Andrei Rublev / Андрей Рублев (1966) [The Criterion Collection #34] [REPOST]

Immediately suppressed by the Soviets in 1966, Andrei Tarkovsky’s epic masterpiece is a sweeping medieval tale of Russia’s greatest icon painter. Too experimental, too frightening, too violent, and too politically complicated to be released officially, Andrei Rublev has existed only in shortened, censored versions until the Criterion Collection created this complete 205-minute director’s cut special edition, now available for the first time on DVD.

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Cast: Anatoli Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolai Grinko, Nikolai Sergeyev, Irma Raush, Nikolay Burlyaev, Yuri Nazarov, Yuri Nikulin, Rolan Bykov, Nikolai Grabbe, Mikhail Kononov, Stepan Krylov, Irina Miroshnichenko, Bolot Bejshenaliyev, K. Aleksandrov, S. Bardin, E. Borisovsky, I. Bykov, Igor Donskoy, Nikolai Glazkov, Vladimir Guskov, Nikolai Kutuzov, I. Loskoy, B. Matysik, Anatoli Obukhov, Tamara Ogorodnikova, Dmitri Orlovsky, G. Pokorsky, P. Radolitskaya, Muratbek Ryskulov

The Criterion Collection

Features:
- The definitive 205-minute director’s cut
- Exclusive widescreen digital transfer
- New English subtitles translating 40% more dialogue
- Screen-specific audio essay by Harvard film professor Vlada Petric
- Rare film interviews with Andrei Tarkovsky, with an essay on the filmmaker's work by Professor Petric
- A timeline featuring key events in Russian history, plus the lives and works of Andrei Rublev and Andrei Tarkovsky
- Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition




IMDb

One of the finest films ever made. Films like this are what give the medium its purpose. It is rich, beautifully shot and acted, and extraordinarily powerful. Like all great works of art, it requires many viewings and much thought to discover the various layers of intellectual and aesthetic meaning within it. That is why a simple description of the plot would give the prospective viewer little idea of what the movie is actually about. True, it is the tale of Russia's greatest icon painter. But it is also a rumination on art, the artist, relgion, love, culture, conformity, cruelty, and much more. See it and discuss it with some bright friends.
~ John Smith

DVDBeaver

Amazon
Tarkovsky's Andre Rublev plows the same ground as Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ, but with greater success. No, I haven't been smoking anything; I'm serious. A collection of metaphorically related vignettes that loosely follows the life of Russia's great medieval artist, Andrei Rublev is about nothing less than the struggle between mankind's spiritual and carnal natures. It is also one of the rare films featuring Christianity that neither belittles the faithful nor condescends to them. I'll take this film over The Robe, The Greatest Story Ever Told or even Ben Hur any day of the week.
All the same, this film is not typical wholesome family entertainment of the Disney variety. It's more like the cinematic equivalent of broccoli - you may or may not like the flavor, but it's good for you. There is nudity. There is violence. If you're an animal lover, it may give you nightmares (at least two horses and one cow probably died in the process of filming). But you know, the Bible itself is full of plenty of that kind of stuff. What makes it palatable is the moral context - the material is in service of an authentically moving spiritual journey. The film may not shy away from the ugliness of medieval Russian peasant life, but it also does not shy away from the message of redemption through grace - and I'm not referring to "grace" in an exclusively Christian context.

While grace wears Russian Orthodox garb in this film, the concept expands to occupy a more universal definition through the use of strong metaphorical imagery. Grace, it seems to suggest, is a state of mind: if you believe it is a gift from God, this film will probably affirm your faith; if not, it will won't offend you with overt evangelism.
The beauty of Andre Rublev is that, like life itself, it places its world before you in all its wonder and horror, and then lets you decide what to make of it. It strives to illuminate the human condition, rather than preach platitudes.

The best art has a way of doing that.
~ Wing J. Flanagan

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