Importance of context

Importance of Context

“For me context is the key – from that comes the understanding of everything”

(K. Noland)

Word context, taking its roots back from Latin contextus, is defined as the set of circumstances or facts that surround a particular event or situation. Context is an essential part of our everyday lives, it plays a key role in creating the right meaning in every form of communication between the source and its recipient. These include everything ranging from a simple newspaper article to most unusual examples of high art. Film is also an art, even though, a very young one, but the complexity of cinema makes it directly related to knowledge of different types of context. In this essay I will engage with these types of context, film theory context and socio-historical context in particular, to try to prove how vital it is to understand the importance of context in the art of cinema. To achieve this, I chose to built the arguments upon the work of one of the most unusual and difficult filmmakers of the past generation, Andrei Tarkovsky.

Inscription on his gravestone reads: “To the man who saw the angel”. Andrei Tarkovsky was considered a classic, who brought so much to the culture of cinema, that his visions and way of thinking became part of human mind. Ingmar Bergman, in one of his interviews, said: “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 personally, this is absolutely true. His films are much above any other film of his time, they are rich with content, detail and hidden meaning – much like Beethoven’s music or Da Vinci’s paintings, but from our century. He raised the art of cinema to a level which was only achieved in art like music or literature.

Perhaps the most noticeable films Tarkovsky has ever worked on are Solaris (1972) and Stalker (1979). Although two films were seen as an improvement of one another, due to similarity of the problem, they both are incredibly different in terms of context. While Stalker is linked with unique film theory, as well as socio-historical events in Soviet Union, Solaris engages with almost every single film theory existent in that particular decade. Contextualising these two films will help the viewer to see them from different perspective and to understand beyond narrative meaning.

Generally speaking, most common type of context used in Tarkovsky’s films is autobiographical.  In every his picture he managed to include small part of his personal life, part of his childhood. However Solaris seems to have inherited the least amount of Tarkovsky’s autobiography, probably because it was outshone by one astounding historical event whole world was talking about – first man in space. Man who did it (Yuri Gagarin) was Russian, what soon had become a huge pride for then strong and growing Soviet Union, it also highly influenced the thematic element of Solaris, however, it didn’t become the main focus of the motion picture. Tarkovsky’s vision was unique, he never tried to show all the scientific facts behind the journey to space, he focused on human spirit, which was present in different forms, elements, memories of Earth throughout the spaceship. He also didn’t try to portray the people of future, it was enough for him, that they are still very same humans. Deep space journey was just a symbol for the same journey to the very soul of a man for him.

Despite his arguments with the author of the book film was based on, Stanislaw Lem, Tarkovsky changed the original script by adding a small melancholic sequence of main character spending some time on Earth, wandering around his father’s “dacha”, himself, and the camera, in the very beginning of the film. This is where knowledge of film theory context steps in. Only semiotics and psychoanalytical theories can explain those tiny little details director showed in this episode, which, if stood on it’s own, wouldn’t make much sense. Those who did not realise the importance of theories involved were saying that nothing was happening in this Earth scene, but no, it is life, in its brightest colors and purest form, that happened there. With this small and innocent episode Tarkovsky managed to show some sort of physical completeness of Earths being: sound of rain, morning voice of birds, living flame, his father’s house, full of memories and family photographs. Everything that is left unnoticed when it is present, and becomes painfully important when it is gone. He managed to show how beautiful and comfortable Earth really is, compared to huge cold cosmos. Long takes and mis-en-scenes are also pushing the picture in the direction of realism theory, while surrealistic problem of contact with a giant developing mind, which happens to be the Ocean, creates a juxtaposed contextualisation. Memories, dreams, symbols, signs, oppositions and metaphors – they all form semiotics and psychoanalytical theories, and they are all dominant in Tarkovsky’s pictures. His heroes were artists or seekers, as well as fatherless children, abandoned houses, which, in Russian folklore, are opposed to the forest (where devils reign), were often shown as central images, combination of elements (water, fire, wind and nature) were always present, treatment of light, face reflections, nature sounds, juxtaposed images and of course art – are all Tarkovskian “signatures”.

