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ReFocus: The International Directors Series

ReFocus: The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky

Edited by Sergey Toymentsev

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£105.00

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About this book

Reassesses the work of the influential Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky
  • Sheds new light on Tarkovsky’s biography in connection to his films
  • Assesses the director’s contributions to film theory and aesthetics by close analysis of his films and writings
  • Offers highly original interpretations of Tarkovsky’s oeuvre in the context of film aesthetics, psychoanalysis, philosophy, cultural studies and art history
  • Traces the influence of Tarkovsky’s legacy on contemporary filmmakers

Despite an output of only 7 feature films in 20 years, Andrei Tarkovsky has had a profound influence on international cinema. Famous for their spiritual depth and incredible visual beauty, his films have gained cult status among cineastes and are often included in ranking polls and charts dedicated to the ‘best movies ever made.’ Beginning with the late 1980s, Tarkovsky’s highly complex cinema has continuously attracted scholarly attention by generating countless hermeneutic challenges and possibilities for film critics.

This book provides a fresh look at the director’s legacy, with critical essays by both world-famous and early-career film scholars. It examines Tarkovsky’s cinematic techniques and his treatment of genre, landscape and sound and offers highly original interpretations of his oeuvre in the context of film aesthetics, psychoanalysis, philosophy, cultural studies and art history.

Reviews

ReFocus: The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky is an excellent new item in “ReFocus: The International Directors Series,” [...] a valuable collection that succeeds at avoiding deifying Tarkovskii and presents new theoretical perspectives on his work.
ReFocus: The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky is an excellent new item in “ReFocus: The International Directors Series,” [...] a valuable collection that succeeds at avoiding deifying Tarkovskii and presents new theoretical perspectives on his work.
Provides a number of novel perspectives for the prospective reader, and accomplishes the aim set out within the introduction ‘to emphasize the urgency of a more sober appreciation of Tarkovsky’s films as well as inspire further critical inquiry and debate’ (8). The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky should, therefore, serve as a welcome critical companion to other texts in this area.
This collection is a very successful attempt to update English-language literature on the great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky by applying current theoretical approaches in the humanities to his work. [...] a well-rounded volume that nicely complements existing scholarship and can serve a variety of purposes.
Table of contents

List of contributorsIntroduction: Refocus on Tarkovsky

Introduction to Part I

1. Tarkovsky’s Childhood: Between Trauma and Myth - Evgeniy Tsymbal2. Trava-Travlya-Trata: Tarkovsky’s Psychobiography à la Lettre - Andrei Gornykh3. Does Tarkovsky Have a Film Theory? - Sergey Toymentsev

Introduction to Part II

4. The Child’s Eye View of War in Ivan’s Childhood, by Sara Pankenier Weld5. The Truth of Direct Observation: Andrei Rublev and the Documentary Style of Soviet Cinema in the 1960s - Zdenko Mandušić6. Temporality and the Long Take in Stalker - Donato Totaro7. Framing Infinity in Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia - Yelizaveta Goldfarb Moss8. Approaching the Irreal: Realistic Sound Design in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Films - Julia Shpinitskaya

Introduction to Part III

9. Andrei Tarkovsky, Or the Thing from the Inner Space - Slavoj Žižek10. Wounds of the Past: Andrei Tarkovsky and the Melancholic Imagination - Linda Belau & Ed Cameron11. The Flesh of Time: Solaris and the Chiasmic Image - Robert Efird12. Cinema as Spiritual Exercise: Tarkovsky and Hadot - Anne Eakin Moss13. Memory and Trace - Mikhail Iampolski

Introduction to Part IV

14. Zvyagintsev and Tarkovsky: Influence, Depersonalization, and Autonomy - Lisa Ryoko Wakamiya15. Von Trier and Tarkovsky: from Antithesis to Counter-Sublime - Sergey Toymentsev and Anton Dolin

About the author

Sergey Toymentsev

Sergey Toymentsev is Assistant Professor of Russian in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Saint Louis University. He is the editor of ReFocus: The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky (2021).

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