GABRIEL F. GIRALT
AN D R E I TAR KOVS KY’S ADAPTATI O N O F M OTI F S
E M B E D D E D I N LEO NAR D O DA VI N C I’S
TH E AD O R ATI O N O F TH E MAG I
Résumé: En incorporant le tableau “L’Adoration du Magi” de Léonard de Vinci à la
structure narrative de son film Le Sacrifice, Andrei Tarkovsky fait plus que simplement établir des liens iconographiques entre son œuvre est celle du peintre. Il
exprime plutôt sa propre interprétation du tableau en inversant la vision historique
et spirituelle du monde au moment de la naissance du Christ pour présenter une
image prophétique sombre de l’avenir de l’occident.
he concept of pictorial adaptation in film has been defined rather loosely, and
some film scholars have even denied the possibility that a painting, a pictorial narrative, could be adapted to film at all.1 However, film adaptation has always
been related to literature because of its natural correlation with the narrative and
the narrative’s unfolding in time. It is precisely this aspect of time, the experience
of the narrative’s temporal duration, that makes painting and film distinct from
each other.
In spite of such a fundamental difference between painting and film, film is
able to assimilate the pictorial event into the cinematic temporal action. This is
possible because painting and film share an affinity for articulating a visual narrative and reproducing the three dimensional world on a two dimensional plane.
A good example of this kind of adaptation is found in Luis Buñuel’s Viridiana
(Spain, 1961) as he makes use of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper (1495).
Buñuel’s adaptation is a conscious effort to recreate Leonardo’s pictorial composition. In this particular instance, the result is a shocking tableau vivant as
Buñuel substitutes a drunken orgy of beggars for the sacred event of the pictorial narrative. In the case of the film, The Sacrifice (Sweden, 1986, Andrei
Tarkovsky), with its adaptation of the pictorial composition of Leonardo’s The
Adoration of the Magi (1482), there is not a one-to-one correspondence.2 Instead,
Andrei Tarkovsky establishes a close correlation with the Adoration’s theme,
T
CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FILM STUDIES • REVUE CANADIENNE D’ÉTUDES CINÉMATOGRAPHIQUES
VOLUME 14 NO. 2 • FALL • AUTOMNE 2005 • pp 71-83
sub-themes and visual imagery. That is, the transposition of the painting into the
film is interpreted thematically, rather than as a faithful narrational and representational matching.
Although Tarkovsky clearly relates the film to the painting, interestingly
enough he never makes any allusions either in his writings or in interviews to
any specific connection between the film and the painting. We don’t know
whether his interpretation is intended to be explicit or is symptomatic of something else. The fact is the film stands as witness to such a correlation, which is
invariably revealed the moment we try to answer the obvious questions: What
is the painting’s role within the narrative of the film? How does the film relate to
the painting itself?
Whatever the answers may be, the similarities between the film and the
painting are so striking that some authors have commented that although the
visual and thematic relations are not direct translations of one medium into
another, it would not do justice to Tarkovsky’s creative talent if we were to suggest the contrary. Peter Green in his tribute to the film wrote, “The Sacrifice is of
a kindred spirit to the painting, and Leonardo’s work contains not merely a similar central statement to that of the film, but also motifs that could be seen as
specifically Tarkovskian.”3
A few basic reasons suggest why there is such an interface between these
two works: Tarkovsky’s film narrative and Leonardo’s iconographic representation of the narrative of the Adoration of the Magi both fit the description of nontraditional narrative. Both works enigmatically prompt the viewer to question
why the story is told in the way that it is. Both utilize imagery of devastation and
destruction as a backdrop. The film adopts some of the painting’s concrete visual imagery, tightening the relation between the two. For example, the film begins
with Alexander planting a leafless tree as he tells his son a story of two monks
and a barren tree that after being watered faithfully, day after day, miraculously
comes to life. The embedded motif in the painting comes alive when Tarkovsky
juxtaposes the tree at the center of the pictorial composition–a tree covered with
leaves symbolizing an age of plenitude—with the tree in the opening of the film.
There are other allusions to the painting, which will be described more fully later
in this study.
