SCFZ

Polling the films of director Andrei Tarkovsky

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the Tarkovsky films you've seen, up to a maximum of 5. So if you've seen seven of his films, for example, you can list only a top 3. It's only if you've seen ten or more of his films than you can list the maximum of five.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Friday, in seven days, whatever day that is

- if anyone is watching films for these polls, then i'll extend the deadline up to three days, if someone requests an extension

- next poll: whoever posts the first ballot in this thread is free to nominate the director we poll next, unless you've nominated in this round already (everyone should get a chance). Already nominated this round: oscarwerner, greennui, mesnalty, bure, ofrene, arkheia, brian d, rischka, twodeadmagpies, john ryan, karl, umbugbene

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

one rule for nominees: at least 3 scfzers need to have seen 10+ of a nominee's films, or at least 4 scfzers need to have seen at least 8 of the nom's films, so if it isn't clear if that will be the case, we'll confirm that's true before moving forward

if 24 hours pass after a poll opens, and no one eligible to nominate has posted a ballot, then i'll nominate someone, and then we'll start over, and everyone will be able to nominate again

Nostalgia
Ivan's Childhood
The Sacrifice
Stalker

seen nine

seen 9

solaris
andrei rublev
nostalgia
stalker

seen 8

Stalker
Solaris
Andrei Rublev
Ivan’s Childhood

Seen 11

1. Stalker
2. Andrei Rublev
3. Mirror
4. Ivan's Childhood
5. The Sacrifice

seen 7

Stalker
Solaris
Andrei Rublev

i'm boring

Andrei Rublev
Solaris
Nostalgia

Brilliant visual filmmaker, obviously, but one whose values run orthogonal, when not opposed, to mine, so my feeling about the movies as a whole are mixed. There's a conservatism I'm not keen on at all, but then again it is coming from a different culture, with different pressures so the comparison isn't quite as simple as all that, but it's also not possible to completely ignore.

Seen 9. Not a flawless filmmaker, but the best in my estimation besides Antonioni and maybe Hitchcock.

1. Stalker
2. Andrei Rublev
3. Nostalghia
4. The Sacrifice

It hurts to leave Solaris off my list because it's a personal favorite.

Has anyone else noticed that the Writer pushes Stalker into the Room during their struggle? When it happens the splashing can only come from across the threshold. This fact completely changes the force of the ending. Monkey's ability to move the glasses is the realization of the Stalker's innermost wish. It's especially important for Tarkovsky that when the Stalker enters the Room he doesn't march in triumphantly but rather crosses the doorway humiliated, shoved to the floor on his hands and knees like a supplicant. Notice how the opening of Nostalghia picks up where Stalker leaves off, in a room where wishes are granted - but only to those who approach as supplicants.

Mirror
Stalker
Solaris
Ivan's Childhood

1. Andrei Rublev (that opening scene, my god!)
2. Zerkalo
3. Offret
4. Stalker

Seen 9.
1. Andrey Rublyov (1966)
2. Ivan's Childhood (1962)
3. The Mirror (1975)
4. Stalker (1979)

andrei rublev
solaris

*seen six (i generally appreciate pieces and parts of his films, more so than the overall films themselves; i think rublev is his most cohesive, consistently impressive work)

ANDREI RUBLEV
STALKER
MIRROR
SOLARIS

Seen 8:

1. Stalker
2. Solaris
3. Mirror
4. Andrei Rublev

Seen 10. This will be an interesting poll as Tarkovsky only made 10 full-length films and 1 short, with his 7 last features typically being seen in a league of their own to such an extreme degree that I'm not sure if there will be more than those 7 films nominated. No one has even mentioned The Steamroller and the Violin yet (the only pre-winning roll film that tends to get a decent bit of love).

Stalker
Mirror
The Sacrifice
Andrei Rublev
Ivan's Childhood

(My 6th vote would actually have been The Steamroller and the Violin as Nostalghia just did not win me over, and Solyaris fell quite heavily for me when I revisited it cinematically two years ago).

Will watch The Killers before the end of the poll, but really doubt it will make a difference.

Seen 11.

