Sculpting in Time is known here in Xi’an, Beijing and Nanjing as a pretty relaxed café chain, but for the founders and others who enjoy the art of film making, it actually refers to the title of a book written by the Russian auteur Andrey Tarkovsky. The title offers us, as metaphor, an expression of what he feels the art of filmmaking to be all about: “[T]he rhythm of the movement of time is there within the frame, as the sole organising force of the – quite complex- dramatic development.” (Tarkovsky:1986:114).
Cinema for Tarkovsky is not a matter of simple pleasure, escapism or advertising but is Art, which for him: “…takes hold wherever there is a timeless insatiable longing for the spiritual, for the ideal: that longing which draws people to art.” (38). Tarkovsky considers it: “…perfectly clear that the goal of all art – unless of course it is aimed at the ‘consumer’, like a saleable commodity – is to explain to the artist himself and to those around him what man lives for, what is the meaning of his existence. To explain to people the reason for their appearance on this planet; or if not to explain, at least to pose the question.” (36). The emphasis he places on the rhythm of the film comes from the fact that it is the rhythm; the filmmaker’s sculpting in time, that carries the role of inquisitor.
Here again, as in Confucianist thought, we have a synthesis between time and humanity, this time we find it not simply in philosophical theory but within the auteur’s frame of creation: “…in artistic creation the personality does not assert itself, it serves another, higher and communal idea…[t]he allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as an example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good.” (38/43).
Tarkovsky was a man of God, who peppered his articulations with the vocabulary of religious discourse, but even if, for example, I do not see it through the same vocabulary of the religious, I can still recognise an overarching spirituality to, magicality in and responsibility for existence that Tarkovsky is expressing when he notes: “The artist is always a servant, and is perpetually trying to pay for the gift that has been given to him as if by a miracle. Modern man, however, does not want to make any sacrifice, even though true affirmation of self can only be expressed in sacrifice.” (38). The essence of such a statement can find some parallel in the Daoist conception of Wu Wei, articulated in a previous note, that: “Just as Dao is simple, so the man of Dao lives simply. He is one with his own nature, true to himself, and seeks not to identify himself with possession and prestige, with things that pass away.”
The emphasis within both perspectives is on the realisation of the inner nature of ourselves, with one outlook focusing on the fact that this nature is not to be seen in association with external, transitory objects. And the other, Tarkovsky took a step further, by concluding that the true affirmation of self is only to be discovered in sacrifice, the sense of which can be more clearly understood from his preceding words: “Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual, for the ideal: that longing which draws people to art. Modern art has taken a wrong turn in abandoning the search for the meaning of existence in order to affirm the value of the individual for its own sake.” (43).
Here we have a two pronged attack on the modern world, both concerning the nature of ourselves; of humanity, one through the Daoist conception of simplicity, with the focus on not identifying ourselves through possessions or prestige. And two, Tarkovsky’s criticism of a notion of self-affirmation that does not contain a wider concern for the nature of existence; sacrifice in the name of the gifts and very existence given to us. Whether this is to be found in the mindset of the filmmaker on set, or within the mind of the audience in the film theatre, the essence for Tarkovsky is the same, an essence that could be gathered under a Confucianist’s wing, in terms of searching and challenging ourselves and those around us in the name of Ren (仁) – humanity.
I will simply conclude with a few words from Tarkovsky explaining why he believes films become too easily dated:
“The main reason as I see it is that as a rule the filmmaker’s work is not a creative act, not a morally exacting undertaking of vital importance to him personally…Cinema is still looking for its language…The cinema’s progress towards self-awareness has always been hampered by its equivocal position, hanging between art and the factory…A true artistic image gives the beholder a simultaneous experience of the most complex, contradictory, sometimes even mutually exclusive feelings…I am always sickened when an artist underpins his system of images with deliberate tendentiousness or ideology. I am against his methods being discernible at all…In a word, the image is not a certain meaning, expressed by the director, but an entire world reflected as in a drop of water.” (99,109/110).
Tarkovsky, A: (1986): Sculpting in Time- The Great Russian Filmmaker Discusses His Art: University of Texas Press
Sculpting in Time – An article from longpauses.com
Tarkovsky! You Magnificent Bastard – An article from formandsense.com
西安