Therefore, based on Tarkovsky’s comments about the film in his book
Sculpting in Time and on the film itself, I intend to show how Tarkovsky intertwines the painting and the film’s action. My intention is not so much to critique
the accuracy of Tarkovsky’s interpretation of the painting as it is to investigate his
adaptive procedure. In other words, Tarkovsky not only re-interprets Leonardo’s
pictorial narrative but, in the process of incorporating the painting into the film,
he highlights the painting as a motif for the film’s dramatization and meaning.
This is done both in the opening credits and throughout the narrative.
Furthermore, the very fact that The Sacrifice borrows from such a notable work
72 GABRIEL F. GIRALT
Leonardo da Vinci,
The Adoration of the
Magi (1482). Courtesy
of The Uffizi Gallery,
Florence, Italy.
of art further endows it with “a certain respectability, if not aesthetic value, as a
dividend in the transaction.”4
THE FILM’S PICTORIAL ADAPTATION
In specific terms, Tarkovsky’s interpretation and integration of Leonardo’s painting into the narrative of the film is accomplished by centering attention on the
dramatic unfolding of the painting’s visual tension between the foreground and
the background, as well as the themes portrayed in those two different planes of
action. Leonardo’s painting conveys a dual action in its foreground in a non-traditional manner. There is the adoration, that is, the acknowledgement by the
bystanders of the world’s salvation in the image of a little child and his mother
who holds the fragile infant in her arms, and there is the offering of a gift by the
Magi to the infant Jesus. The painting’s background clashes discordantly with
the foreground’s serene action. It depicts a world in chaos with ancient buildings
in ruins, horsemen fighting in “forms either fading or incomplete, conveying the
visual markings of a world order that is collapsing.”5
The narrative of The Sacrifice adopts the painting’s foreground action and
its theme of salvation implied by the role of Mary, representing salvation coming
through a woman. In the film this theme is mirrored by the character of Maria,
the housekeeper who becomes the vehicle for Alexander’s own redemption.
Tarkovsky takes the implied salvific role of Mary in the painting as mediatrix of
the Messiah and replaces it with the character of Maria who humbly surrenders
to Alexander’s irrational demand for sexual love as he threatens to commit suicide. Her sacrificial self-surrender will allow him to transcend his sense of
impending doom. According to Tarkovsky, the scene is not so much about
TARKOVSKY’S ADAPTATION OF THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI
73
Maria’s redeeming sacrifice as it is about “a question of spiritual regeneration,
expressed in the image of a woman.”6
This same theme of salvation is further introduced into the film by the figure of the child Jesus, the Messiah who is the embodiment of personal sacrifice,
without which there can be no salvation. This sub-theme of salvific sacrifice/martyrdom is intrinsically connected with the narrative of the Nativity.7 Tarkovsky
presents this as the central theme in the film personified in the role of the main
character Alexander, the immolative victim who willingly offers himself and
everything he holds dear as a final plea to God in an attempt to save his family
and friends from the abominable consequences of a nuclear war. For Tarkovsky
the salvific aspect of self-denial is the sacrifice that sets the narrative and its main
character in motion. “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.... The man who
acts this way brings about fundamental changes in people’s lives and in the
course of history.”8
The film’s theme of sacrifice is subtly introduced in the opening titles as the
camera frames a small portion of the painting. The focus is not on the infant
Jesus who is the central protagonist of the adoration, but on one of the Magi,
kneeling, in the act of offering a gift. The image is accompanied by the Erbarme
Dich from Bach’s Saint Matthew’s Passion. The singer expresses Peter’s deep
affliction and contrition for having denied Jesus: “Have mercy, Lord, on me.
Regard my bitter weeping. Look at me, heart and eyes. Both weep to Thee bitterly. Have mercy, lord!” Bach’s accompanying music, together with the Magi’s
posture of offering oneself together with the gift, forms a cinematic synthesis
that blends aesthetically with the supplicating tone of Bach’s lyrics.
Those lyrics resonate in a later scene where Alexander, in his darkest
moment, kneels down, mirroring the Magi’s posture and reverent attitude, as he
offers himself up in a prayer of supplication and self-sacrifice:
Lord deliver us in this terrible hour. Do not let my children die, my friends,
my wife. I will give you all I possess. I will leave the family I love. I shall
destroy my home, give up my son. I shall be silent. I will never speak with
anyone again. I shall give up everything that binds me to life, if You only let
everything be as it was before, as it was this morning, as it was yesterday,
so that I may be spared of this deadly, suffocating, bestial state of fear.
