
Andrei Tarkovsky’s Message to the Young: “Learn to Be Alone” (2015) - vo2maxer
http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/andrei-tarkovskys-message-to-young-people.html
======
mellowdream
Stalker is still the most beautiful film I've ever seen. I took a film class
in college and fell asleep when we were watching it (embarrassing, but the
professor was wholly understanding) - I watched it 3 or 4 times later the same
week on my own. But it's also the film that's been hardest for me to
understand. I "get it" the least of all, I'm still not sure what it's about -
it's an otherworldly experience, though.

With Stalker I turn to Fellini - I don't like the idea of "understanding" a
film. I don't believe that rational understanding is an essential element in
the reception of any work of art. Either a film has something to say to you or
it hasn't. If you are moved by it, you don't need to have it explained to you.
If not, no explanation can make you moved by it. That's why I don't think my
films are misunderstood when they are accepted for different reasons. Every
person has his own fund of experiences and emotions which he brings to bear on
every new experience-whether it is to his view of a film or to a love affair;
and it is simply the combination of the film with the reality already existing
in each person which creates the final impression of unity. As I was saying,
this is the way the spectator participates in the process of creation. This
diversity of reaction doesn't mean that the objective reality of the film has
been misunderstood. Anyway, there is no objective reality in my films, any
more than there is in life.

~~~
DubiousPusher
Andrei Rublev felt like a slog until the last segment with the bell making.
That segment really built tension for me and at its end it became clear to me
that the entire film had been a set up. It established the vanity of Rublev's
religious experience and his realization of that through his sudden exposure
to the chaos of the world outside the monastary.

But to make Rublev's epiphany clear -that he could live for compassion,
passion and the kindred spirit of a fellow creator- you had to be taken
through this long process of seeing this crazy world through Rublev's naive
eyes.

It was definitely one of my first experiences where I discovered that sticking
with art that is challenging or difficult could truly pay off in a way
immediately gratifying art sometimes cannot.

~~~
crispyambulance
The cinematography of Andrei Rublev (and really all of Tarkovsky's films)
feels almost magical.

I remember the first time I watched Andrei Rublev, it was in a university
library, in one of those media carrols (on a laserDISC !). There's a scene in
the middle of film depicting a pagan spring ritual where Rublev and the other
monks were compelled to participate. Anyways, by the time that scene was over
I turned around and noticed several other students standing behind me asking
what the F was I watching, they were so mesmerized, they abandoned what they
were watching and just started to watch Andrei Rublev.

One contemporary director in particular come to mind, that remind me at least
in part of Tarkovsky. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who directed "Uncle Bonmee
who can recall his past lives" and others
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=_bJdvNS4iRw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=_bJdvNS4iRw)).
Like Tarkovsky films, this film and his others meander in plotless dreamy arcs
with sumptuous camera work. Weerasethakul has even stated that he's OK with
people falling asleep while watching his films.

~~~
DubiousPusher
I've been thinking about watching that for a while. Unfortunately finding the
time for these kind of films with a family around is much harder.

------
jamesakirk
I discovered Tarkovsky only last year. I didn't "get" him until the death of
my father. Roiling in ineffable grief, I struggled to find meaning, to sum up
the arc of my father's life. The experience had (and still has) a timeless,
absurd quality to it.

Tarkovsky's films seem to exist in a different type of time orthogonal to our
own, and the experience of engaging with them is difficult to describe. They
are both powerful and ineffable.

From his writings, he could be mistaken for a practitioner of Zen. I would
like to share my favorite Tarkovsky quote:

"Everybody asks me what things mean in my films. This is terrible! An artist
doesn't have to answer for his meanings. I don't think so deeply about my work
- I don't know what my symbols may represent. What matters to me is that they
arouse feelings, any feelings you like, based on whatever your inner response
might be. _If you look for a meaning, you 'll miss everything that happens._
Thinking during a film interferes with your experience of it. Take a watch
into pieces, it doesn't work. Similarly with a work of art, there's no way it
can be analyzed without destroying it."

~~~
pm90
That is quite a beautiful quote! I suspect we search for meanings and
interpretations mostly to communicate what we feel to others we may try to
share the experience with, although it seems that the best way to do this
might just be to be honest about it and describe the feeing rather than the
interpretation.

(Also, I’m sorry for your loss. Losing a parent seems un fathomable to me
although I know it will happen to me too).

------
_hardwaregeek
Solo traveling is where I learned how to be alone. Turns out, I don't mind
hanging out with myself. Not an insane revelation, but an important one.

Yet when I try to convince people to solo travel, I encounter so much hemming
and hawing, so much resistance. I suppose there's a safety aspect. I'm male
and can't speak about traveling as a woman or trans-man. But I do meet many
female travelers. And I don't know significantly more guys who solo travel.

