Andrei Rublev - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Andrei Rublev or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Andrei Rublev

[ruby]

The movie was completed and shown to selected people in private screenings in the winter of 1966. The first official screening was in February 1969 in Moscow, followed by a screening at the Cannes film festival in May 1969. International distribution started in 1973.

[cassandra]

Selected by the Vatican in the "religion" category of its list of 45 "great films."

[kristen]

Tarkovsky chose to shoot the main film in black and white and the epilogue, showing some of Rublev's icons, in color. In an interview he motivated his choice with the claim that in everyday life one does not consciously notice colors. Consequently, Rublev's life is in black and white, whereas his art is in color. The film was thus able to express the co-dependence of an artist's art and his personal life.

[kenzi]

In this film, director Andrei Tarkovsky drew on his own creative development and religious struggles as a way to interrogate Christianity as an axiom of Russia's historical identity.

[addison]

In 1973, the film was shown on Soviet television in a 101-minute version that Tarkovsky did not authorize. Notable scenes that were cut from this version were the raid of the Tartars and the scene showing naked pagans. The epilogue showing details of Andrei Rublev's icons was in black and white as the Soviet Union had not yet fully transitioned to color TV.

[clayton]

Theophanes the Greek (c. 1340 - c. 1410) was a Greek artist from Constantinople and one of the greatest icon painters of Russia, and was noted as the teacher and mentor of Andrei Rublyov.

[albert]

In 2010, Andrei Rublev was honored when it came equal second in a U.K. newspaper series of the "Greatest Films of All Time" as voted by critics from The Guardian and The Observer.

[jessica]

One of Richard Linklater, Roy Andersson, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Andrey Zvyagintsev, André Gregory and Wallace Shawn, Ulrich Seidl, Olivier Assayas and Carlos Reygadas's favorite movies.

[lena]

Tarkovsky and his co-screenwriter Andrei Konchalovsky worked for more than two years on the script, studying medieval writings and chronicles and books on medieval history and art.

[tom]

For the scene where the cow is on fire, it was covered in an asbestos coat that protected it from actually being burned. But for the scene where the horse falls down the stairs, it was shot in the neck by director Andrei Tarkovsky. The crew acquired the horse from a slaughterhouse where it was going to be shot the next day.

[sophie]

The character of Danil is based on Daniil Chyorny (c. 1360 - 1430), a Russian icon painter and companion of Andrei Rublyov. He is believed to have painted the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir in conjunction with Rublyov.

[jim]

Vasiliy Livanov claims to be the one who suggested the idea for the film. He also wanted to play the lead, but director Andrei Tarkovsky wanted to cast the previously unknown actor Anatoliy Solonitsyn.

[linda]

In a 1969 interview, Tarkovsky stated that the flying man in the prologue is "the symbol of daring, in the sense that creation requires from man the complete offering of his being. Whether one wishes to fly before it has become possible, or cast a bell without having learned how to do it, or paint an icon - all these acts demand that, for the price of his creation, man should die, dissolve himself in his work, give himself entirely."

[riley]

Despite the difficulties that the director, Andrei Tarkovsky, experienced getting this film shown abroad, or even obtaining an official release in his native Soviet Union (or perhaps partly due to those reasons), the work is currently very highly regarded. In the most recent BFI Sight & Sound critics' and directors' polls of the best films of all time, released in 2012, the film achieved the exceptionally high ranking of 27th in the critics' poll. However, Tarkovsky's own later film The Mirror (1975), outranked it, placing 19th in the same poll. Similarly, in the directors' poll of that year, the film tied for 13th place, while The Mirror (1975) appears in 9th place.

[tamara]

In April 1964 the script for the film was approved by Mosfilm and Tarkovsky began working on the film. At the same time the script was published in the influential film magazine Iskusstvo Kino, and was widely discussed among historians, film critics and ordinary readers.

[norma]

The first cut of the film was known as The Passion According to Andrei, though this title was not used for the released version of the film. The first cut of the film was over 3 hours and 15 minutes in length prior to being edited down to its released length. The first cut was completed in July 1966. Goskino demanded cuts to the film, citing its length, negativity, violence, and nudity. After Tarkovsky completed this first version, it would be five years before the film was widely released in the Soviet Union. The ministry's demands for cuts first resulted in a 190-minute version. Despite Tarkovsky's objections expressed in a letter to Alexey Romanov, the chairman of Goskino, the ministry demanded further cuts, and Tarkovsky trimmed the length to 186 minutes.

[liam]

In 2010, the Toronto International Film Festival released its "Essential 100" list of films in which Andrei Rublev also placed No. 87.

[darrell]

The film is referenced in Tarkovsky's two films that followed this one. It is first referenced in Solaris, made in 1972, by having an icon by Andrei Rublev being placed in the main character's room. It is next referenced by having a poster of the film being hung on a wall in The Mirror, made in 1975.

[ray]

The initial budget was 1.6 million Rubles, but it was cut several times to one million Rubles (In comparison, Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace had a budget of eight and half million Rubles). As a result of the budget restrictions several scenes from the script were cut, including an opening scene showing the Battle of Kulikovo.