From: wildman@athena.mit.edu (Timothy Worsley)
Subject: Re: The Sacrifice
Reply-To: eprice@sybase.com
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 18:10:40 GMT

In article <1992Oct12.082136.11444@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg>
gckchin@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg (Kelvyn Chin) writes:

>Hi, there. I have been wondering for a long time (about two months)
>but I still cannot see the sacrifice in Andrei Tarkovsky's "The
>Sacrifice". Anybody out there care to enlighten me?

I recommend getting Tarkovsky's book _Sculpting in Time_.  Here are
the first three paragraphs of the ninth chapter ("The Sacrifice"):

``The idea for THE SACRIFICE came to me long before I thought of
NOSTALGIA.  The first notes and sketches, the first frenzied lines,
date back to the time when I still lived in the Soviet Union.  The
focal point was to be the story of how the hero, Alexander, was to be
cured of a fatal disease as a result of a night spent with a witch.
Ever since those early days and all through the time I was working on
the screenplay, I was constantly preoccupied with the idea of
equilibrium, of sacrifice, of the sacrificial act, the yang and yin of
personality; it became part of my very being, and all I have
experienced since living in the West has served only to make that
preoccupation more intense.  I have to say that my basic convictions
have not changed since I arrived here; they have developed, deepened,
become firmer; there have been changes of interval, of proportion.
So, too, as the plan of my film gradually evolved, it kept changing
shape, but I hope that its central idea remained intact.
  What moved me was the theme of the harmony which is born only of
sacrifice, the twofold dependence of love.  It's not a question of
mutual love: what nobody seems to understand is that love can only be
one-sided, that no other love exists, that in any other form it is not
love.  If it involves less than total giving, it is not love.  It is
impotent, for the moment, it is nothing.
  I am interested above all in the character who is capable of
sacrificing himself and his way of life--regardless of whether that
sacrifice is made in the name of spiritual values, or for the sake of
someone else, or of his own salvation, or of all these things
together.  Such behavior precludes, by its very nature, all of those
selfish interests that make up a "normal" rationale for action; it
refutes the laws of a materialistic worldview.  It is often absurd and
unpractical.  And yet--or indeed for that very reason--the man who
acts in this way brings about fundamental changes in people's lives
and in the course of history.  The space he lives in becomes a rare,
distinctive point of contrast to the empirical concepts of our
existence, an area where reality--I would say--is all the more
strongly present.''

That should make it crystal-clear, right?  :-)

>What's the significance of burning the house at the end of the movie?

Well, this doesn't answer the question, but: ``The metaphor of the
film is consistent with the action and needs no elucidation.  I knew
that the film would be open to a number of interpretations, but I
deliberately avoided pointing to specific conclusions because I
considered that those were for the audience to reach independently.
Indeed, it was my intention to invite different responses.  I
naturally have my own views on the film, and I think that the person
who sees it wil be able to interpret the events it portrays and make
up his own mind both about the vaious threads that run through it and
about its contradictions.''  [SiT p. 224]

(Personally I think the ending proves that Alexander is a replicant.)

BTW, Tarkovksy also mentions in the book that they had to film that
shot of the house burning *twice*!  Apparently the cameras broke down
the first time and they had to rebuild the house and do it again!

Ciao,

-Ed (not Tim), eprice@sybase.com (not wildman@...)