Materialism and the Messiah:

Materialism and the Messiah: Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice

Bart Tolleson

Has man any hope of survival in the face of all the patent signs of impending apocalyptic silence? Perhaps an answer to that question is to be found in the legend of the parched tree, deprived of the water of life, on which I based this film which has such a crucial place in my artistic biography: The Monk, step by step and bucket by bucket, carried water up the hill to water the dry tree, believing implicitly that his act was necessary and never for an instant wavering in his belief in the miraculous power of his own faith in God. He lived to see the miracle: one morning the tree burst into life, its branches covered with young leaves. And that "miracle" is surely no more than the truth.

Sacrifice. It is relatively easy for us to comprehend physical sacrifice, but can it be taken further? One man delivered a strong answer to this question in his cinematic art: Andrei Tarkovsky, a Russian expatriate filmmaker who died in December 1986. Tarkovsky left his last film, The Sacrifice, as a symbolic call to spiritual awakening.

Many have criticized the film and filmmaker for obscurity, pretension, and creating general boredom in the cinematic arts. Michael Heaton criticized it for addressing "the larger philosophical question in a rather obfuscatory fashion" (1). Michael Healy called the film "an unbearable bore" apart from the cinematography (2). Patrick Taggart claimed, "Tarkovsky's messages are so obscure and pessimistic it is really impos-sible to know what is on his mind" (14). And Ed Blank summed up the ideas of many, "Hanging in there isn't quite the sacrifice Tarkovsky had in mind" (6).

No one disputes, however, the film's ability to touch deep symbolic levels inciting complex thought. Some critics believe that the film does this in a way that is absolutely necessary. However, as Joan Crowder noted, one must be ready for the poetry that makes this film "mysterious" and "not readily accessible" (14).

The cinematic language of a Tarkovsky film is one that allows for various interpretations. "The Sacrifice represents a separate art form, a provocative aesthetic ... for which viewers will contrive endless personal interpretations . . ." (Sabulis 12). This is the way that Tarkovsky wanted his films to be understood:

The film's storyline is a parable about horror, and although hard-pressed to fit into the horror genre, some specific elements, taken at the spiritual level, fit very well into horrific cinematic philosophies. Noel Carroll in The Philosophy of Horror indicates that horror requires a feared, loathsome monster (35). What brings the impending sense of apocalyptic doom in The Sacrifice is the outbreak of world-wide nuclear holocaust. The war itself is not the monster, rather a tool of the real monster: man. Humanity's power to start the war and the willingness to renounce and destroy the life that sustains them makes them both threatening and repulsive. Tarkovsky presents horror on two levels. The first is macrocosmic--the governments of the world are to blame as Alexander (Earland Josephson) and his family wait to die from nuclear radiation. The other is microcosmic--Tarkovsky does not let the individual off the hook. Impending death causes different reactions in Alexander's family, but all wish that they could live their lives over again to correct their many mistakes. They see their lives as a process of slow suicide because none of them were living the way they wanted to. But life is suddenly worth living now because they want to change the way they have lived it. So they are trapped in a hopeless cycle.

If man was created in the image of the Creator, whence came this monster? Tarkovsky's answers are fairly clear in his story. Alexander, on his knees, confesses to the Creator his sins and offers them up to God in exchange for salvation. His confession reveals the core of evil: material-ism. Material possessions and ideas that were the subject under the true object, God, have now become the false object with man as its enslaved subject. Alexander must rid himself of all possessions to be saved. Because of his willingness to give up his materialistic possessions, Alexander is the only one able to see God, and perhaps provide salvation.

There is a division in our world between good and evil, between spirituality and pragmatism. 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 feed on bread alone. How can he see Spirit, Miracle, God, if from his standpoint they have no place or structure, if they are redundant? (228)

Many other film critics concur with Tarkovsky's symbolic attack on materialism. Carrie Rickey claimed that the film is about man's material and spiritual development being shown up by impending disaster (1). Harlan Kennedy, in an essay about Tarkovsky, blasted those who could not understand the film's strong spiritual symbols.

Tarkovsky's movies are about what they are. They are not impregnable schemes of symbolism. No good art has anything to do with uncrackable codes or impenetrable labyrinths, but the paranoid filmgoer, whose brain has turned to baby food under the influence of so much classical narrative cinema, is convinced that any movie devoid of a linear plotline and takeaway emo-tions is out to get him. (46)

Kennedy claims that our very materialism keeps us from understand-ing Tarkovsky's truth, ". . . only our mulish conviction that the world is an unshakable structure of frozen, antithetical verities holds us back from glimpsing a reality outside ourselves" (46).

