Sunday, October 23, 2011

The History of History




http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/43-andrei-rublev

Review by Hoberman

This is an extremely interesting foreign movie and book to read, of the times when the Tartars reigned in
15th C medieval Russia.

The film is about the Andrei Rublev an icon painter and the essence of art and faith .

The artist tries to find an appropriate response to the tragedies of his time.
The more we watch, the more we see things never change.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PAhbcy8mP4
press cc in the right hand corner to get the english subtitles.

http://www.openculture.com/freemoviesonline

I tried clicking from the blog onto the films but they only work on my computer. On the blog they send you to advertising. Maybe they have to be done from google.
You will have to go to mosfilms ( I went to number three on the pages list where they have mosfilms in english) and they have a list of films they let out on You tube where you can click on cc for subtitles.
One of them is Andrei Rublev.

if you have the time and can get to the link , its worth watching in two parts.
Sometimes I find interesting things but they are hard to come back to.

Have a great day!

7 comments:

A Lady's Life said...

mama zen :
It is different.
usually we watch american movies and read american books but this is something from somewhere else.Makes us understand how kings came into being etc... before cities were like city states. Can you imagine this today?
It's just hard to find and refind.

Zuzana said...

I find the story of Tartars interesting because they also ruled the country of my origins and were very feared by my predecessors.;)
xoxo

A Lady's Life said...

Zuzana - yes they were a fierce bunch and I also find the history interesting.

Olga said...

This is a famous cult film in Russia. The director that made it had the theme of "life as a dream". In his following films, he often showed exceptional visuals that seem to have appeared from his subconscious. I have to confess, I have used that idea in my newest paintings.

A Lady's Life said...

Olga, cult or not, I found some things said there to be so true.I feel bad that the translation loses so much meaning.
What is not a dream today? Are we sure we are living? We could all be dreaming this life.
Our bodies after all are very limited. If you look at any creature,
it sees its' life to be the true thing. We look at rocks and see them as rocks but they could be something totally different.Rocks are life since when you break them up into soil things grow in them.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi A Lady's Life .. I hope one day I'll see the film - interesting what Olga says about it being a cult film in Russia, and it was made as life in a dream.

Very interesting what you say about Rocks too .. and life ...

Thanks - Hilary

A Lady's Life said...

Hilary - The movie deals with the old Russian faith.People, during that time, were simple, God Fearing people, very kind. The monks discussed what evil living was and how not to corrupt their faith and way of being.Some of them disagreed with each other because they rejected worldly things. You see the church is about God and there should be no money involved,no gold or silver, no taxes to pay,no celebrations except religious ones, no buying or selling etc....nothing anyone would want to steal.
It's a holy house of God used only for prayer, confessions and doing Gods' work.
They spent most of their time building a church and painting it full of beautiful religious paintings and then the Tartars came and destroyed most of it and the monks told them we will rebuild it again.But they were poor and hardly had any food left except for rotten apples.They searched the landscape for good clay to make things with.Finally they told the tartars they would build them a bell if they would bring them silver. So the tartars went about stealing silver for them and the monks asked for more and more.lol So they were being corrupted.