Andrei Rublev - Tarkovsky revisited

This spectacular historical drama, Tarkovsky's second feature, is loosely based on the life of the 15th-century Russian icon painter Andrei Rublev. Rather than filming a biography, Tarkovsky and his co-writer Andrei Konchalovskiy reflect on the significance of the artist and the survival of art in a society marked by terror. In his attempts to create a pure art form, Rublev refuses to compromise, taking a vow of silence. Later he meets a jester whose language evades the power of the rulers, for which the fool is eventually punished.

With Andrei Rublev Tarkovsky's view on the convergence of character and the world in which it exists reached its peak. Soviet censors were not blind to the implications of Tarkovsky's alternating black and white and colour production; the CinemaScope film, completed in 1966, was not released for screening in the Soviet Union until 1971.