Tarkovsky and the stars
This afternoon I was looking for a specific quote by the acclaimed Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky – that master of nostalgia and the long take – about consumerism. It was an adage of mine, sometime in my poor twenties, and spoke of turning away from a life of amassing material objects and returning to God. In my search for the quote I found this instead:
And I remembered exactly this moment in my life on Christmas Eve several years ago, so simply put by the auteur. My moment was like this.
Traditionally, in Eastern European Orthodox culture, one is to refrain from eating on the day before the Feast of the Nativity –up until the first star is spotted. This is easy in the Northern Hemisphere where darkness falls early in winter. In southern Australia, the first star might not be seen until after 9pm in summer. It was 11pm when I traipsed down my street with a pouch of rolling tobacco from the petrol station, having just washed the floors and set the festal table for the next day. I remember we had a candle-lit meal after the all-night vigil earlier in the day. We ate smoked trout and pierogi and borscht after church. My little family and I washed our faces and hands with cold water as is proscribed. We looked at each other's faces in the flickering candles. We prayed briefly before putting the kids to bed.
That night, on my unassuming street in the northern suburbs of Melbourne I turned my face up to the stars, remembering the star over Bethlehem and I reasoned that some of the same stars were hanging in the sky when Christ was born in poverty in what is traditionally held to be a cave. I felt, viscerally, that this night, these very stars were connected eternally to the night of Christ's Nativity. Meanwhile on this continent, then peopled exclusively by Aboriginals, the Woi wurrung on the hilltop where I live, the stars shimmered on a summer night. The scent of hot eucalypts breathed a sigh as the coolness of night set in.
“Late this evening I looked at the sky and saw the stars. I felt as if it was the first time I had ever looked at them.
I was stunned.
The stars made an extraordinary impression on me”
― Journal 1970-1986
And I remembered exactly this moment in my life on Christmas Eve several years ago, so simply put by the auteur. My moment was like this.
Traditionally, in Eastern European Orthodox culture, one is to refrain from eating on the day before the Feast of the Nativity –up until the first star is spotted. This is easy in the Northern Hemisphere where darkness falls early in winter. In southern Australia, the first star might not be seen until after 9pm in summer. It was 11pm when I traipsed down my street with a pouch of rolling tobacco from the petrol station, having just washed the floors and set the festal table for the next day. I remember we had a candle-lit meal after the all-night vigil earlier in the day. We ate smoked trout and pierogi and borscht after church. My little family and I washed our faces and hands with cold water as is proscribed. We looked at each other's faces in the flickering candles. We prayed briefly before putting the kids to bed.
That night, on my unassuming street in the northern suburbs of Melbourne I turned my face up to the stars, remembering the star over Bethlehem and I reasoned that some of the same stars were hanging in the sky when Christ was born in poverty in what is traditionally held to be a cave. I felt, viscerally, that this night, these very stars were connected eternally to the night of Christ's Nativity. Meanwhile on this continent, then peopled exclusively by Aboriginals, the Woi wurrung on the hilltop where I live, the stars shimmered on a summer night. The scent of hot eucalypts breathed a sigh as the coolness of night set in.
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| A Tarkovsky polaroid |
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