It is apparent, therefore, that the appearance of the Magi in the film’s opening
credits foreshadows Alexander’s sacrifice of himself, and “that is, [for Tarkovsky]
the step which becomes a sacrifice, in the Christian sense of self-sacrifice.”9
The film’s theme of self-sacrifice emphasizes the dilemma of having to
choose between two polarized lifestyles. In Tarkovsky’s own words, Alexander
74 GABRIEL F. GIRALT
“stands at a crossroad faced with the choice of whether to pursue the existence
of a blind consumer.... Or to seek out a way that will lead to spiritual responsibility.”10 This dilemma is articulated in the second half of Alexander’s monologue
as something closely connected to the malaise of a world that has deliberately
turned away from its proper course, replacing spiritual truths with materialistic
goals. That is, a world which has fallen into the fallacy that the technological
race is for the sake of progress when actually what lies behind it is the desire for
power:
The result, [Alexander exclaims] is a civilization built on force, power, fear,
and dependence. All our “technical progress” has only provided us with
comfort, a sort of standard, and instruments of violence for keeping power.
We are like savages! We use the microscope like a cudgel!... If that is so,
then our entire civilization is built on sin, from beginning to end. We have
acquired a dreadful disharmony, an imbalance if you will, between our
material and our spiritual development. Our culture is defective, I mean our
civilization. Basically defective!
Alexander’s words remind us of another Alexander, Tarkovsky’s compatriot
Alexander Solzhenitsyn.11 Twelve years earlier, Solzhenitsyn gave a sensational
speech known as “The Harvard Address,” denouncing the West for its materialism and spiritual decadence. Solzhenitsyn saw the West as a world that had lost
its spiritual foundation and become an economic and political power without
moral restraints. “The humanistic way of thinking, which had proclaimed itself
our guide, did not admit the existence of intrinsic evil in man, nor did it see any
task higher than the attainment of happiness on earth. It started modern civilization on the dangerous trend of worshipping man and his material needs.”12
For Solzhenitsyn the moral blindness that has permeated Western culture since
the Renaissance has made manifest its own deficiencies. This humanism overlooks humans’ free will to choose good or evil—and history has shown that more
often than not, they have chosen evil.13
Alexander’s monologue echoes Solzhenitsyn’s bleak vision of the West as a
materialistic culture that undermines spiritual values: a rational, secular culture
immersed in a technological race in pursuit of power. Tarkovsky fast-forwards
Solzhenitsyn’s view to a point where history has reached an apocalyptic crisis:
a nuclear holocaust which threatens the decimation of the human race.
Tarkovsky places this chaotic historical crisis, which is the result of humanity’s
self-serving humanism bereft of morality, in the context of the chaos taking place
in the background of Leonardo’s painting. The threatened nuclear holocaust
serves as a background for the action of the film just as Leonardo’s depiction of
a world in chaos serves as the background to the birth of Christ. In other words,
the painting’s representation of the destruction of a world order, is reinterpreted
TARKOVSKY’S ADAPTATION OF THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI
75
in the film as an impending nuclear cataclysm.
This first encounter with the painting at the diegetic level (as a prop) begins
with Otto, the postman, looking at Leonardo’s painting and asking “what on
earth is that?” Alexander explains that it is “‘The Adoration of the Three Kings’
by Leonardo.” To which Otto responds in a frightened tone, ”My God, how sinister it is! I’ve always been terrified of Leonardo!” After Otto leaves, Alexander
continues looking at the painting with great intensity. As he moves closer to the
painting, we hear an off-screen voice from a television set downstairs telling its
listeners to remain calm and be courageous in this difficult time of war: “We are
now being organized nationwide. This is even the duty of all officers of the army.
Every responsible citizen is expected to behave with courage to keep a cool head
and to help the army in its effort to re-establish peace, order and discipline.”
At this moment, the camera shows the painting from Alexander’s point of
view, with Mary at the center holding the infant Jesus and a crowd of bystanders
gazing at the Holy Child. The camera frames the foreground of the painting, canceling out the war in background, which is replaced, as it were, by the impending war being announced on television—no longer a battle of swords and horses, but a nuclear holocaust.
