THIS MAY BE LESS A REVIEW than a reflection, on 2011 Cannes favorite Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, now available on DVD — from varied angles of view, ranging from the objectively-technical to the subjectively-personal. First, a technical primer, or refresher, for some– on focus. Recall that in bright light, the camera opening is […]
The Playlist looks back over the life and career of the famous director, and offers assessments of his feature films. Endlessly fascinated by the spiritual, the metaphysical, the texture of dreams and memory, Tarkovsky eschewed conventional narrative and plot, and instead sought to illuminate the essence of the unconscious through a patient, enigmatic and reflective […]
From Sculpting in Time by Andrei Tarkovsky: I think that one of the saddest aspects of our time is the total destruction in people’s awareness of all that goes with a conscious sense of the beautiful. Modern mass culture, aimed at the ‘consumer’, the civilisation of prosthetics, is crippling people’s souls, setting up barriers between man and […]
Revisiting Tarkovsky July 7 – July 14, 2009 The Walter Reade Theatre, Lincoln Center, New York Okay, so maybe New Yorkers are right after all: Manhattan really is the centre of the universe. To heck with the Empire State Building, they’ve got MOVIES! Years back I salivated over the two-month cinematic smorgasbord that was “The […]
Andrei Rublev might be considered the Mount Everest of spiritual film. It is intimidating, imposing, remote, yet sooner or later every cinephile with an interest in exploring the furthest reaches of faith and art will mount an inevitable expedition. For those who persevere, the film yields an extraordinary perspective on the world below.
Daniel A. Siedell discusses contemporary art from a Christian perspective with an emphasis on the work of Robyn O’Neil.