Lectures on Film Directing

Andrei Tarkovsky has been and remains one of the key figures of Soviet and world cinema. Even people who have never seen a single one of his films know his name. In his short life, he made only seven feature-length films—few in number, but enormous in depth. Tarkovsky acted not merely as a director, but as a true author who built his own philosophy, palpable in every frame.

The audiobook “Lectures on Film Directing” is compiled based on transcripts of classes that Andrei Arsenevich Tarkovsky delivered at the Higher Two-Year Courses for Screenwriters and Directors under Goskino USSR. To convey his ideas about cinema more accurately and completely, excerpts from previously published articles and interviews were additionally included in the text of the “Lectures.”

The question of what the special nature of cinema consists of has for many years remained open and has no single universally accepted answer. There are different approaches, arguing with one another and often forming a motley mixture of viewpoints. Each person formulates and solves the task of finding such a concept in their own way—one that would allow creation consciously. What is cinema, and what is its specificity? How did Andrei Tarkovsky understand it, what opportunities, means, and images did he see in the cinema—not only from the perspective of form, but also from the moral side? You will find answers to these and many other questions in this audiobook.