Obra sobre Andréi Tarkovski
| Markos Galounis (marcos.galounis@durham.ac.uk) es licenciado en Filología Bizantina y Griega Moderna por la universidad de Ioannina (Grecia) y, en la actualidad, prepara un doctorado en el departamento de Filosofía en la universidad de Durham (Reino Unido) sobre la estética de Dostoyevski. Fue editor de un libro en homenaje a Tarkovski, publicado en Atenas en 1987 con el título: Proseggiseis sti zoi kai to ergo tou Andrei Tarkovski [Aproximaciones a la vida y obra de A. T.], bajo el sello de la editorial Domos y que fue luego reimpreso en 1990. Galounis participó en el I Simposium Internacional sobre Andréi Tarkovski celebrado en Moscú en 1989, y fue miembro del comité organizativo del II Simposium Internacional, que tuvo lugar en diciembre de 2002 en la capìtal de Grecia.[Retrospectivas y cursos ya realizados] En esa ocasión, Galounis presentó una ponencia sobre la significación de la tradición en el segundo largometraje de Tarkovski de la que ofrecemos a continuación un resumen en inglés, que el autor mismo nos ha facilitado. The significance of tradition in Tarkovsky' Andrei Roublev Por Markos Galounis The intellectual movement of rediscovering the Russian tradition that took place in Soviet Russia in the beginning of the 60's, which briefly can be characterised as a rehabilitation of religious identity through a national lens, provides us with the backcloth against which we can contextualize Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev. Given the fact that there exists only minor biographical data on the life of Rublev, the way in which Tarkovsky freely re-created his hero's life is indicative of the way in which he interpreted the Russian tradition as such.The point of departure of such an analysis is a close examination of Old Testament's Trinity by Rublev, on which, as Tarkovsky claimed, the film as a whole is but a comment. In the interpretation of this icon there is a convergence of different layers of symbolism that can be codified thus: a) Inaugurating an original iconological depiction of the Trinity accompanied by a masterful, expressive usage of colour, this icon could be construed in general as a symbol for innovation and originality that lies within the boundaries of the iconographic tradition. b) Associated, moreover with the particular historical era in which it was drawn, Rublev's Trinity symbolizes the emancipation from the pathetic following of Byzantine iconographical patterns, and hence the beginning of Russian artistic self-consciousness. Having been dedicated to St. Sergius of Radonezh ?an ascetic figure who also played a significant political role in the unification of the Russians against the Tartars? this icon also refers indirectly to the Russian national struggle for freedom and to the ensuing formation of Russian national identity. c) Finally, the inter-communion of the Three Persons of the Trinity has been often understood in the history of Russian spirituality as a model that should have an exemplary significance for the inter-social realm as well (as in the Russian idea of sobornost', or communality.) In the film these manifold layers of symbolism are crystallized in the figurative agreement of Rublev with Theophanes the Greek (in my view, the decisive part of the film). Rublev refuses to paint "the Last Judgment" and hence to follow pathetically the Byzantine pattern that was inherited by Russia (and by him personally through Theophanes). Interestingly, their diverging iconographic positions are underpinned by different theological perceptions regarding Christ's pathos. To Theophanes' version, Rublev counter-proposes his more "humane" vision of Christ's pathos, one that betrays his deep affection towards the sufferings of the Russian people. In the scene of "the Russian Crucifixion", the latter is directly associated with Christ's. It is precisely this "humanistic" version of the kenosis of Christ, the image of the humiliated "Russian Christ" (alongside the distinction between the Law and Grace, another distinctive feature of Russian spirituality), that underpins Rublev's theological argumentation against the almost "misanthropic" asceticism of Theophanes. If Soviet scholarship of the period leaned towards a "humanistic" understanding of Rublev's aesthetics in order to undermine the religious dimension which, as an object of worship, characterizes per se the icon, and with which it was not easy for them to come to terms, it is not coincidence that Tarkovsky's reading of Rublev's by-parting from the Byzantine aesthetics is compatible with the former. By sharply contrasting him with the "ascetic", Byzantine spirit of Theophanes, this "humanistic" rhetoric, adopted by both the film and the scholarship, uproots Rublev and his art from their hesychastic heritage (that in fact Theophanes and the Byzantines share in general), in order to be re-claimed predominantly as an artist (and not as a monk) sensitive to the misfortunes of his people and endowed with a proto-national self-consciousness. In other words, this "humanistic", or even "populistic" interpretation of kenosis, further secularised, is revealed as promising for a "social-realistic" reading of the Russian tradition. And this is precisely what is offered mainly in the published scenario of the film: by living in an extremely violent period, which is depicted with characteristic brute naturalism in the film, Rublev decides to stop painting when he realises that the ideal of beauty and unity that his art preaches is incapable of influencing the fractioned Russian people. In other words, his disenchantment echoes the fundamental axiom of social realism for the role of the artist within society: to create a dialectical relation with the latter. Within this scope, the otherworldly, transcendental aesthetics of iconography are redundant, if not totally a travesty of reality, a form of escapism. Characteristically, in the last episode with the bell (which is saturated with social realistic topoi), Rublev appears to be finally reconciled with reality when his faith in the Russian People and the importance of the creative aspect of the art are restored in the face of the young bell-maker. According to the reading that I have proposed so far, Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev, leaving aside its fame as a 'banned film', does not depart drastically from the conventions of the Soviet interpretation of the Russian past and, moreover, reflects the tendency to a nationalistic interpretation of the religious past, which was common in the rediscovery of Russian history in the 60's. In the film, however, an important detail was inserted into the scenario (which was authorized for shooting and heavily funded): in the raid of Vladimir, Rublev kills. Suffice it to say that this detail (which I stress does not exist in the published scenario) changes dramatically the ideological orientation of the film. From this perspective Rublev's refusal to paint again and his silence (a Tarkovskian motif always saturated with meaning), rather than stemming from a disenchantment of his humanistic convictions on the utility of art within society, signals conversely nothing more than an act of repentance, a severance of the umbilical cord that links the artist with the society according to the Social Realistic dogma. The predominance of the image of a failed monk at the expense of that of a failed artist does not but signal Tarkovsky's departure from and defiance of the demands of Social Realism. Therefore, in the last episode with the bell, far from an exaltation of the Russian creative spirit which is discovered in the face of the young bell-maker, what is intrinsically celebrated is the regenerating power of Tradition. Apart from the pseudo-dilemma of originality or tradition that haunts modern secular art, in the sacred art of iconography (or even in the humble craftsmanship of bell-making), it is this power of tradition that has to be painstakingly rediscovered anew by every single new generation. Or, in the insurmountable words of Zissimos Lorentzatos: "Originality means to remain faithful to the originals, to the eternal prototypes, to extinguish 'a wisdom of [your] own' before the common Word, as Heraclitus says (Fr. 2) ?in other words, to lose your soul if you wish to find it, and not to parade your originality or to do what pleases you." Far from creating ex nihilo the forms and norms of their art, Rublev and the young bell-maker, paradoxically, will have to rediscover, as if it is the very first time, the tradition that they have already inherited, in order to express one more time within history what is already disclosed and hence to make possible the descent in their art, as an act of epiphany, of the Logos of the Father. 2003 © Markos Galounis 2003 © andreitarkovski.org NOTE Zissimos Lorentzatos: "The Drama of Quality", tr. Liadain Sherrard, Denise Harvey Publiser, Limni, Evia, Greece, 2000, p. 15. |