Andrei Rublev (Criterion Collection Spine #34)

Andrei Rublev (Criterion Collection Spine #34)
by Andrei Tarkovsky

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Actor: Anatoli Solonitsyn, Irma Raush, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolai Grinko, Nikolai Sergeyev
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Vadim Yusov
Writer: Andrei Tarkovsky
Editor: Lyudmila Feiginova
Editor: Olga Shevkunenko
Editor: Tatyana Yegorychyova
Producer: Tamara Ogorodnikova
Writer: Andrei Konchalovsky
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: Russian (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 2.35:1
Running Time: 205 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-02-02
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion

DVD Reviews of Andrei Rublev (Criterion Collection Spine #34)

DVD Review: Magnificent film, but get the Artificial Eye version.
Summary: 3 Stars

Straight up, "Andrei Rublev" is possibly my favourite film, the reason why I got turned onto cinema when I was 15 (some 14 years ago!). So the three stars are for the product rather than the film, which would get 5/5 every time from me. Secondly, I love Criterion DVDs: as a matter of fact, I received "Breathless"/"Bout De Souffle" today and I'm mightily impressed with the film transfer, packaging and extras that set has.
Much is made of the fact that this is the "uncut" version of the film. This may be so, but the twenty minutes that this version has over the Russian Cinema Council version (availaible on Artificial Eye in the U.K.) are generally not new scenes: rather they are extra shots that have been cut from the RUSCICO/AE release. For instance, when Kirill storms out of the monastery after the apparent snub by Theophanes, he beats a stray dog that chases him. In the AE release, the yelping of the dog is the only indication that he kills the animal; in the Criterion version, there is a shot of the dog writhing on the ground. This is not to indicate my distate for animal cruelty, but just that these shots don't in my opinion really add any profundidty to the film. Another example would be the jester's bare, er, posterior with a smiley face daubed on during the hut scene near the beginning, which the AE release omits: it's just bits and bobs spread throughout the film, not extra whole scenes, that's all.
This would be fine if the one-disc transfer was up the standard of the AE release (which splits the film between two discs, 99 and 86 minutes). It isn't. Perhaps it's because we are so used to good transfers onto DVD owadays, where even the no-frill Second Run and Eclipse relaeses are of a very high standard, that this release from 1998 seems sub-standard. The key is that the bit-rate is very low. I don't like the nerdy appraisal of a DVD by exact measurements of bit-rates, but it's clear that when the camera moves (for instance in the hut with the jester) the transfer isn't up to snuff. The rather washed-out look to the fantastic black and white photgraphy and the over-sized black bars further exaccerbate the irritation. Sure, ramping down 100Hz settings, black adjust, etc., the film is just about watchable, but the enormous black bars seem to be hiding the fact that this isn't a great transfer.

Great film, but get the Artificial Eye release. There are far, far better more recent Criterion discs to get before you think about getting this.

DVD Review: Interesting Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars

This movie is difficult on the viewer because it's not so much about telling a story as about painting an era and presenting a human struggle that is largely an interior experience.
The story is the life of Russia's greatest icon painter, Andrei Rublev, about whom not much is known, so Tarkovsky has freedom to re-create him to suit his purpose. His only well documented work is the Holy Trinity now at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, and is considered Russia's best icon painting, which I saw while I was there as well as his attributed works in the Cathedral of the Annunciation, they all have a unique beauty and spirituality that is superior to the works of other icons of that time. Rubiev was eventually cannonized by the Russian Orthodox church and is revered as a saint by the faithful.
More than a movie, it is a series of pictures and landscapes that portray Medieval Russia, it's beauty and its brutality are well represented.
The movie conveys the mystical atmosphere of that time, when faith was much more important than knowledge. The timing of the film makes it seem extremely long because the director is focusing on the beauty of the forest, a field of flowers or the details on a bough while the dialog does not necessarily help to clarify much. We do get a sense though that Rubliev, like all great artistic geniuses was a complex personality. The actor that plays him has a great ability to express nuances through his hand movements, the posture and even furtive glances. In many ways I feel the movie would have been even more successful as a silent work, and oddly enough, Rubliev takes a vow of silence and remains without speaking for a large portion of the film.
The long closeups of the faces are like icon paintings, and I must say that the actors chosen look like the exact replica of the figures I have seen painted on icons. More than watching a movie, Rubliev is an experience in meditation and/or prayer. It requires a different patience than what's needed for a regular slow movie, because it is trying to use the visual images to create allegories, and because the length of the scenes or detailed closeups have a powerful impact in memory. One of the magical aspects of the movie is that the experience of remembering it is much more pleasurable than actually seeing it.

DVD Review: TARKOVSKY
Summary: 2 Stars

Tarkovsky's films are usually beautifull from a cinematic perspective. His visual perspectives range from mundane to magnificent. But his films all end up being sermons, which ruins the overall effect for me.

DVD Review: Gorgeous
Summary: 5 Stars

Incredible BW cinematography. Absolutely stunning imagery. If you are film afficianado, get this, watch it, absord it.

DVD Review: one of the greatest films ever made
Summary: 5 Stars

a wonderful meditation on art and artistic detachment/autonomy. perhaps the most accessible of tarkovsky's films, and certainly the most beautiful to look at of them all--though some of the images in this film are quite terrible. your experience of cinema is incomplete without having watched this film.

Description of Andrei Rublev (Criterion Collection Spine #34)

Immediately suppressed by the Soviets in 1966, Andrei Tarkovsky's epic masterpiece is a sweeping medieval tale of Russia's greatest icon painter. Too experimental, too frightening, too violent, and too politically complicated to be released officially, Andrei Rublev has existed only in shortened, censored versions until the Criterion Collection created this complete 205-minute director's cut special edition, now available for the first time on DVD.

At last, the complete version of Andrei Tarkovski's 1966 masterpiece about the great 15th century Russian icon painter (a film suppressed by the Soviet Union and unseen until 1971) is available. It's a complex and demanding narrative about the responsibility of the artist to participate in history rather than documenting it from a safe distance. A landmark in Russian cinema, Andrei Rublev is a beautifully lyrical black-and-white film about harmony and soulful expression. As the late filmmaker says in a supplementary interview, each generation must experience life for itself; it cannot simply absorb what has preceded it. In fact, a whole host of supplements accompanies the film in this Criterion Collection release. Stick with it; it's worth the effort. --Bill Desowitz

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