In Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky takes on the task to comprise the thoughts that accompany the films that he created. This means that he goes from discussing a particular technique and why use (or don’t) it, to the most troubling attitudes that pervade modern societies.

The art

Throughout the book Tarkovsky presents with different perspectives on what Art means, and how does that relate to his craft specifically, namely, cinema.

Art is, in its most basic form, the yearning for an ideal. Tarkovsky minces up this basic idea: a given subjective experience is relevant to the artist, and they have a duty (to both themselves and to society) to express it; this subjective experience, if artistic, will inevitably, indubitably, become an objective experience for the viewer.

This becoming is done also through the subjective experience of the viewer (or reader, if the artist were to write). The art will convince the viewers of the reality that is presented by means of their authenticity.

When the meaning of ‘understand’ is thrown into discussion, this is usually in its logical meaning: person A has convinced person B through means of arguments, facts. We understand, in a modern sense of the word, at our rational level. Yet the artist exists not at the rational level. When we ‘understand’, in terms of art, when we accept the beautiful at an emotional level.

The artist, then, has to create a compelling representation of its message. Tarkovsky argues that cinema is the best mean to do this as humans get immersed in the film that they are watching.

But, as we already saw, the message is not a message in a rational sense, it is not some simplistic view on a particular matter as that would cease to be art. The artist has to be capable of presenting a complex idea, or even several of them and pack it visually for the viewer to capture it.

If the message were as simple as saying ‘A is B’, then this would be understood at a rational level. The message has to go beyond logical, syllogistical means. It has to penetrate at an emotional level, as we described above.

Tarkovsky not only treats this in abstract, as if he was discussing the art of Shakespeare or Dostoievski. Tarkovsky is capable of doing precisely this in front of the camera. What Andrey Ryublov is artistically, in Tarkosvky’s film, is an accurate representation of this: by means of his own righteous character, he transcends himself. He becomes something more than him physical self.

Tarkosvky is his own Andrey Ryublov. By presenting him as he does, he puts the matter forward: he is transcending time with his art. Cinema, he tells us (but more broadly, any art), is the destruction of a given genre. If you think Bresson, Bergman, Kurosawa, they are their own genre: Chaplin if not a comedian, he is Chaplin.

The philosophy

Tarkovsky is one of the most articulate writers for a non-writer, and much of the discussion presented in his book is philosophical in nature. The nature of art, the concept of ‘I’, the moral duties a human has, all fall within philosophical thinking.

One might equal Tarkovsky’s notion regarding the artists becoming their own genre as similar to that of Carlyle, namely, that it is Great Men that move history forward. A commander such as Napoleon is unique insofar as he is Napoleon, he is transcending himself precisely by establishing as himself, his genius marked a period of time of everlasting influence.

Closer to Tarkovsky would be the poet, if we follow Carlyle distinction of the types of great men. Shakespeare is the quintessential poet: as Bloom argues (and this is up to discussion), Shakespeare is the core of (English-speaking) Western Canon. It is the ability to create such a wide range of characters and motifs that make Shakespeare who he is.

Tarkovsky can, as Shakespeare did a long time ago, create a vast array of different situations so the characters can breathe and become who they have to be in order for Tarkovsky himself to fully become himself. It is a virtuous cycle: his work determines him but he is able to further determine himself.

Hegel tends to agree with Carlyle in thinking that Great Men lead the way of History. But for Hegel, the genius of any given individual is necessarily tied to the freedom which their community or society holds. The freer the society, the more a given person will be inclined towards freedom particularly. The communal and the individual go hand-in-hand, the one feeding the other.

According to Hegel, Napoleon is constantly pushing the boundaries of freedom, i.e. he is giving the people of his time (the Zeitgeist) even more freedom to experience. Hegel also discusses that the human knowledge and experience are in a sort of ladder: whereas basic logic takes the place at the bottom, philosophy (what he is doing) would be at the top.

Tarkovsky would probably disagree with this last statement and make art, specifically cinema, at the top of the ladder. As mentioned before, it is not the logical reasoning the key component, but the emotional aspect of it. And I would say that Tarkovsky, following Hegelian terms, is constantly pushing the boundaries of our spiritual freedom.

The maximum expression of the Spirit through the ages is both a willing action from the individual but also an unconscious force driving that same individual. Tarkovsky gives us these two:

In order to be free you simply have to be so, without asking permission of anybody

The artist ought to be distinguished by selfless devotion to duty.

Freedom, as Berlin’s classical essay shows, is a complex concept. It means, historically, two distinct ideas: the one where we are “forced” to something, by means of being driven to an objective, called negative; the other where objects are absent in our path to fulfilling our desires, called positive. Although this is usually discussed in political philosophy, it sheds some light into this essay.

