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doc benway

Tarkovsky Films

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Ha!  Synchronicity!

 

I was just talking and fawning over Tarkovsky to the crew in the truck on the drive back to the studio from our location today.

 

Stalker and Solaris are two of my all time favorite films.  That man was a genius storyteller.

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And let's not forget his father, Arseny Tarkovsky, a poet so much at home on the mysterious border between the real and the  surreal, the brutal and the tender, the crystal clear and the impenetrable, that someone familiar with his work needn't wonder where his son's unique cinematographic style comes from.

 

As usual, Russian does not translate into English without losing a whole bunch of dimensions, but here's for a glimpse:

 

Arseny Tarkovsky

 

The Cricket

To tell the truth, I'm kin
          to the house cricket.
I sing a secret song
          above the oven's ash.
For me, one brings
          the water to a fierce boil,
For me, another
          prepares a hearth of gold.

A traveler will recall
          my voice in a distant land,
Even if he's traded
          me for the heat cicada.
I don't know who planed
          my poor violin,
but I know that I'm rich
          as a cicada in songs.

How many Russian consonants
          in my midnight language,
How many sayings
          I place in the bast box
So a child can rummage
          In this box of bast,
In the old oven violin
          with its sole brass string.

You can't really hear me,
          my voice like a clock
Behind a wall, but take heed
          and I'll lead you.
I'll rouse the whole house:
          I'm the night watchman.  Arise!
Your people across the river
          will trumpet their reply.


1940




 

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