MovieChat Forums > Trois couleurs: Bleu (1993) Discussion > Tarkovsky-credit ending?

Tarkovsky-credit ending?

posted 20 years ago by gooldenwending
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I have a question about the ending. Perhaps someone can help me out.

When Julie was talking to Olivier about the ending of the score she said that there was a sheet of paper, on which was written, I believe, a part of another composer's score (sorry, not a classical-music buff). She said that her husband had always respected him and that he had wanted to try to work in a reference to it at the end.

Now, for the question. In one of the passages in Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev we see Rublev quoting, somewhat ecstatically, the same portion from the New Testament (It's something from Paul, yes?) as the chorus sings during the final scene. Is it possible that Kieslowski is making credit to a director that he respected at the end of his movie, parallel to what Julie had wished for the end of the score?

I'm not a Kieslowski buff at all and have no idea really what his directing influences were or who he respected, but I want to know what anybody thinks.

Am I reading into this??? Maybe he's just showing his respect for the Christian tradition??? Dunno, but it seems that it would be more fitting if the medium were the same (that is, music:music, film:film).

Thanks for the help ;)

[–] TopFrog 20 years ago

It's an interesting idea, but I don't see the use of the same passage from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians as a reference to Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev. The fragment used, from 1 Corinthians 13, is probably the most famous passage in Paul's writings. I read it at a service in honor of my granparents' 60th wedding anniversary, and it wasn't intended as any sort of homage to Tarkovsky there, either.

That said, Kieslowski was certainly an admirer of Tarkovsky, having stated plainly that, "Andrei Tarkovsky was one of the greatest directors of recent years." Kieslowski on Kieslowski, pp. 33-34. The part of Blue that made me think most of Tarkovsky was the final shot, with the moving camera that starts and ends on Julie. That brought to my mind the shot in Solaris where the delerious Kelvin has a vision in which several images of Kari and his mother move in and out of the frame as the camera moves in a circle.

Regarding the composer mentioned, it's the fictional van den Budenmayer, an alias for Zbigniew Preisner, who did the music in Kieslowski's later films (and who wrote a requiem for him after he died). Van den Budenmayer is first mentioned in part IX of Deacalogue, and surfaces again in Veronique, Blue, and Red.

-- TopFrog