In Leonardo’s painting, the pictorial juxtaposition of the foreground action,
the Magi’s adoration of the infant Christ, against the background action of a raging war represents the transition from one period of history to another, the end
of paganism and the dawn of Christianity.14 For Tarkovsky, Leonardo’s historical theme is reversed: it is the waning not the dawning of Christianity that
Alexander is experiencing. Tarkovsky gives us a personal interpretation of
Western culture five hundred years after the painting of The Adoration. The historical reversal is revealed through Alexander’s monologue and more concretely
when he is shown paging through a book of Christian icons and laments, “All of
this has been lost.”
The emerging era is defined by Alexander as a godless culture whose only
concern is the acquisition of power, the need to dominate by force and the
threat of destruction. The clash of these two eras, the fading Christian era and
the dominant technological era of secular humanism, marked by great advancements in technology—a technocratic culture whose technological benefits have
become highly questionable. In the film’s narrative this is explicitly conveyed in
Alexander’s monologue as he declares, “All our technical progress has only provided instruments of violence for keeping power, power that we have put to use
at the service of evil.” Alexander’s distrust of the emerging era is based on its
insistence on disguising its course of action under the name of progress and
welfare for all humanity. For Alexander this relationship between technology
and power has reached its final hour, as society is now capable of selfdestruction.
76 GABRIEL F. GIRALT
Alexander and “Little Man”
plant the barren tree at the
beginning of The Sacrifice.
Still courtesy of Arne
Carlsson.
TWO SIDES OF A COIN
The ideological and spiritual consequences of these two eras, the Technological
and Christian, are symbolically present in the image of the tree. Immediately
after the opening credits, the camera moves upward to reveal a prominent tree
in Leonardo’s paining. It is covered with foliage, in contrast to the leafless tree
planted by Alexander. Leonardo’s tree has been interpreted in two ways. It may
be a carob tree, which may be associated with John the Baptist, the figure below
the tree in the painting,15 or it may be associated with Judas who, in traditional
belief hanged himself from a carob tree.16 Neither interpretation seems to suit the
film’s theme of salvation, however. Instead, Tarkovsky offers a new meaning by
contrasting the barrenness of the film’s tree with the vitality of the painting’s
tree. In Sculpting in Time, he says the barren tree represents the state of faith in
a strict spiritual/theological sense.17 The nature of this faith is expressed in
Alexander’s story of the monk who believed that if he were to pour water on a
parched tree, day after day, without ever doubting that “in the miraculous power
of his own faith in God” he would live to see the tree come back to life.18
Tarkovsky’s juxtaposition of the two trees creates an arboreal iconography
that by inference becomes emblematic of two distinct historical periods. The
fully leafed tree signals the importance of the Incarnation and symbolizes an age
of plenitude, completion and fulfillment; whereas the barren tree symbolizes a
technological era characterized by materialism and the lack of spiritual maturity.19 Salvation for humankind can only be achieved through faith, the same faith
that is required to bring new life to a barren tree.
TARKOVSKY’S ADAPTATION OF THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI
77
NARRATIVE INTROSPECTION
Tarkovsky’s introspection about history is reflected in the tension between the
two periods represented by the juxtaposition of the two trees. That juxtaposition
elevates the narrative of the film to a metaphorical level. By contrasting the
world of the film with the world of the painting, Tarkovsky brings the fatal transformation brought about by technocratic culture into the narrative of the film. At
a symbolic level, the narrative is not concerned with tangible reality nor with
concrete, objective exposition of the action as is the case in a typical Hollywood
film. Rather, it evokes an abstract reality that escapes what we perceive at a sensory level. As Tarkovsky explains,
The Sacrifice is, among other things, a repudiation of commercial cinema....
What I wanted was to pose questions and demonstrate problems that go to
the very heart of our lives and thus to bring the audience back to the dormant, parched sources of our existence. Pictures, visual images, are far better able to achieve that end than any words, particularly now, when the
word has lost all mystery and magic and speech has become mere chatter.20
Tarkovsky acknowledges that a narrative representation either represents
realistically the outer-world or departs from a realistic representation by searching for an inner-world. For him, the narrative of The Sacrifice relates more closely to an introspective level of drama. In other words, the film’s narrative focuses on the psychic rather than the somatic or realistic aspects of life. To take the
theme of war as an example: at the story level, the film addresses reality through
depicting a war, albeit an imaginary war in the future; at the psychological level,
the conflict is not between nations at war: the war is taking place within
Alexander’s mind.
