Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 14:51:21 -0800
Subject: Re: Aren't we all critics?
From: Michael Moretti <moretti-AT-mac.com>


I may have benefited from not having seen a Tarkovsky film before. At least
not in its entirety - I couldn't make it through Andrei Rublev. (I need to
rent it for more than a day.)

Nostalghia brought me to a place and kept me there throughout the viewing.
Afterward I have since revisited that place. Particularly the closing scene.
What is it that makes a film work upon us in such a way, while others don't
draw near this effect? Enchantment might be a good word for this. I can go
back there by simply remembering the film.

michael

on 1/11/01 9:44 AM, Alastair Dickson at adickson-AT-stirmargrev.demon.co.uk
wrote:

> Michael Moretti <moretti-AT-mac.com> wrote
>> To me, a movie which "inhabits some waking hours for a day or so" is how I
>> might regard its overall success. It's easy to recall movies where I had a
>> very strong emotional or intellectual response, but for a movie to really
>> succeed for me it has to transcend such effects.
>> 
>> Nostalghia, for example, left me contemplative for days afterward. During
>> the film I tried to decipher the various symbols (the mineral baths, the
>> doves). In other scenes I felt frustration as I watched Eugenia struggle
>> with Gorchakov's detachment. At other moments I found myself watching the
>> film's most excellent cinematography. The overall effect of the film has
>> been its measure for me, and this particular one is a favorite.
> 
> I'm interested that Michael mentions that film in particular. I recall
> being very surprised by my own experience of "Nostalgia". During the
> showing, I was feeling very disappointed by it, feeling it to be rather
> Tarkovsky-by-numbers, especially in the scenes in the mineral baths.
> Perceiving myself to be bored by it, I slackened my attention from the
> film and my mind drifted far off into entirely different matters. Some
> minutes later I was startled to find that what I had believed to be my
> entirely autonomous, extremely personal thoughts on a recent
> bereavement, suddenly slid back in key with what was happening on the
> screen. Never have I experienced such a close in-tune-ness with a film,
> a fact that stays with me, even when my rationality evaluates
> "Nostalgia" as a much lesser film than say "Mirror" or "Stalker".
> 
> -- Alastair Dickson, Stirling, Scotland
> -- <adickson-AT-stirmargrev.demon.co.uk>
> 
> 
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