I'd imagine there's a fear of loneliness, of homesickness, of paralysis in
face of being so untethered. Which, yes, can happen. It comes in waves. Some
days I'd be horribly, terribly lonely. Some days I'd do almost nothing. It
always passed.

Anybody who has the time, the money, the temptation to travel alone should do
it. Which is often less than people imagine. Flights have gotten incredibly
cheap. Hostels are acceptable for a few weeks. Food can be bought on the
street or prepared from grocery stores. Every country, every city has low
income people, and they still eat.

The lifestyle certainly suits the young more than the old. So then why do so
many of my young friends delay traveling? Why are they so resistant to the
idea of slowing down their education a little to see the world? I know, I
know. They need the money. But I do have friends who aren't stuck in a hyper-
competitive race to optimize their earnings by age 25. Who are fortunate to
take the luxury of a break.

I shouldn't care this much. Yet I can't help but find it so odd that people
require someone else to be with them while traveling. If I had to find a
travel partner with the same time off, similar goals with traveling and who I
wouldn't murder after a week or two, I'd probably be stuck at home.

~~~
kqr
There's one thing preventing me from traveling alone: a deadly allergy to
sesame. This is an ingredient that gets into _everything_ , and it's often
very hard to communicate reliably to people how serious it is if I
accidentally eat it. Do you know many solo travellers with obscure and serious
allergies? Any tips?

~~~
noelsusman
Not the same, but I'm deathly allergic to yellow jackets and I travel alone in
the woods all the time. My solution is to carry four Epipens and hope for the
best.

I did get stung once, but luckily I was within a mile of a road and hitchhiked
to the nearest ER.

------
pjmorris
My wife looked at me like I had three heads the first time I said that I'd
seen many films alone and that I enjoyed doing so. For her, movies are a
social event, something enjoyed with friends. I'm not opposed to that and
enjoy it as well, but it's not where I started.

There was a phase early in my adult life, before I learned how to make
friends, where I'd go see most movies on my own, and I enjoyed it greatly. I
got to think through my own reactions and come to my own terms with the films
without having to filter through other people's thoughts and without having to
filter what I watched on the behalf of the group. At this point in life, most
movie watching for me is social, but there are some that I still make a point
of seeing on my own. There's a wonderful place for sharing, but there's a
wonderful place for solitude as well. Cheers to you wherever you are on that
spectrum.

------
telegrammae
He definitely meant a different type of healthy solitude, rather than the one
on which newspapers and studies report when they assert loneliness and
isolation among young people is at an all-time high.

~~~
Stierlitz
> He definitely meant a different type of healthy solitude, rather than the
> one on which newspapers and studies report when they assert loneliness and
> isolation among young people is at an all-time high.

Maybe it's because people spend too much time exchanging msgs in forums such
as this, instead of having meaningfull exchanges with real people. Even
walking down the street, they have their noses buried in a device.

~~~
CaptArmchair
I think that's a symptom. Not a cause.

A lot has to do with how cultures perceive individuals and individuality.
Traditionally, individuality has always been seen as something "bad".
ingroup/outgroup, cultural norms to abide by, etc. etc. Sociology,
anthropology,... there are entire research domains devoted to these questions.

The interesting part is how society has evolved over the past 200, 100 and 50
years. Industrialisation, mass media, the information age,... have all
stripped away the traditional tribal or clan-like way of living which has kept
us alive for hundreds of thousands of years.

Over the past 50 years, individual consumerism and producerism have come to
dominate our societal framework. So, we are taught to look at relationships as
affordances that help us to advance in a materialistic world; rather then to
look at the deep intangible value they embody. And we are also taught that
emotions are only really valid if they are useful or contributing to our well-
being.

What I hear from younger people is this notion of suffering from social
anxiety. I'm sure that's a real thing. It's not easy to approach another human
being and try and befriend them; and it's harder as we become older.

But building meaningful relationships is also a learned skill which takes tons
of time. And the journey starts first and foremost with learning to befriend
yourself through self-aware kindness, compassion and empathy. For one, it
starts by not beating yourself up over stuff you don't control. Or trying to
adhere to an irealistic ideal.

And it also consists of calling out those who push ideals that nobody can ever
hope to attain. (Yeah, sure, Elon does great stuff. But neither you nor I are
like Elon. You do you, go for it if you want to give it a shot, but who are
you to judge what I do with my life?).

