The Image of Jesus Christ in the Films of Andrei Tarkovsky

Igor Evlampiev

Abstract

In Passions on Andrei Tarkovsky depicts the situation of a man in the world. The filmmaker is convinced that a man is a source of destructive and creative forces of being. A source of evil in each person is revealed in its aspiration to isolation and domination over environmental world and other people. But a human being is also a source of similarly powerful good forces which are capable to change the world, to make it better and harmonious. Tarkovsky considers that the most important of these forces is love. The highest example of love is life of Jesus Christ who sacrifices himself for the sake of all people – and love can change the world only in the act of self-sacrifice. In Stalker Tarkovsky suggests that there is a possibility of relations between people that differ from those dominating our civilization. Three people – Stalker, Writer and Professor – go through Zone, a mysterious place visited once by strangers from outer space, with the purpose of visiting „room of desires” which is the place where most cherished desires come true. We understand that Stalker leads people in Zone to find among them a person who is capable to become his „disciple”, to become a stalker as he is, to reconstruct relations with the world. As a result of their „trip” Writer realizes the meaning of Zone for one’s life. He is ready to reject independent „I” and submit to being for its saving, for averting world apocalypse. In the artistic world of late films of Tarkovsky, Writer is „new” Jesus Christ.

• The text is a translation of the article from the volume Symbols, Images, Stereotypes: Artistic and Aesthetic Experience – International Readings on Theory, History and Philosophy of Culture, ed. L. Moryeva, issue 9, Eidos, St. Petersburg 2000.

The attached PDF file mistakenly lists Katarzyna Koschany as co-translator of the text. The article, together with Rafał Koschany, was translated by Dorota Jewdokimow.