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Aruthin Sayadin, the Armenian poet whose life inspired Paradjanov's
film, was known as Sayat Nova (the film's second title), which
means the King of Song. Valery Bryusov has written, "Sayat
Nova was a singer who raised the poetry of the troubadour bards
to heights not reached before.... Sayat Nova was the first to
show, and prove by his own example, what power is hidden in the
voice of a folk-singer: he showed that such a singer was not only
the entertainer at a feast, but also a teacher, a prophet, however
lightheaded the themes of his songs may seem." --quoted in
Herbert Marshall
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Not everyone can drink my rushing spring - my waters have a very
special taste.
Not everyone can read my writing - my words have a very special
meaning.
Nor believe it easy to overthrow me - my foundations are as firm
as granite.
- Sayat Nova, trans. by H. Marshall |
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Color
of Pomegranates is "entirely episodic, each sequence self-contained;
no story line or plot linked the episodes except the evolution of
Sayat Nova from boy to youth to man, poet to court minstrel to lover
to monk, and the relation of the poet to art, love, death, and fate.
The progression is one of incomparably beautiful images and compositions,
an endless cornucopia of artistic profusion, that I can only compare
with Eisenstein's Que Viva Mexico.
- Herbert Marshall |
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We
see the young boy in the middle of a courtyard, surrounded by ancient
rock-like buildings...then on the pavingstones at his feet appears
a manuscript, a great tome, then another, then a third and another
and another, until he is in a sea of books, then slowly the wind
rises and begins to flutter the pages of the great tomes and turns
them over, till gradually hundred of pages are being turned in the
breeze... - Herbert Marshall
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Stalker
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Andrei
Tarkovsky,
USSR, 1979, 161 min.
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Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 masterpiece, like his earlier Solaris,
is a very free and allegorical adaptation of an SF novel, Arkady
and Boris Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic. After a strange meteorite
hits the earth, the region where it's fallen is sealed off; known
as the Zone, it is believed to have magical powers that can grant
the secret wishes of those who enter it, but it can be penetrated
only illegally and with special guides. One such guide (Aleksandr
Kaidanovsky), the stalker of the title, leads a writer and a professor
(Nikolai Grinko and Anatoli Solonitsin) through the grimiest industrial
wasteland you've ever seen to reach the epiphany. What they find
is pretty harsh, and it has none of the usual satisfactions of SF
quests. But Tarkovsky, who regards their journey as a contemporary
spiritual quest, does such remarkable things with his mise en scene--particularly
very slow and elaborately choreographed camera movements--that you
may be mesmerized nonetheless. With Alice Friendlich. - J. Rosenbaum,
The Chicago Reader
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| REQUIRED
READINGS & WEBSITES |
| |
| •
Herbert Marshall, "The Case of Sergo Paradjanov", Sight and
Sound Vol. 44, No. 1 (Winter 1974/75), pp. 8-11, course reader |
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•
Ron Holloway, "Interview with Sergei Paradjanov", Spring 1996,
online
http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/FINE/juhde/hollo961.htm |
| |
| • Sergej
Parajanov Museum, online http://moon.yerphi.am/~parm/home.htm |
| |
| •
Kitty Hunter-Blair,"A Biographical Note", Andrey Tarkovsky,
Time Within Time: The Diaries 1970-1986, Kitty Hunter-Blair, trans.
(Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1991), pp. vii-viii, course reader |
| |
| •
Andrey Tarkovsky, "Ch. 6: The author in search of an audience"
and "Ch. 7: The artist's responsibility", Sculpting in Time:
Reflections on the Cinema, Kitty Hunter-Blair, trans.(London: Faber
& Faber, 1989), pp. 164-201, course reader |
| |
•
Trond S. Trondsen and Jan Bielawski, "Nostalghia.com: an Andrei Tarkovsky
Information Site", online
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/
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| SUGGESTED
READINGS & WEBSITES |
| |
| •
Parajanov.Com website http://parajanov.com/main.html |
