A Purified Silver: Arseny Tarkovsky's Poems in Andrey Tarkovsky's Film, The Mirror
Open Access
- Author:
- Nakpil, Joseph
- Area of Honors:
- Comparative Literature
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Irina Mikaelian, Thesis Supervisor
Adrian Johannes Wanner, Thesis Supervisor
Sydney Sue Aboul Hosn, Thesis Honors Advisor
Linda J Ivanits, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Russian
poetry
film studies
translation
father-son relationship
literary analysis
Tarkovsky - Abstract:
- Russian director Andrey Tarkovsky is regarded as an unusual force in the history of cinema. Andrey’s father, the poet-translator Arseny Tarkovsky, has yet to share his son’s fame in the English-speaking world. Notwithstanding, Arseny’s poetry was a catalyst for his son’s cinematic vision as evident by the use of the father’s poetry in a number of Andrey’s films, a topic of growing interest as Arseny becomes more and more known outside of Russia. Besides a handful of short writings, however, no critical analyses exist which explore the usage of Arseny’s poetry in Andrey’s 1975 film, The Mirror, his most personal work. In regard to the greater discussion of Andrey and his poetic influence on cinema, the poetry of Andrey’s father Arseny, I propose, was a mnemonic source of cinematic inspiration, subject matter, and structure for this film; this same source acts as a constant son-to-father, artist-to-artist dialogue, and places both Andrey and Arseny in the canon of Russian poetic tradition. This thesis acts as an introductory discussion of the poems in The Mirror and the artistic, poetic, even emotional connection between father and son. In addition to the respective biographies of both artists, information on their father-son relationship, and production history of the film, I present analyses of all four Arseny Tarkovsky poems featured in The Mirror, a scene-by-scene analysis of their use in the film, and I critically engage with past scholarship on the subject.