Mirror
Nostalghia
Solaris
The Sacrifice
The Steamroller & The Violin

Seen 8

The Sacrifice
Mirror
Solaris
Andrei Rublev

St. Gloede wrote: ↑Sun Dec 15, 2019 7:32 pm Seen 10. This will be an interesting poll as Tarkovsky only made 10 full-length films and 1 short, with his 7 last features typically being seen in a league of their own to such an extreme degree that I'm not sure if there will be more than those 7 films nominated. No one has even mentioned The Steamroller and the Violin yet (the only pre-winning roll film that tends to get a decent bit of love).

i expect we'll need to have a runoff vote to work out #9 and #10, but i'll wait to see if either of the student films or tempo di viaggio get a vote

seen five so i'll vote for

andrei rublev
ivan's childhood

yes i'm back, i survived a weekend in hospital -- thank god for tcm as there is nothing on tv now but ads for life alert and lipitor

take care of yourself R, hope everything is ok

i'm good they gave me lots of morphine

never get kidney stones, it isn't worth it. seriously thought i was dying

i've gotten them three times. the last two times were within three days of each other. apparently they can form in 30 minutes. now i drink water nonstop just to keep them away. it’s been five years so apparently it’s working.

2 times within 3 days?!

unrelated but reminds me of: this summer my coworker got crapped on by a bird 3 times... in a span of 4 days

greg x wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2019 6:47 am Andrei Rublev
Solaris
Nostalgia

Brilliant visual filmmaker, obviously, but one whose values run orthogonal, when not opposed, to mine, so my feeling about the movies as a whole are mixed. There's a conservatism I'm not keen on at all, but then again it is coming from a different culture, with different pressures so the comparison isn't quite as simple as all that, but it's also not possible to completely ignore.

What do you find conservative? His spiritual perspective?

Nostalgia is a film I used to like but found myself struggling to sit through the last time I watched it. Tarkovsky was good with wandering narratives, but that one went too far for my taste. I feel that Sokurov is better at that style than Tarkovsky.

Seen 10

Mirror
Stalker
Solaris
Andrei Rublev
The Sacrifice

The spiritual element is likely at the root of the issue, which tends to lead towards a view of the world, and beyond, that I have some disagreement with, but not so much as that alone would put me off, it's more how that view seems to color his view of people, particularly in the way he seems to view women as "other" in some ways that aren't so readily set aside as a spirituality alone. It's something that comes up in Stalker, Solaris, Nostalgia, and The Sacrifice and also seems to effect how he views the mother in The Mirror in a different sort of way. In Stalker, for example, it's the rather extraordinarily filmed scene with the wife right before the end where see explains the motivations of the events, more or less, in Solaris and Nostalgia its more directly in the disagreements between the men and the women in their lives and how they play out and tone of the overall encounters, while in The Sacrifice the whole story is colored by the conceptual issue of the "witch" and how that relates to the man. The Mirror just sort of flips it to making the mother almost saintly, which is just the other side of the coin, still "othered".

It would maybe be less of a deal if Tarkovsky didn't seem so serious about this as a value, if he had just followed the general tendency of movies and the world to treat women differently without really thinking about it deeply, then it might be able to be written off a little bit more as just being a systemic issue, but Tarkovsky is more adamant than that in putting the conflict or view at the center of the stories. It's something that also bugs me about some other movies like Tree of Life, for example, the way the spiritual is used as excuse to seemingly cover some questionable attitudes that held just short of being made completely explicit, but are still brought forth to be seen. On the other side, there is some similarity to my objections to the two Abuladze films I've seen, where that same kind of attention to the spiritual leads to some questionable ideological claims, but which are better understood, perhaps, as coming from the Soviet system that repressed religions in ways very different than in the US and West more generally. The thought that through religion one can critique the state has some validity in that model, but still can lead to overestimation when it is treated as somehow apart from other aspects of social order, as if it too couldn't be part of a system of control and domination. Trying to account for both the cultural difference and universals involved and dealing with some purposeful obscuring of what values are underlying the films makes me want to keep a little distance from them.

01. Andrei Rublev (1966)
02. The Sacrifice (1986)
03. Stalker (1979)

Tarkovsky seen: 6

greg x wrote: ↑Sat Dec 14, 2019 6:47 am Brilliant

you can pick our next director if you like, greg!

Solaris
Ivan's Childhood

Seen 4.
I'll see more... but his work so far didn't convince me to make it a priority.

1. Andrei Rublev
2. Nostalgia
3. Mirror
4. Solaris

you can pick our next director if you like, greg!

Alright, I've got a few names that might work if they've got enough views, Lewis Milestone, Zhang Yimou, Leo McCarey, Edwin S Porter, and of course Ron Howard remains my fall back option.