MovieChat Forums > Offret (1986) Discussion > This movie cuts corners.

This movie cuts corners.

posted 19 years ago by verdant4ce
13 replies | jump to latest

I have seen Stalker and Andrei Rublev. Together, they are enough to make Andrei Tarkovsky my favourite director.

The Sacrifice contains some of Tarkovsky's trademarks: God, black-and-white segments, characters standing in front of lights, plants and animals, and close-ups of faces.

The Sacrifice uses some cinematic short cuts:

- Instead of being visually guided around the house, for instance, the audience is treated to "Tokyo Story shots" of one wall at a time, and invited to figure out the geography for themselves.

- The blocking is sometimes excellent, where figures in the background are lined up with those in the foreground. At other times (the fire scene leaps to mind), Tarkovsky resorts to shifting the camera from one subject to next, scrambling back and forth, keeping things seperate even within a take.

- The story does not make much sense. I understood Mulholland Drive and 2001 just fine, but I do not understand this movie. The characters do not quite fit in, do not all serve purposes.

Tarkovsky's movies, to me, are un-parallelled in their artistic efficiency. The Sacrifice, however, seems full of cheating.

Possible reasons that the Sacrifice is not so good:
- Bergman's influence. Bergman was a director much like Tarkovsky, except more prolific and more sloppy. The two were good friends at the time, and the film was made in Bergman's home country.
- Rushing. Andrei Tarkovsky was terminally ill when he made this movie.

The film was shorter than Stalker and Rublev, but it lacked the natural flow of the other two films. It felt like a studio cut to watch. If it had been half an hour longer, I think it would have been a coherent and a brilliant movie. The movie I have seen falls short of both these marks.

EDIT: A year or two later and I sort of wish I hadn't said those things. I half-believe them, but I can still remember milk hitting the floor and water reflecting black-and-white, and four or five other terrific things from that movie. I don't know why I felt the urge to complain. Maybe kids shouldn't be allowed on the Internet.

[–] themoon-3 19 years ago

"The story does not make much sense. I understood Mulholland Drive and 2001 just fine, but I do not understand this movie. The characters do not quite fit in, do not all serve purposes."

This is a virtue not a fault

[–] verdant4ce 19 years ago

It's worth mentioning that after I wrote this, I watched part of the movie again, and it gained back a good bit of my respect. I still think it's more mechanical than other Tarkovsky movies.

[–] Camoo 19 years ago

surprising. i thought he spared no expense, knowing it was his last picture, dying while he was making it. the fact that you 'cant understand it' doesn't really matter! its all intuitive, kind of like the mirror,. watch solaris. that one he disliked so much exactly because of the mechanical nature of working within the science fiction genre and was unable to break from it since the material was based on a book. compare those two and this one feels so free... i dunno its my favorite movie so i gotta stand up for it.

[–] GamblinMike 19 years ago

"Bergman's influence"? Not so, just because he filmed it in Bergman's island and used Erland Josephson and Sven Nykvist does not verify this thought. There's a reason for all this. Tarkovsky was in exile he could not make it in Russia. He already made Nostalghia with Josephson and he was probably then his connection to making his latest film come to life. Either ways it wasn't Bergman influenced. The story is very Russian. The whole nuclear holocaust-end of the world theme hits too close home, I doubt he would be allowed to make this film if he didn't exile his country. As for he and Bergman being friends, that's not true. They both admired each other but never met.

[–] Krustallos 18 years ago

All of Tarkovsky's films back to at least "Ivan's Childhood" are 'Bergman-influenced', and also 'Kurosawa-influenced' (the Japanese motifs in "The Sacrifice" are not just window-dressing)(added to which Bergman himself took a lot from Kurosawa).

In "Sculpting in Time" Tarkovsky also cites Luis Bunuel as a director he feels kinship with - given both directors' interest in the subconscious and the symbolism associated with it, this is less suprising than it might first appear. "Offret" itself actually has a 'dream-within-a-dream' structure.

Parts of this also reminded me of some of Godard's later work, particularly the 'keystone cops' routine with the ambulance, and could those sheep running back and forth in front of Maria's house just possibly be a sly nod to "The Draughtsman's Contract"?

Referring back to the OP, clearly Bergman's influence cannot be considered to have damaged this film, since it informs all of Tarkovsky's work. And Tarkovsky's illness is unlikely to have resulted in "rushing" since (1) he didn't know he was ill during shooting and (2) in general rushing would result in a longer film not a shorter one as the editing process tends to be one of selection. Any rushing there may have been would more likely have been down to the production constraints of working in the West on a relatively low budget.

