Episode 40. Trancing Tarkovsky

In the first episode to circle back to the World Tour series, Alex and Jonathan give a closer look to the work of legendary Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky with the films Ivan's Childhood (1962), Solaris (1972), The Mirror (1975). We discuss how Tarkovsky uses textured images and sound to make his worlds feel true to life, approaching filmmaking with…

Ep 30. WORLD TOUR: Russian Ruminations

As Dostoyevsky once wrote: "All true Russians are philosophers." This week Alex and Jonathan head to Russia and look at three legendary and formative filmmakers with Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925), Lev Kuleshov's Po Zakonu (1926), and Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker (1975). We talk the various forms and uses of montage, the Kuleshov effect, and filmmaking outside the bounds of traditional…