The problem with social media is that they tie into our innate urge to connect
with others; but at the same time push this idea that we all need to have our
separate, successful materialistic lives. It's a disparity that only enhances
the anxiety that's already there. And the only good way to deal with it is to
wean yourself from your device as best as you can.

~~~
Hoasi
> It's not easy to approach another human being and try and befriend them; and
> it's harder as we become older.

Anecdotal, and not to dismiss that reality, but I find the opposite to be
true. It is easy to befriend people, with no strings attached. We have a lot
in common with almost everybody.

------
danielrk
Knowing how to be alone and being social is not a rigid dichotomy. I think
it’s clear what Tarkovsky means: that there is immense value in self-
discovery. I’ve heard similar sentiments from other great artists.

Grothendieck famously attributed his mathematical confidence to a long period
of solitude in his youth where he independently recreated some major results.

The late Harold Bloom used to say that reading is ultimately a solitary
endeavor—that its purpose is to learn to have a conversation with yourself.

However I think for reflective people there is a “danger” on the side of being
too entangled in this conversation. Socialization can start to seem banal and
unambitious in comparison. But I’ve found that this just suggests that you
haven’t found people who aren’t in the habit of talking with themselves.

I find this story apropos: There was a screening at the Yale Humanities Center
of Tarkovsky’s “Ivan’s Childhood” that my roommate wanted to take me to when
we were undergrads. I only reluctantly agreed—it was freezing outside and I
had been cooped up in my room wrestling with a statistical mechanics problem
set. Frankly I didn’t feel like we got along. But my decision to go became the
beginning of one of the deepest friendships I continue to have and my
endlessly enriching relationship with film and literature.

------
jamesrcole
I spent a fair bit of time alone, and bored, while growing up (I was born in
the late 70s, so this was primarily in the 80s). I felt it helped me to get
comfortable with my own thoughts and to be able to think for myself.

It is of course difficult, on the basis of memory and introspection, to tell
how much it helped in that regard.

I'm not saying that being alone _will_ help someone get comfortable with their
thoughts and be able to think for themselves. It just seems like it can be
conducive to that.

------
iapsngh
> "Every person needs to learn from childhood how to spend time with oneself.
> That doesn’t mean he should be lonely, but that he shouldn’t grow bored with
> himself."

This is something that has helped me a lot. Some of the best creative ideas
and stuff I came up as a young person were due to my spending _this_ time on
self-learning and trying to do something or the other. Learnt never to get
bored just being with myself.

And to this day whenever I am alone, either I put myself in a
learning/exploring/thinking mode; or I work on doing something
creative/practical. There's no passive mode.

I think the key to not getting bored alone and spend this 'me time' in some
meaningful way is to actively engage oneself instead of passively passing the
time.

------
dijit
The problem with being very comfortable being alone is that there’s not
actually a lot of opportunity for it once you have a family, then it’s quite
stifling and builds frustration over time.

I guess like everything, healthy moderation is needed. But when you’re truly
comfortable being alone for long periods of time it’s like opium- and I don’t
mean that in a sardonic way; it’s addictive, peaceful, free and makes you
start to resent lack of control.

At least in my single user experience.

~~~
iapsngh
Yes, it can be stifling at times when you yearn to be alone and have other
pressing/family needs.

I try to work out my priorities in time and 'am able to clearly communicate
with my spouse and children that I need some time out to think/sort/do stuff.
Luckily it works most of the time.

------
newnewpdro
One of my favorite effects of spending extended periods in solitude is how
much more I appreciate being around people afterwards.

It's akin to how nice a hot shower feels after spending a week backpacking in
the wilderness.

~~~
Lutzb
I can relate to this so much. Spending time alone feels like recharging my
social battery. There is a weird contradiction I enjoy being around people,
but at the same time long to be alone and enjoy the solitude. Now with kids,
social obligations and a plethora of distractions these moments alone get
fewer and fewer by the day.

------
ak39
Here is a poem by William Wordsworth that has always reminded me of what I
thought Tarkovsky is trying to tell me ("The World is Too Much with Us"):

[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45564/the-world-is-
to...](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45564/the-world-is-too-much-
with-us)

(Copying and pasting multi-line text on HN is an exercise in horror.)

------
acqq
BTW:

Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky, Russian filmmaker, writer, and film theorist.
(1932 – 1986)

The title about his message is from 2015, but he must have said that three
decades earlier.

------
jffhn
Reminds me of a complementarity I sometimes see between being in society,
which allows to share, collaborate, etc., and being in solitude, which allows
to think, contemplate, etc., and of a south american indigenous tribe I forgot
the name of, where the elders somehow transcend this opposition: for important
deliberations, they gather in a dark hut and whisper their views, for those
who speak not to be identified, as if they formed a single mind.

I would appreciate if anyone could remind me the name of this tribe.

------
myth_drannon
I like Criswell's take on Tarkovsky -
[https://youtu.be/ak6rI-j07QU](https://youtu.be/ak6rI-j07QU)

