Time Within Time

Time Within Time, both diary and notebook, covers the years from 1970 until Tarkovsky’s death. Intimate, intense and deeply personal, it answers many of the questions which his admirers would like to ask. There are reflections on Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Hesse, Mann; quotations from Seneca, the Desert Fathers, Henry Thoreau, Nabokov; plans for films and screenplays; lists and letters. He writes of his family, in particular of his poet father, Arseniy Tarkovsky, whose poems are part of his films; of his delight in his wooden house in the countryside, of his joy in his wife and his little son. Haunting dreams are recorded in detail. He speaks of the state of society, the future of art; there are harsh—often funny—remarks about the bureaucrats in charge of the Soviet cultural scene in general and cinema in particular (he gives the text of his letter supporting Paradzhanov when the latter was arrested). He notes significant world events and purely personal dramas along with fascinating background details of the making of his films. Also included in this volume are the plans and notes for his stage version of Hamlet; a detailed proposal for a two-part film of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot; and a glimpse of the more public Tarkovsky answering questions put to him by interviewers and an interested audience.