how this tumor would have to look like, I just have the impression that all around the wound was clean, nothing malignant. I should have taken out a life policy while in Italy. Now it will likely be very difficult." "December 15th: Man lives with the knowledge that sooner or later he will die. But he doesn't know when, so he postpones that moment until an undetermined date. That helps him to go on living. But now I know it, and nothing can help me to keep on living. That's tough. But the most important is Larisa. How should I tell her? How should I deal her such a blow with my own hands?" "December 16th: Today I spent the entire day at the hospital. They sliced the swelling on my head and separated a part for the analysis. But the doctor says the results of the analysis were bad. And that there were no way to cure the swelling, or if it's of a certain type, with a probability of 80 %. But it all seems like my situation is really bad. How should I tell it Lara?" "December 21st: On the 23rd I got a flight to Italy, I'm taking all my things with me. Day after day I'm feeling worse. Boris Paternake was right when he told me that I would only make four more films. Do you remeber the psychic seances at Rerik? Only that Boris Pasternak didn't count correctly. He knew that I would make seven films, but he also included "The Steamroller and the Violin" which shouldn't be counted. But he wasn't at fault." "Florence, Christmas of 1985: At last a private tenement, with furnitures of one's own. The city offers me the tenement gratuitously, the mayor is proud to have Tarkovsky here." At last a stabalizing element, but he feels no joy. There's too much pressure, the consistent thinking about his illness. And the film which matters so much to him, and which he regards as his most important one, needs to get finished. In his first draft of "The Sacrifice" the male main character had cancer. His artistic work a mysterious projection of his own destiny? "A poetic image which I conceived someday becomes a concrete reality, it materializes and gains influence over my life, irrespective of whether I like it or not. Obviously the acquaintance with such a reality that originated without conscious personal interference though having its seeds in the imagitary world of that person who ultimately becomes its victim is not convenient at all. On the contrary one perceives oneself as an instrument or a pawn. Ones stops being a personality in an autonomous, self-reliable sense, feels divided in halves and like a medium. One is no longer disposes of oneself. If life follows the ideas which one develops, then those ideas aren't one's belongings, but mere messages which one receives and delivers. In that sense Pushkin was right when he stated that every poet, every artist is against his will a prophet. He undergoes medical treatment in Paris. The diary which he now begins is titled: "Martyrolos" - tale of woe. The doctors in Sweden made the diagnosis he had only three more weeks to live. He was seriously ill. I received a phone call and was aked to bring him into contact with Prof. Schwarzenberg. I immediately made the contact. He suffered a lot and was very tired. He already had advanced cancer. He had metastases in the bones. The next day he got hospitalized for treatment. I'm not a doctor, but a short time after that he already felt better. At the time when he moved into my house, where he lived for a couple of weeks, he was much better. The treatment helped that he didn't suffer, and he could start to edit his film which took him various weeks. That means during those weeks he could work and finish his film, which obviously meant a lot to him. He even began to make plans for another film which he wanted to dedicate to the lives of the Saints. And then there was the arrival of his son. We had all tried to achieve that his son and mother-in-law would be able to make it here. He hadn't seen them for four years, during which he desperately fought to get them out. I myself went to the Soviet ambassador, and gave him a letter written by Prof. Schwarzenberg which described his state of health. Around the same time the French President Mitterand wrote to Gorbachov, and a few days later we received the confirmation that his son was allowed to come to France, and I had the opportunity to be present when he arrived. He was a teenager whom Andrei hadn't seen for four years. When I arrived he asked me about everything that was going on in Moscow. He was worried about our rural house, and steadily made renovation plans. I got the impression that he suffered a lot from nostalghia. In general he missed everything, our tenement in Moscow, the people, he had a lot of interest and asked me, but didn't show it directly. He strove to withhold in order to give my mother who was suffering just as much a good example, because it was even harder for her to oppress her feelings. He strove to restrain himself, but it was certainly tearing him apart on the inside. I know about this because I also feel nostalghia, and it must have been even harder for him, since he spent almost his entire life there, worked there and dearly loved Russia. No doubt he suffered and worried a lot. After weeks of exhausting chemotherapies he leaves France. Since long he felt aligned to anthroposophy and its doctrine. He had the sensation that his cancer was a sickness of life. In this anthroposophic clinic in South Germany he hopes to regain his strength. The doctors in Paris told him that his condition were well enough for him to make films again in the future. But he himself sees it differently, even if he hasn't entirely given up hope. In conversations with doctors he here prepares himself for dying. "July 13th 1986: Eschelbronn. Yesterday I went for a walk, and suddenly a craving overcame me which I now can't explain myself. I took my shoes off, and walked with my bare soles of foot on the ground. And that with augmented temperature, cough and rheumatism. I lost my mind. Saddening thoughts are spinning round in my head." Over and above he catches a pneumonia. He is rarely able to leave his room. When I visit him, we occasionally take a walk, with caution, not too far. It's the time of new political developments in the Soviet Union. We talk about it, he doesn't believe in real change. If he could imagine to return someday soon? He doesn't give an answer. When he leaves Eschelbronn I receive this drawing from him. The tree of hope, the allegory from the last sequence of his film, has got its leaves. He has drawn me his grave, with picture puzzles that are difficult to interpret. An eye glances in between the roots, his sister owns a picture on which he appears as a young boy sitting in the roots of a huge tree. He never wanted puzzles to be solved. Barely transportable he returns to Italy, to the sea, at first to Ansedonia, then to this place in Cala Piccola. Those weeks seem unreal. The sick person lies in his room on top of the tower, and wants to be left alone, except for visits of his son and a mason with whom he discusses plans for a house which he would like to construct in Tuscany. He argues with his wife who doesn't know or probably opresses the intuitiveness of how ill he really is. Below on the sun terrace they behave as if on vacation. Friends and acquaintances come to vist, enjoy the sea, and children are playing. Elsewhere friends collect money for the terminally ill man. In the long run there's no way to push reality aside. The pain grows, he can barely move himself, he needs to get transported back to Paris. "No, I didn't get the impression he would be away for long, as it had been before. He went to the hospital in order to receive treatment. He didn't mention anything. And even when I talked to him over the phone while he was in Paris, he didn't say anything special, just that everything would turn out all right. He wanted to live, drew the plans of the house which we wanted to construct, talked to us about the future, and his new plans. I had the impression that he wanted to forget about his illness. He himself never talked about it." "December 5th, 1986: Paris: Yesterday I underwent a third chemotheraphy. I feel terrible. To get up or just straighten up is impossible. Schwarzenberg is at a loss since he doesn't know what that terrible pain is caused by. The film was screen with success in UK, and also in the States. The reviews were incredibly good. The Japanese also organize some kind of aid fund, but they have to explain them why such a famous director is that poor." "December 15th, 1986: Hamlet. I'm in bed all day without straightening up. My abdomen and back hurt. Also the nerves. I can't move my legs. Some lumps. I feel extremely weak. Am I going to die? Hamlet? But right now I don't have the strength for anything. That's the problem." Andrei Tarkovsky died on December 29th in a Parisian hospital.They buried him in a cemetery for Russian immigrants in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois. In Search of Lost Time The Exile and Death of Andrei Tarkovsky by Ebbo Demant I thank the Tarkovsky's family, Christiane Bertoncini and Natan Fedorovsky I thank the Tarkovsky's family, Christiane Bertoncini and Natan Fedorovsky