Andrei tarkovsky polaroids
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In 1977, lone of straighten all time and again favorite directors, Andrei Filmmaker, (Stalker, Solaris, Ivan’s Minority, etc…) was given a Polaroid camera by his friend, depiction Italian selfopinionated Michelangelo Antonini, and steer clear of that temporary halt on Filmmaker would grab over a thousand pictures while roast set, filler in representation empty time between shots, or unease scouting locations, and regular set ups at home.
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The Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni reportedly gave his friend and colleague Andrei Tarkovsky a Polaroid camera in 1977. According to Tonino Guerra, who worked as a screenwriter for both directors, Antonioni often used a Polaroid camera himself while location scouting in Uzbekistan.1 Polaroid – being one of the flagship products of American consumer culture-, struggled with its image as a medium for amateur photography, and it might appear remarkable that both Antonioni and Tarkovsky – filmmakers with an extreme attention to cinematographic purity – were drawn to this popular and relatively cheap medium. Obviously, professional photographers in the United States such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Ansel Adams and Andy Warhol had already been conceiving Polaroid pictures as an integral part of their work, using its specific image quality to their advantage, and propagating it as a medium for fine art photography.2
However, it should be noted that Tarkovsky never seemed to have had the intention to include his Polaroid snapshots in his work as an artist and filmmaker – even though the repeated artbook publications and exhibitions (which all happened posthumously) might suggest otherwise. Nevertheless, regardless of their purpose, they were crafted cautiously by their autho
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“Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [of us all],” the director Ingmar Bergman once said, “the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.”
Andrei Tarkovsky, Ivan’s Childhood (still), 1962.
Sven Nykvist and Andrei Tarkovsky (Photo by Lars-Olof Löthwall courtesy of Nostalghia)
Andrei Tarkovsky and Margarita Terekhova on the set of The Mirror.
While I was familiar with Tarkovsky’s films, I had never seen these luscious Polaroids taken by the director until today. (Thanks to Sigrun Hodne who writes the Sub Rosa blog in Norway for alerting me to Tarkovsky’s still images).
These 60 photographs were made by Ta