THE NARRATIVE’S APOCALYPTIC IMAGERY
Tarkovsky touches upon the painting’s background theme of war and destruction
as he structures the narrative of the film around a future nuclear war. His presentation of the apocalyptic event challenges the conception of reality set forth
by the classical Hollywood narrative, where reality is processed and simplified,
that is, presented as a clear construction of events that flow in a consistent and
logical pattern. The Sacrifice shows reality not as a logical construct, but as
something complex and, at times, ambiguous. It presents the apocalyptic war as
real at both the objective and subjective levels: a blurring of the distinction
between reality and illusion that the film never resolves. The film’s narrative
blends Alexander’s internal and external worlds into one continuous reality
without a stylistic cue separating the two, thereby creating an ambiguity that
governs the entire structure of the narrative. This is illustrated by Alexander’s
dreams in black and white and the juxtaposition of Leonardo’s painting with the
78 GABRIEL F. GIRALT
Alexander sits on his couch after power is restored, and the lights come on.
Still courtesy of Lars-Olof Löthwall.
film’s narrative of war. Perhaps this ambiguity is felt most powerfully when, suddenly, the war seems to have vanished. The lights come on; the telephone works
again. Nothing indicates that there has ever been a war. There is not a single
mention of the war by any of the characters. Since everything seems to be normal, the audience is left to wonder if the images of war are a product of
Alexander’s imagination. Tarkovsky tells us that an understanding of the narrative’s meaning is designed “for the audience to reach independently.”21
So what are we to make of the apocalyptic images of war in The Sacrifice?
I would like to suggest that Tarkovsky’s use of the nuclear war engages two distinct but related levels of meaning. At one level, he recreates the present decadent condition of Western postmodern culture and links it to the end of the
Christian era. That is, he reverses the painting’s theme in which the promise of
a future world of Christian culture triumphs over its pagan past. At another subjective and transcendent level, he uses the war imagery as metaphor for his own
inner anxieties.
The film’s relation to the painting’s war-like background warns the viewer
of the impending self-destruction of Western civilization uprooted from its
Christian spiritual, social, political, and moral past by a godless ideology based
solely on technological progress. In this respect, the film’s narrative is distinctly
futuristic. It poses the question: Where is this new historical era taking us?
Tarkovsky’s view of the future is not the result of studying data from current and
past history. Rather, his approach to history comes out of a conviction that the
present situation is in need of a spiritual turning point that will spare the world
TARKOVSKY’S ADAPTATION OF THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 79
from self-destruction. This self-destructive element of the current post-Christian
culture is encapsulated in Alexander’s ambivalent personality as he wanders
between the realms of dream, reality, and illusion.
Finally, the unresolved conflict expressed in this ambiguity between reality
and illusion brings us to the other level of the representation. The image of war
here is used as a metaphor to convey not only Alexander’s mental state but, perhaps, Tarkovsky’s sense that the end of his life was drawing near. Maya
Turovskaya suggests that Tarkovsky’s apocalyptic vision could have been influenced by his knowledge that he was afflicted with a fatal illness. “By the time
he filmed The Sacrifice,” she writes, “Tarkovsky knew what he had, even having
to interrupt the filming for spells in the hospital.”22 Johnson and Petrie, however, argue the contrary. They refute Turovskaya’s argument with the fact that
Tarkovsky’s diary indicates that, “he was diagnosed with cancer in December
1985 after the film’s completion, but before the final cut had been completely
edited.” Nonetheless, they seem to accept the possibility that Tarkovsky may
have struggled with a premonition of his own impending death: “He [Tarkovsky]
was a highly intuitive man, and his general ill health that year may have contributed an even more poignant personal tone to his final film, and it may well
be legitimate to see it as a final testament, despite what his original intention
may have been.”23 Andrei Tarkovsky died in Paris on the fifth day of the Octave
of Christmas, December 29, 1986.
