Unlike all the other art forms, film is able to seize and render the passage of time, to stop it, almost to possess it in infinity. I'd say that film is the sculpting of time.
Interpretation
Film uniquely captures and preserves moments in time, allowing viewers to experience time as an art form.
In this quote, Andrei Tarkovsky expresses the idea that film is distinct among artistic mediums because it has the capability to capture and manipulate the flow of time. Unlike painting or music, film can evoke the feeling of time being halted or stretched, offering a profound experience that allows viewers to engage with moments in a way that transcends mere representation, effectively sculpting time into a narrative form.
In practice
During a film studies class, I shared Tarkovsky's quote to highlight the unique qualities of cinema compared to other visual arts.
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 was born in a world of opera, theatre, films, poetry, art, and therefore, out of the wire, I made a stage. That's why they call me a high wire artist.
To be honest, when I was writing these stories a million years ago, I never thought about movies at all one way or another. It would have seemed almost miraculous for these things to be movies someday. To me, they were just comic books that I hoped would sell so I could keep my job.
When I paint green, it doesn't mean grass; when I paint blue, it doesn't mean sky.
My rhymes are like shot clocks,_x000D_ interstate cops_x000D_ and blood clots,_x000D_ my point is your flow gets stopped.
In some ways I believe music is the more convincing communicator of ideas than words. For instance, we can hear of Kordaly and Bartok and recognise them as Hungarian, but very few of us speak Hungarian, but the music itself speaks to more people.
I taught myself how to draw, and I soon found out it was what I really wanted to do. I didn't think I was going to create any great masterpieces like Rembrandt or Gauguin. I thought comics was a common form of art, and strictly American in my estimation, because America was the home of the common man - and show me the common man that can't do a comic. So comics is an American form of art that anyone can do with a pencil and paper.
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