All these theories are also present in Stalker, however this film is more famous of having a wider range of socio-biographical and socio-historical influences. By the end of the decade picture was made in, age of advanced Soviet socialism saw its end, and so called stagnation period of Soviet Union had begun. Remains of Stalinism were also present, followed by Siberian imprisonment for artists who showed their artistic freedom too much. Freedom of speech was also absent. To make it clearer, society was afraid and had problems with belief and hope; these have also become problems of Stalker. But for Tarkovsky, the relationship of the individual to history is central. Not just in Stalker, but in most of his pictures, Tarkovsky tends to address our feelings, rather than provoke need to verify the logic and credibility of the events behind the screen. “Highly visceral responses in the viewer, instead of triggering ideas meant to support a particular attitude toward society and history” is what moved Tarkovsky in creating Stalker. Three protagonists: writer, professor and stalker – all are subject to pervasive individual sense of Soviet history. One of them seeks inspiration, another looks for a discovery, and the last one is in search of hope. All three are lead into some mysterious room, located in the heart of so called “Zone”. The Zone is heavily guarded, and perhaps was named after a nuclear leak which happened in that decade of Soviet Union’s history.

Tarkovsky in his book “Sculpting In Time” wrote: ”People have often asked me what The Zone is, and what it symbolises… The Zone doesn’t symbolize anything, any more than anything else does in my films: the zone is a zone, it’s life”. This mysterious place is used to represent hope and belief for those who seek for it. Without belief, the this room does not exist, and the phenomenon they are looking for is also nothing but an empty space. Because of this Tarkovsky wisely avoids any physical contact with this phenomenon. None of the three protagonists have actually seen the mysterious room, so they come back from their journey with nothing. This allows all kinds of different meanings and understandings to be assigned for The Zone individually in the complexity of the director’s vision. Perhaps it wasn’t so important for Tarkovsky to show how writer could find an inspiration or professor would find a discovery, most probably he wanted to show the audience how to stand for something you believe in with all your heart. Even when every single shot of his picture represented bitterness of soviet authority and lack of both creative and artistic freedom, Tarkovsky tried to revive the hope, hope and expectations people had of Soviet government, which let them down.

Although to achieve this the director used elements of not so common oneiric film theory. In its context, all dreams and dreamlike impacts in Stalker become engaging for the viewer. Encouraged to look for the hidden meaning, beneath the narrative, audience understands the events in its own reflection. This oneirism is created by using lengthy tracking shots and chromatic rendition, opposed to Eisenstein’s montage, what is described in Tarkovsky’s book: “the film image comes into being during shooting and exists within the frame, while editing brings together shots which are already filled with time”. In addition, decelerated and dedramatized still shots also contribute to such dreamlike mood. That is noticeable in a scene, where all three protagonists sit in one of the Zone’s chambers, disappointed by realizing that the place they were searching for is not “the room where everybody’s most heartfelt desire will be granted”. By using dreams Tarkovsky attempts to “reach into our innermost feelings, to remind us, stirring our souls like a revelation that is impossible to interpret in any particular way”. Dreamlike shots create their own narrative – stalker’s changing desire to escape from something dictatorial, brutal into something else, where there is place for freedom.

Andrei Tarkovsky wasn’t the man of science or logic, he always tried to make contact through his films with the audiences innermost feelings, emotions and soul. Perhaps this isn’t exactly the way understanding of certain context works, because it is more related to logic and structure, but try to imagine how different would both of these pictures look like if there was no historical background behind them, or no film theory support to their complex nature. Solaris and Stalker, both are exceptional and unique films which have secured themselves a strong place in film history and will be discussed for ages. It would have been impossible for them to achieve this, without acknowledging the importance of context. Why else would Solaris be based in space? What could have been the reason for Stalker’s repulsive landscapes? How else would dreams be interpreted without oneiric theory? Or why would there be so many  sign and symbols if there was no semiotic or psychoanalytical theory? From acknowledging this comes the understanding of how important context really is. Especially nowadays, where every form of art and even media is based around the events happening around the world, understanding different types of context has become vital, not just for magnificent directors like Tarkovsky, but for every single human being.