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. Of course an artist can lose his way, but even his mistakes are interesting provided they are sincere. For they represent the reality of his inner life, of the peregrinations and struggle into which the external world has thrown him.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the director's role in authentically portraying life's complexities and truths through art.
Andrei Tarkovsky highlights the responsibility of a director not just to depict life in its various forms, movements, and conflicts, but also to express his own perception of truth, regardless of its acceptability to others. He acknowledges that the journey of an artist is fraught with challenges, and even errors can be meaningful as they reflect the artist's genuine experiences and struggles in relation to the world around them.
In practice
A filmmaker might use this quote in a lecture about authentic storytelling in cinema.
AN ARTISTIC DISCOVERY OCCURS EACH TIME AS A NEW AND UNIQUE IMAGE OF THE WORLD, A HIEROGLYPHIC OF ABSOLUTE TRUTH. IT APPEARS AS A REVELATION, AS A MOMENTARY, PASSIONATE WISH TO GRASP INTUITIVELY AND AT A STROKE ALL THE LAWS OF THIS WORLD-ITS BEAUTY AND UGLINESS, ITS COMPASSION AND CRUELTY, ITS INFINITY AND ITS LIMITATIONS.
When I speak of poetry I am not thinking of it as a genre. Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality. So poetry becomes a philosophy to guide a man throughout his life.
Art would be useless if the world were perfect.
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?
Above all, I feel that the sounds of this world are so beautiful in themselves that if only we could listen to them properly, cinema would have no need for music at all.
THE ARTISTIC IMAGE IS ALWAYS A METONYM, WHERE ONE THING IS SUBSTITUTED FOR ANOTHER, THE SMALLER FOR THE GREATER. TO TELL OF WHAT IS LIVING, THE ARTIST USES SOMETHING DEAD; TO SPEAK OF THE INFINITE, HE SHOWS THE FINITE.
I have always liked drawing, when you draw you see things more intensely.
Tell me a story._x000D_ In this century, and moment, of mania,_x000D_ Tell me a story._x000D_ Make it a story of great distances, and starlight._x000D_ The name of the story will be Time,_x000D_ But you must not pronounce its name._x000D_ Tell me a story of deep delight.
When you're young, with less on the line, it's easier to be audacious, to experiment. So I introduced the concerns of my generation - politics, sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, etc. - to the comics page, which for many years caused a rolling furor.
Sometimes you have to go places with characters and emotions within yourself you don't want to do, but you have a duty to the story and as a storyteller to do it.
I'll give up this sort of touring madness certainly, but music-everything is based on music. No, I'll never stop my music.
Most of the time you're too busy to think about it. But every now and then you say, 'I work at 'Saturday Night Live,' and that is so cool.
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