oh wow, today is Andrei Tarkovsky birthday, the guy who made paradigm shift in my art viewing..

First of all, this guy is a philosopher cum image maker. His stream of consciousness thoughts about the cinema as an art ,medium is incredible to read and single handedly changed my perception of cinema altogether. Best book on cinema by anyone, Period

Secondly, his trademark is Slow cinema. He is pioneer of paintstakingly long takes which may bore many people. I find some of his movies are difficult to sit through. Look at this 12 min scene of protaganist carrying lighted candle over and over

..one might think this is an exercise on nothingness but I find it transcending image of that charcter trying to fix his guilt over his past deeds. His imagery is often surreal and poignant.

I loved his initial black and white movies but tipping point of my love for tarkovsky changed in Zerkalo(mirror). This movie is collection of nostalgic scenes knitted together by dream logic. watching it felt like deepdiving into our subconscious mind and scratching it

Stalker(1979) is his masterpiece philosophy of nihilism. Everything about this movie is perfection; LITERAL PERFECTION. People who want to start tarkovsky can start from here.

Sacrifice is his last movie and I find it was most beautiful of all his movies. Possibly because the cinematographer of this movie is frequent collabrater of Ingmar Bergman. Everything from staging, blocking, lighting, editing will feel like bergman movie.

Imo, tarkovsky is the first director in the history of cinema to capture life as a reflection; life as a dream

Ending this thread with his answer to the question: "what is art?"