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Mirror (Dir. Tarkovsky, 1975)
Thankfully for us (especially me), David Miall of the University of Alberta has provided an excellent synopsis of Mirror that includes a scene-by-scene table of the film. I strongly encourage you to visit the site and print off the table. You will find it helpful when watching the film to have it in front of you. Please read the synopsis below the table to familiarize yourself with the basic plot lines. Here, below, you will find a list of characters as well as this week's study questions.
Be forewarned that this is a complex, challenging film. Hang in there, as it is also a magnificent work of genius.
Cast of Characters
| Alexei | The film's protagonist. We encounter him at age 5 (1930s), 12 (1940s), and as an adult (1960s) |
| Maria (also called Marusya, Masha) | Alexei's mother. We see her as a young woman in the 1930s and 1940s, and also as an elderly woman (played by the director's mother) |
| Natalia | Alexei's estranged wife (played by the same actress as plays his mother in the 1930s and 1940s) |
| Ignat | Alexei's son (played by the same actor who plays Alexei at age 12) |
| Father | Alexei's father: appears in only two scene, when he visits during the war and when Maria is still just pregnant with Alexei |
| Man at Printing Shop | Maria's boss |
| Liza | Maria's coworker with whom she argues (in the 1930s); same friend who dies in the 1960s |
| Asafyev | boy at rifle training; classmate of Alexei |
| Military Instructor | |
| Nadezhda | neighbor to whom Maria sells earrings(played by the director's wife, who also played the mother in M.N.I.Ivan) |
| Narrator of poetry | director's father, a famous poet in his own right; author of the poems |
Study questions
· In a 1975 interview Tarkovsky spoke of The Mirror's meaning, in part as a response to a very bewildered (although usually appreciative) public. He said, "The purpose of The Mirror, its inspiration, is that of a homily: look, learn, use the life shown here as an example." What is the lesson we are to learn from this example
· What kinds of mirrors do you find in both the film's content and form? In other words, how do mirrors make their way into the plot structure and into the mise-en-scene? What do they mean (in light of the quote from Tarkovsky below)?
· How does Tarkovsky use color (or the absence of color)?
· As the movie was widely known to be autobiographical and makes extensive use of newsreel footage, what distinguishes this film from documentary?
· When asked if there is symbolism in The Mirror, Tarkovsky said,
No! The images themselves are like symbols, but unlike accepted symbols they cannot be deciphered. The image is like a clot of life, and even the author may not be able to work out what it means, let alone the audience. Pushkin's "My sadness is radian" [a poem written by a great early 19th century Russian writer] is not a symbol but as an image. Tolstoy's dying Ivan Ilych [a character in Tolstoy's short story "The Death of Ivan Ilych"] feels as if he is confined inside a narrow intestine pipe, and cannot get out. What he feels is what the sick man says. As long ago as the Middle Ages Japanese writers were decrying the interpretation of symbols in art. And quite rightly! The fewer symbols the better! Symbolism is a sign of decadence [meaning artistic self-indulgence].
What the heck do you think that means??
· How do you understand the pre-credit sequence that ends with the stutterer saying "I can speak!"?
· How do you interpret the references to fire?
· What is the relationship between past and present? Why does the director eschew a straightforward, conventional chronological structure?
· What is the relationship among dreams/memory/reality?
· What is Russia's relationship to the West? In what ways does the West come in to the story (think about use of music, art, dialogue)?return to class schedule