A PROPHETIC VISION
In speaking of The Sacrifice, Tarkovsky tells us of the true poet/artist’s unbearable gift of being able to foresee the future. He believed in the artist’s mysterious
powers to reach unknown truths and make contact with a higher reality through
his or her own work: “I don’t know what this means. I only know that it is very
frightening, and I have no doubt that the poetry of the film is going to become
a specific reality, that the truth it touches will materialize, will make itself
known, and—whether I like it or not—will affect my life.”24
Tarkovsky’s adaptation of The Adoration of the Magi offers evidence of both
positive and negative interaction with the painting. His reversal of Leonardo’s
pictorial theme is made manifest in Alexander’s monologue, in which he laments
humanity’s changed relation with nature. Today, nature is regarded as something
to be used, as raw material to be exploited. Here Alexander’s monologue echoes
Romano Guardini’s judgement that, “Man today distrusts Nature. He cannot
speak of ‘Mother Nature.’ Nature has become alien and dangerous to man. The
religious sentiments expressed calmly and clearly by Goethe [in his Tiefurtur
Journal] as he stood before nature are not the sentiments of man of today.”25
For Tarkovsky, this technocratic view of the world is manifested in the
eagerness of technological culture to satisfy its creative urges by controlling
nature without any regard for moral restraint. The traditional moral principles of
80 GABRIEL F. GIRALT
the Western civilization rooted in “Natural Law” no longer apply in today’s technocratic world order:
Our human world is constructed, modeled, according to material laws, for
man has given his society the forms of dead matter and taken its laws upon
himself. Therefore he does not believe in Spirit and repudiates God. He
feeds on bread alone. How can he see Spirit, Miracle, God, if from his
standpoint they have no place in the structure, if they are redundant.26
The attitude noted by Tarkovsky not only places humanity completely in charge
of nature, it denies us control of our own destiny. Humankind itself becomes
exploited by the present technocracy.27 In the final analysis, Tarkovsky’s film is
a postscript to the death of God proclaimed by Nietzsche and fulfilled by today’s
technocracy. His statement becomes prophetic when we consider that in 2002
the representatives of the European Community were unable to agree upon and
approve a final draft of a constitution that would minimally acknowledge the
“historical fact that Europe is Christian and that it has grown on the foundation
of the Christian faith.”28
THE END
Tarkovsky warned that “the significant events [The Sacrifice] contains can be
interpreted in more than one way.”29 For instance, at the beginning of the film,
the juxtaposition of the tree in the painting and the actual tree in the film symbolizes two ideologically opposed moments in history. However, at the end of the
film the actual tree’s significance changes as it serves to illustrate Alexander’s
story to his son about the barren tree that blossomed through an act of faith.
Although the tree at the end is not directly contrasted with the pictorial tree, the
two trees are related through Tarkovsky’s use of similar camera movements. As
at the beginning of the film, when the camera moves up to the foliage on the tree
in Leonardo’s painting, it now moves up the trunk of the tree until it reaches the
top where it remains for a good thirty seconds, allowing us to examine the
branches for any signs of life. This final long shot is accompanied by Bach’s
Erbarme Dich, which we heard in the opening of the film. Tarkovsky’s repetition
of Bach’s lyrics works like an antiphon, providing additional meaning to the narrative. This time the contrite tone of the lyrics seems to suggest confidence similar to that expressed in Psalm 51 by the declaration, “My sacrifice, a humble and
contrite heart you will not spurn.”
This masterful final shot begins with Alexander’s son, Little Man, lying at the
foot of the tree as he speaks for the first time, “In the beginning was the word.
Why is that, Papa?” The scene with the tree, Little Man and Alexander has
received varying interpretations. Mark Le Fanu describes it as plain and very realistic, and suggests that in Little Man’s “recovery of speech the film offers its final
TARKOVSKY’S ADAPTATION OF THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 81
message of humanism and hope.”30 Maya Turovscaya finds a spiritual connotation: “Through the stumps we see the sky and the flat sea, depth and distance
and height. ‘The effort of resurrection.’”31 For Johnson and Petrie, the shot has a
magical effect: “The dead tree which Little Man is watering at the end does
‘come to life’ in a shimmering vision of light through Alexander’s sacrifice and
his son’s belief.”32 All of these interpretations stress a sense of resolution and
closure. Yet, this open-ended closing also seems to suggest that the next generation may find a way to escape the emptiness and futility of the present culture.
