Andrei Rublev

ART ON SCREEN Andrei Rublev is universally acknowledged by Russians as their greatest icon painter, and lived in the early 1400s. Tarkovsky re-imagines Rublev as a Christ-like cypher for the sufferings of a divided Russia under the Tartar invaders: a troubled visionary reduced to years of silence by the horrors that he witnesses, who finally rediscovers the will to speak - and to paint.

The film offers eight imaginary episodes from Rublev's life: the most brilliant coup is the story of a beardless boy saving his own life by pretending that he knows how to cast a giant bell - and finding that he can do it. This boy's blind faith rekindles Rublev's confidence in himself and his people, leading the film into its blazing climax: a montage of details from Rublev's surviving icons.  The film has been interpreted in many ways, with some seeing it as an allegory of Tarkovsky's own struggle to produce enduring beauty in a hostile environment.  Brezhnev refused to sanction the films release because it portrayed a national hero by showing him as a self-doubting craftsman rather than an instinctive genius who had helped to spark a Russian renaissance in the face of philistinic repression.

Introduction by Alicia Morton, dancer/choreographer, teacher of art history, devotee of film, and supporter of the Amherst Cinema in its earliest form.

Director Andrei Tarkovsky.  205 mins, 1966.  In Russian with subtitles