But in any case I didn't notice any "corner-cutting" myself.

I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

[–] Krustallos 18 years ago

I actually found Tarkovsky's Top 10 list of movies. Here:-

1. Le Journal d'un curé de campagne (Bresson)
2. Winter Light (Bergman)
3. Nazarin (Bunuel)
4. Wild Strawberries (Bergman)
5. City Lights (Chaplin)
6. Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi)
7. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
8. Persona (Bergman)
9. Mouchette (Bresson)
10. Woman of the Dunes (Teshigahara)

http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/Tarkovsky-TopTen.html

Tarkovsky differentiated his metaphysical intentions strongly from Bergman's (in a nutshell, his work was about faith, Bergman's about the lack of it), but in terms of technique and imagery they have a good deal in common.

And here's Bergman on Tarkovsky:-

My discovery of Tarkovsky's first film was like a miracle.

Suddenly, I found myself standing at the door of a room the keys of which had, until then, never been given to me. It was a room I had always wanted to enter and where he was moving freely and fully at ease.

I felt encouraged and stimulated: someone was expressing what I had always wanted to say without knowing how.

Tarkovsky is for me the greatest, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.

and

When film is not a document, it is dream. That is why Tarkovsky is the greatest of them all. He moves with such naturalness in the room of dreams. He doesn't explain. What should he explain anyhow? He is a spectator, capable of staging his visions in the most unwieldy but, in a way, the most willing of media. All my life I have hammered on the doors of the rooms in which he moves so naturally. Only a few times have I managed to creep inside. Most of my conscious efforts have ended in embarrassing failure - THE SERPENT'S EGG, THE TOUCH, FACE TO FACE and so on.

Fellini, Kurosawa and Bunuel move in the same fields as Tarkovsky. Antonioni was on his way, but expired, suffocated by his own tediousness. Melies was always there without having to think about it. He was a magician by profession.

Film as dream, film as music.

I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

[–] chester-copperpot-1 13 years ago

It was very much Bergman influenced. Basically, many key functions were Bergman people. In fact so much that Bergman should have co-produced. I guess he lent his people as a favor to another genius.

Besides Josephson and Edwall, two key players from Bergmans stock actor company, there were several other people involved. I have cross referenced this film with just one other Bergman film, Fanny & Alexander, made a few years prior to this film.

Sven Nykvist. Cinematographer on both films.

Katinka Faragó. Production Manager on both films.

Anna Asp. Art Director on F&A. Production Designer on Offret. Incidentally, she won an Oscar in 1984 for Best Art Direction/Set Decoration for Fanny & Alexander. She designed all the sets for Offret as well.

Daniel Bergman (Son of Ingmar Bergman). Grip on F&A. Key grip on Offret.

Plus sixteen other people on miscellaneous positions, mostly art department, sound, camera, and electrical department, make up department, and so on.

[–] Tchoutoye 13 years ago

"Bergman's influence"? Not so, just because he filmed it in Bergman's island and used Erland Josephson and Sven Nykvist does not verify this thought. There's a reason for all this. Either ways it wasn't Bergman influenced.

Could not be further from the truth. Offret is full of references to Bergman's work, most notably Through a Glass Darkly.

[–] Jyo784 18 years ago

Well Tarkovsky DID rebuild and destroy an entire house simply because he didn't feel he had enough covereage of the fire scene.
That doesn't really sound like he cut corners now does it?

[–] mastercard 18 years ago

Well, it wasn't quite that simply. In actuality, the camera jammed and
the footage was unusable. That, of course, could have been avoided had Tarkovsky
heeded Nykvist's suggestion of a back-up camera covering the same shot, yet
he refused. The camera jammed and they were required to rebuild the house,
burn it down and shoot it again.

Tomorrow it will rain in Bouville.

[–] chester-copperpot-1 13 years ago

It wasn't a real house, it was an out door set, built on purpose on site to be burned down for the film. The interior is not shot on location, but in studio. The set cost half a million crowns to rebuild, then a substantial amount of the films production cost.

[–] shroomn 17 years ago

To the OP:
I like how you went back 2 years later and dismissed your own review. I couldn't disagree more with your original comments. Sacrifice is excellent and possibly one of my favorite of his pieces (though not as risky in its narrative approach)
It was a reinstated sort of Bergman film (from his heydays in the 50s and 60s) for me. Amazing film.

[–] Enrique-8 13 years ago

@Verdant

I also loved how you returned to your old review...and had new thoughts, not just second thoughts...It was dignified and warmly amusing. Tarkovsky is among the greatest of the greatest...and don't you forget it! :)

Cheers,
Enrique Sanchez