The artist is free to do or use any material at their disposal to achieve their particular goal. But that goal, that message, is usually imposed on us, externally, either by divine grace or by our particular experience, Tarkovsky seems to suggest.

But the artist is not the only profession or craft that one can be. Any given person is bound by these constraints. Our objectives are rarely if ever hardly ours. But these objectives are as clear as day: we ought to act morally, irrespective of the situation in which we find ourselves.

Any person is free when and only when they choose to act morally. This is not something that is given to the person, for it has to be gained at every step of the way.

In one of the most popular allegories, Plato suggests that our state is like those of prisoners in a cave, where they can only see shadows, and never the things-in-themselves. Plato seems to argue that it is the philosopher that ought to search the truth, i.e., the Sun, once they are free.

The philosopher will guide the rest of us to the Sun, if he deems it necessary. But not all of us are going to be ready to get to know the truth, the beauty. The Stalker has a similar job as the philosopher, in guiding the other two characters to the Zone, but he knows he is not philosopher: he has never seen the inside, he can only retell what others have long said.

The philosopher is able to see the thing-in-itself, and decide whether someone else should or should not see it. The artist, by contrast, can only take them to a certain point. It is the viewer’s duty to decide whether or not they will be in presence of the thing-in-itself.

Again, Tarkovsky’s idea materialises: where the philosopher (and scientist) discusses intellectualy, the artist can only show and point so the experience in itself can fully transform the viewer. Both the writer and the professor realise, by experiencing the Zone within an arms reach, that they do not want to know the thing-in-itself. They know their innermost desires are to be feared. They know they are flawed.

This realisation is at its core not a rational one. How can one possibly explain the feelings that are experienced when we see a proper work of art? But in our modern society, our scientific inspiration gets the best of us and everything has to be explained through a logical reasoning.

We dry our experience to simple axioms, elegant principles and predictive laws. As Heidegger tries to explain to us, we want to see the world as “it is”. If we have a veil covering from us the deep fabric of the world, we want to get rid of it, and in doing so, we will find a world that is devoid of meaning.

Famous for his dictums, Nietzsche claimed that “God is dead”, and more surprisingly, that “we have killed Him”. This means that the soil in which we plant our culture, our beliefs and people we love is no longer fertile. The culture and beliefs will start degenerating into something that no longer resembles our past lives.

The Western culture (as well as Russian culture) is closely tied to Christianity, due to historical reasons. By getting rid of God, as we no longer need him to explain our world, we are getting rid of one of the key elements of our culture.

This, in abstract, is not necessarily bad, but if we are to trust Bergman’s Winter Light, this is the tearing of our social fabric. Lacking the Christian God is okay, as long as we as humans understand our need to express spiritual beliefs of some form or the other.

We want to transcend. We want to exist beyond our lifespan, and that is only possible through non-rational means. It can either be a in soliloquy-fashion, whereas by means of some transcendent way we go into heaven or alike; or that transcendence can be achieved by means of our capacity to love.

Tarkovsky agrees with me that it is the most simple element which is all a person can count upon throughout their existence: the capacity to love. I hold dearly and love people who are no longer here, and somehow they manage to live through me. They have transcended: they are here with me even when they are not physically present.

Trying to wrap up all of this together, an ‘I’ exists as an undercurrent. This ‘I’ is the person writing this down but is also the sum of all of the experiences that that same ‘I’ contains in himself. The ‘I’ is constructed in Time, and Time, as a philosophical concept, is hard to tackle. I always find Kant’s explanation to be appropriate: Time exists as an a priori intuition, i.e., as a the condition of possibility of our knowledge.

Our self exists because the ‘I’ is created in time. It is the way the ‘I’ makes sense of the different state of affairs. This ‘I’ grows more complex, as it exists in a particular socio-economical point in time, and this necessarily determines the ‘I’ further.

The ‘I’ has watched Tarkovsky’s films and decided to read his book. The ‘I’ found all of the things discussed above interesting, trying to tie them to its pre-existing knowledge base. But the ‘I’ was also confronted with a key thought posited by Tarkovsky.

The ‘I’ has been dwelling on the fact that the artist, and more generally, every human has to be willing to fully commit to an ideal. The freedom is at stake here. Can humans act upon the world in such a way that they are acting for and towards an ideal? Am I able to sacrifice myself to a greater ideal?

I am not sure but I will find out, but Ivan, Kelvin, the Stalker, and Aleksei, along with Tarkovky’s voice will be there to help me figure it out.