The tension between created time and real time in Andrei Tarkovsky’s film andrei rubliov

Abstract

This article starts with the presumption that Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky (1932–1986) created a new conception of cinematic time. This impact on the theory of modern cinema was examined by philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) in his book Cinema 2: The Time-Image (in French: Cinéma 2, L’Image-Temps, 1985). The article asks the question: what were the conceptual and social circumstances for everyday time to be implemented in a specific movie? As an example, it takes the film Andrei Rubliov (director Andrei Tarkovsky, 1969), which underwent protracted critique and compulsory shortening. The article asks the question: what is the meaning and significance of the cuts made when passing from the first version of The Passion according to Andrei (in Russian: Strasti po Andreyu, director Tarkovsky, 1966) to the final Andrei Rubliov? What is the meaning of the cuts made to the scenes of violence and nudity? The research conclusions are: the impatience of the critics who demanded that the long scenes in The Passion according to Andrei be shortened speaks not about defects in the film, nor about the inability of Tarkovsky to calculate time, but rather about the inability of observers to grasp Tarkovky’s new conception of cinematic time. According to Deleuze, in his attempt to transfer into cinema the slow speed of everyday life, Tarkovsky created a feature of modern cinema, and made a turn from movement towards time; time in this particular movie is already made visible.