Andrei Tarkovsky quotes - page 3

Perhaps the meaning of all human activity lies in the artistic consciousness, in the pointless and selfless creative act? Perhaps our capacity to create is evidence that we ourselves were created in the image and likeness of God? (Andrei Tarkovsky)
I have a horror of tags and labels. I don't understand, for instance, how people can talk about Bergman's "symbolism". Far from being symbolic, be seems to me, through and almost biological naturalism, to arrive at the spiritual truth about human life that is important to him. View quote
Andrei Tarkovsky
An artist never works under ideal conditions. If they existed, his work wouldn't exist, for the artist doesn't live in a vacuum. Some sort of pressure must exist. The artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn't look for harmony but would simply live in it. View quote
Andrei Tarkovsky
The director's task is to recreate life, its movement, its contradictions, its dynamic and conflicts. It is his duty to reveal every iota of the truth he has seen, even if not everyone finds that truth acceptable. View quote
Andrei Tarkovsky
Late this evening I looked at the sky and saw the stars. I felt as if it was the first time I had ever looked at them. I was stunned. The stars made an extraordinary impression on me. View quote
Andrei Tarkovsky
No one component of a film can have any meaning in isolation: it is the film that is the work of art. View quote
Andrei Tarkovsky
Art is realistic when it strives to express an ethical ideal. Realism is striving for truth, and truth is always beautiful. View quote
Andrei Tarkovsky
I had the greatest difficulty in explaining to people that there is no hidden, coded meaning in the film, nothing beyond the desire to tell the truth. Often my assurances provoked incredulity and even disappointment. Some people evidently wanted more: they needed arcane symbols, secret meanings. View quote
Andrei Tarkovsky
If there are some who talk the same language as myself, then why should I neglect their interests for the sake of some other group of people who are alien and remote? View quote
Andrei Tarkovsky
Perhaps the meaning of all human activity lies in the artistic consciousness, in the pointless and selfless creative act? View quote
Andrei Tarkovsky
Conscience, both as a sense and as a concept, is a priori immanent in man, and shakes the very foundations of the society that has emerged from our ill-conceived civilisation. (Andrei Tarkovsky)
I have a horror of tags and labels. View quote
Andrei Tarkovsky
Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual, for the ideal: that longing which draws people to art. Modern art has taken the wrong turn in abandoning the search for the meaning of existence in order to affirm the value of the individual for his own sake. View quote
Andrei Tarkovsky
Art must must carry man's craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it; that art must give man hope and faith. And the more hopeless the world in the artist's version, the more clearly perhaps must we see the ideal that stands in opposition - otherwise life becomes impossible! Art symbolises the meaning of our existence. View quote
Andrei Tarkovsky