chapter 3 Is the Universe a Work of Art that We Can Perceive in a Film?
Tony Partridge
I was once hiking with a little boy in the woods. He told me: “there are mosquitoes here.” I asked him why we can’t see them. “Because they’re too small,” he replied. Then he told me: “there are also lions here.” I asked him why we can’t see them. “Because they’re too big.” pavel florensky (2014: 21) ∵
Andrei Tarkovsky’s film images hint at something other, something beyond the ostensibly realistic physical and earthy objects that he often pans over with his camera. His images refer beyond themselves and through these images every- thing in the world is a “miracle” (Tarkovsky 1987: 16; Garrett 1990: 311; Kieślowski 1993: 195; Martin 2005: 26; McCormick 2006: 66–68). Tarkovsky developed a filmic language to speak about the ineffable (Tarkovsky 1989: 11; Garrett 1990: 303; Lawton 1991: 160; Josephson 1993: 7; Synessios 2001: 65; Král 2001: 258–268; Schreck 2001: 13–14), a language he uses to evoke spiritual depth and revelation in his viewers (Partridge & Diaz-Caneja 2011). This is particularly the case in his last three films, Stalker (1979), Nostalghia (1983) and The Sacrifice (1986). I argue that, in doing this, Tarkovsky uses ideas derived from the philosophy of Plotinus, ideas which have been filtered through later philosophers and phi- losophies that are often based on Russian Orthodox thinking. For Plotinus, the transcendent One, rather than man, is at the center of the universe. The One is ineffable and we can only notice the One through its traces in the Intellect, the Soul and the material world (v 3, 13; v 3, 14; vi 8, 13; Henry 1991: lviii–lxix). Are Tarkovsky’s films then a direct reading of Plotinus and his philosophy of the One? Touching the elements of water, earth, fire and touching vegetation in his filmic images, is Tarkovsky teaching us to aspire to touch the traces of the One as stepping stones to becoming closer to the One itself? Can the viewer of a Tarkovsky film experience something of this sort?
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Do viewers then identify with his characters, individuals who seek simplicity, virtue and thus integration with the One? I argue that Tarkovsky’s films are, in fact, a reading of Plotinus’s thought as this is filtered through Tarkovsky’s reading of Russian Silver Age philosophers. In particular, Tarkovsky was deeply influenced by the ideas of Pavel Florensky (Tarkovsky 1986: 82; 1989: 217; 1993: 413; 416; Kälvemark 2006: 136; Menzel 2008: 375; Moroz 2008: 35) and Simeon Frank (Menzel 2008: 375; Moroz 2008, 36; 118; 121), both of whom were strongly influenced by Plotinus (Partridge 2013: 133–138; Frank 1965: xiv). Florensky’s arguments are often similar to those of Plotinus (Partridge 2013: 133–138) and Florensky even quotes Plotinus to justify his arguments (Florensky 1997: 470; 521). Frank has stated explicitly that his thought was influenced by Plotinus (Frank 1965: xiv). Thus, my thesis is that Tarkovsky read the works of Florensky and Frank, both of whom were strongly influenced by Plotinus’s philosophy of the One, and that this philosophy influenced Tarkovsky’s films.
1 Tarkovsky’s Filmic Images Aspire to the Spiritual
According to Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, “Tarkovsky developed his ideas on time and cinema by overcoming the most important cinematic principle of moder- nity: the Formalist method of montage” (Botz-Bornstein 2007: 1). However, Tar- kovsky overcame montage to a purpose and that purpose was to say something deeply philosophical. Indeed, in his films, he seeks to express deeply religious ideas that can be derived from a close reading of Plotinus, especially as this Greek thinker is reflected in the philosophies of Florensky and Frank (Par- tridge and Diaz-Caneja 2011; Partridge 2013). But Tarkovsky isn’t just a disciple of Plotinus. Rather, Tarkovsky read Russian Silver Age philosophical texts that were influenced by Plotinus and these strands of thought have left an imprint on Tarkovsky’s work (Tarkovsky 1986: 82; 2004: 413; Kälvemark 2006: 136; 138; Menzel 2008: 378; Moroz 2008: 35–36; 83–84; 118). Tarkovsky began to fully articulate these ideas in his last three films. Be- fore this, in his first four films, Tarkovsky was essentially finding his language to speak. In Ivan’s Childhood (1962), he showed that dreams can be shown to important effect in film (Tarkovsky 1986: 29). In Andrei Rublyov (1966), he showed that the flow of history, the flow of time and the flow of dream can all be made into a coherent narrative film that slips between the personal and the culturally relevant historical language as it is shown in epic cinema (Tar- kovsky 1962: 548–552). By Solaris (1972), Tarkovsky had begun to speak about the nature of reality and memory as he stretched the dream-world into a kind of pseudo-reality, one that affects the viewer more than any so-called objective