Tarkovsky may perhaps be the pioneer of slow cinema that consisted of long shots observing subjects like a thousand-yard stare. In
Nostalghia (spelled in the Russian transliteration), the final scene consists of a man carrying a candle for 10 minutes. While detractors may be appealed by the hostile nature of slow cinema, their champions like Bela Tarr, Theo Angelopoulos, and contemporary ones like Bi Gan and Apichatpong Weerasethakul embrace long shots for their ability to convey the atmosphere of bleakness. Bela Tarr even made an 8-hour film called
Santantango, which Susan Sontag praised as a film she would watch every year.
Tarkovsky was not appreciated in Soviet Russia, where distribution depended upon the whims of the censors. When censors criticized not his politics (his films were apolitical) but the lengthy content, he would respond that his films were intended for viewing by "Bresson, Bergman, and Dreyer" (in which order I forget). His films would be given minimal circulation and screened briefly at venues, like in worker's pubs for a week. He would even fight the bureaucrats until he had it with the forced cancellation of The First Day, which thereafter he burned all remaining film and set. (The project purportedly commented on the state's official atheism that were at odds with his deep Russian Orthodox Christianity.) After he defected, he collaborated with his favorite Bergman actors and crews until he died of cancer, possibly caused by exposure to harmful substances during the filming of The Stalker.
In Japan, Akira Kurosawa championed Tarkovsky and promoted his works. Today, there is almost always a screening of Tarkovsky in an arthouse cinema every year. While the content of his films eluded me on first viewing, I now observe the silences ripe with meaning. His films transcend time, imparting an experience that lasts briefly and eternally. There is nothing more exciting in film than his characters staring lengthily into the abyss of the human condition.