Isn’t this the sense we get from Little Man lying on the ground under the barren
tree waiting for it to come to life after having watered it?
IN CONCLUSION
The film certainly exploits the painting’s Gospel message that salvation comes
through sacrificial offering, that is, suffering and innocent child-like faith.
However, Alexander’s own sacrificial action seems to contradict the biblical
meaning of Christian sacrifice embedded in Leonardo’s Adoration of the Magi.
The key to understanding Alexander’s sacrifice lies in his prayer and ensuing
destruction of his house and everything in it, which seem like attempts to escape
his overwhelming anxiety and fear of doom by trying to bargain with God. Christ
did not bring suffering and death upon himself; he surrendered voluntarily to
God’s will. Alexander’s sacrifice, on the other hand, is self-imposed and selfserving, in the sense that he hopes to appease God and avert the war.
At a different level, however, the painting’s and the film’s messages reinforce each other. The painting’s foreground and background set up a tension
between the orders of nature and culture, respectively, and the film’s premise is
that the order of culture (i.e., technology) has come to dominate and at times
replace the natural order. As a consequence, humankind faces imminent destruction. Nevertheless, the film’s conclusion leaves open the possibility of restoring
the natural order by joining—with child-like faith—Alexander’s son in watering
the barren tree.
NOTES
1.
Alicja Helman and Osadnik M. Waclaw, "Film and Literature: Models of Film Adaptation
and a Proposal for a (Poly) System Approach," Canadian Review of Comparative
Literature 23.3 (1996): 649.
2.
Here the term “one-to-one correspondence” is used in a broad sense. It refers to a close
similarity between the film image and its pictorial source.
3.
Peter Green, “Apocalypse & Sacrifice,” Sight and Sound 56.2 (1987): 113. See also, Mark
Le Fanu, The Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky (London: British Film Institute, 1987), 133-135.
4.
Dudley Andrew, Concepts in Film Theory. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 98.
5.
Giancarlo Maiorino, Leonardo da Vinci: The Daedalian Mythmaker. (University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), 6.
6.
Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), 220.
7.
Adolf Adam, The Liturgical Year. (New York: Pueblo Publishing Company,1981), 141-142.
82 GABRIEL F. GIRALT
Liturgically speaking, the three feasts following the birth of Christ are directly connected
with the theme of sacrifice/martyrdom. They represent the three possible forms of martyrdom: voluntary and executed (Stephen), voluntary but not executed (John), and
executed but not voluntary (Holy Innocents). Thus, sacrifice/martyrdom are implicit in
the pictorial representation of the birth of Jesus.
8.
Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time, 217.
9.
Ibid., 218.
10.
Ibid., 218.
11.
Andrei Tarkovsky, Time Within Time, The Diaries 1970-1986 (London: Faber & Faber,
2002). Tarkovsky’s knowledge of, and admiration for, Solzhenitsyn’s work are evident in
his diary entries for September 1 and 7, 1970; May 30 and June 16, 1984.
12.
Ronald Berman, ed. Solzhenitsyn at Harvard (Washington, DC.: Ethics and Public Policy
Center, 1980),16-17.
13.
Romano Guardini, The End of the Modern World (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1956), 97.
14.
Maiorino, 61.
15.
Carlo Pedretti, Leonardo: A Study in Chronology and Style. (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1973), 33.
16.
Ibid., 33.
17.
Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time, 224.
18.
Ibid., 229.
19.
Ibid., 218.
20.
Ibid., 228.
21.
Ibid, 224.
22.
Maya Turovscaya, Tarkovsky: Cinema as Poetry (London: Faber and Faber, 1989), 154.
23.
Vida T. Johnson and Graham Petrie, The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 183.
24.
Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time, 220.
25.
Guardini, 71.
26.
Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time, 228.
27.
Guardini, 74-75.
28.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, interview, March 2002, News Agency, The World Seen from
Rome, http://www.zenith.org
29.
Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time, 219.
30.
Le Fanu, 135.
31.
Turovscaya, 149.
32.
Johnson and Petrie, 213. See also, 183-184 and 201.
GABRIEL F. GIRALT is a Professor in the School of Communication, The University of Akron, where he teaches new media production, television production,
and cinema studies.
TARKOVSKY’S ADAPTATION OF THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 83