Andrei Rublev
Short description
Set in Russia at the start of the fifteenth century, Andrei Rublev follows a monk and icon painter who leaves the seclusion of his cell to work alongside fellow artists. Traveling through a country divided by feuding princes and threatened by Tatar raids, he encounters violence, suffering and cruelty that challenge his belief in human goodness. The painter Theophanes the Greek takes a bleaker view of mankind, while Rublev holds that love can achieve more than brutality. A traumatic experience drives him to abandon painting and take a vow of silence, and only gradually does he move toward taking up his art again. The film also follows Boriska, the son of a bell-founder, who claims to possess his dead father's secret knowledge and is set the task of casting a bell.
The film is Andrei Tarkovsky's second feature, following Ivan's Childhood, and he wrote the screenplay with Andrei Konchalovsky. Anatoliy Solonitsyn plays Rublev, with Ivan Lapikov, Nikolay Grinko, Nikolai Sergeyev, Irma Raush and Nikolay Burlyaev among the large credited cast. It was produced by Mosfilm on a budget of about one million dollars, and runs 183 minutes.
Critical reception was strong, with a critics' rating of 9 out of 10 from 46 reviews. Audience ratings are also high but a little lower: on IMDb, 8 out of 10 from around 60,000 votes, and on TMDB, 7.9 out of 10 from 977 votes.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film was shown semi-legally at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1969, and was released in the Soviet Union only in December 1971.
- The film's original title was "The Passion of Andrei".
- The director's cut of the film lasts 205 minutes.
- The buffoon's rhyming verses performed by Rolan Bykov were written by him personally. While preparing for the role, he researched the subject and discovered that authentic verses from that period almost entirely contained profanity.
- Tarkovsky planned to include a story about the Battle of Kulikovo with large-scale battle scenes in the film, but due to budget problems, he was forced to abandon this idea.
- Anatoly Solonitsyn remained silent for four months for the filming of the scene depicting the breaking of a vow of silence, so that his voice would sound hoarse.
- Filming took place on the territory of the Vladimir-Suzdal Museum-Reserve, in Pskov and the Pskov region, Izborsk, Pechory, near the Spaso-Efimiev Monastery, and in the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir, where the film crew accidentally started a real fire.
- The idea for the film originally belonged to Vasily Livanov, who dreamed of playing the main role himself.
- There were numerous instances of animal cruelty during filming: one cut scene showed a cow being burned alive, and in another, a horse's throat was slit.
- The protagonist of "A Film About Alexeyev" (2014) ends up on the set of the film "Andrei Rublev".
- Filming lasted from September 1964 to November 1965.
- Tarkovsky initially invited Alla Demidova for the role of Durochka, but she declined, a decision she later regretted.
- There were numerous cases of animal cruelty during filming.
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