Tarkovsky believed that materialism had caused the failure of society, at the pinnacle of which lies the church. "Certainly in today's world which leans so heavily towards the material and the technological, the Church shows no sign of being able to readdress the balance with a call to a spiritual awakening" (237). Tarkovsky's thoughts are strangely echoed in a small Christian movement which has come to be nicknamed "Healing Prayer." One of its leaders, Leanne Payne (a renowned C.S. Lewis scholar), states in a recent public letter:

Most, even within the Church, have (as the Marxists) become materialists. In the years to come, we will be seeing and hearing more and more ... sure and wise fingers point(ing) at the Unseen Real, believing that it is, perhaps we too will come out of our materialistic boxes--our prisonhouses. (2)

If the monster of The Sacrifice is materialistic humanity, what can save man from himself? Alexander turns to God in prayer, a prayer that for many viewers was heard and answered. However, some believe that when the war is mysteriously averted by not ever having existed, then perhaps the war itself was just a dream. But Tarkovsky and the film itself, supported by other critics, state in plain symbolic fashion that the war is reality, and that man's only hope is to seek salvation in his spirit. The film ultimately brings a messianic message of salvation through Christ. Some critics will disagree, but we must view the film as parable and therefore as symbol. The film's producer, Anna-Lena Wibom, said that it was "clear as daylight and quite obvious in its message to contemporary people everywhere" (41). "Obviously, the imagery in The Sacrifice is deeply Christian," wrote Laurie Horn (4). In this film, Tarkovsky is a cinematic prophet pointing to the spiritual messiah; he is a confessor of our sins; and he is a sub-creator attempting to put us back in touch with the Creator (29). Thus art takes the place of the failed church in putting man back in touch with the spiritual:

In this situation is seems to me that art is called to express the absolute freedom of man's spiritual potential. I think that art was always man's weapon against the material things that threatened to devour his spirit. It is no accident that in the course of nearly two thousand years of Christianity, art developed for a very long time in the context of religious ideas and goals. (237-8)

"I am interested above all in the character who is capable of sacrific-ing himself and his way of life," Tarkovsky wrote (217). "In overall effect this was to be not only a parable about sacrifice but also the story of how one individual is saved" (220). The first and last scene in the film are a "symbol of faith" (224). Tarkovsky does not come out and say blatantly that the film is Christian allegory, possibly for several reasons. The persecution he received in his country before he left forced him to speak in abstract symbols. Also, he strongly believed that all must come to grips with truth for themselves. If a director forces his own truth upon someone, then it is not truth for them; the interpretation must be made by the internal heart rather than the external ear.

Many critics overlook the fact that Tarkovsky was a persecuted but devout Christian (Goodman 8). In The Sacrifice, Alexander says to his son, "In the beginning was the Word, but you are as quiet as a salmon." This play on the Gospel of John leads us to believe that Alexander understood the Father/Son aspect of the Divine. He refers to his son, Little Man, as the Word, in much the same way that John refers to Christ. When the apocalypse comes, Alexander must give up all material possessions, including his most cherished son, in order to save mankind. In one scene, Tarkovsky depicts the confusion of men as they run wildly through the streets of a major city, but as the camera tracks back, Little Man in his manger-like bed descends over this chaos. However; Alexander does not truly lose his son forever, for in the end it is Little Man who carries water to a dead tree (Tarkovsky's symbol of faith) in order to bring it life again. The son who has been unable to speak for the entire film, now utters his first words, "In the beginning was the Word." Tarkovsky has painted a brilliantly reflective piece of art. Can we ever know the anguish of The Heavenly Father in giving up His only Son? None of the other characters in the film will ever understand Alexander's anguish or his joy in his restorative sacrifice. The allegory points directly to Christ's sacrifice as the one hope for salvation of man's spiritual nature.

The film presents yet another example of sacrifice: faith. One must make a personal sacrifice in fleeing personal materialistic values. Just as the central character had a choice to make so:

it seems to me that the individual today stands at a crossroads, faced with the choice of whether to pursue the new technology and the endless multiplication of material goods, or to seek out a way that will lead to spiritual responsibility, a way that ultimately might mean not only his personal salvation but also the saving of society at large; in other words, turn to God. (218)

It is important to recognize the sacrifice Tarkovsky himself made with this film and in his novel. Both were completed during the last six months of his life; in a sense, both works were delivered from his deathbed. Instead of showing bitterness about his cinematic persecution in the Soviet Union and the heavily negative criticism about his art, Andrei Tarkovsky points the way toward joy in his final artistic revelations. He wants art to reflect and thus ultimately bring faith to the partaker. His film "made the case that the creative act of the artist is an act of religious faith" (Horn 4). Only an act of faith (self-sacrifice) in sacrifice, can save our world from the monster we have created (Verniere 13). "The Sacrifice is finally a visually eloquent plea for spiritual values in a world made bankrupt by man's materialism" (Rickey 1). Andrei Tarkovsky's last publicly written words are revealing:

Finally, I would enjoin the reader-confiding in him utterly-to believe that the one thing that mankind has ever created in a spirit of self-surrender is the artistic image. Perhaps the meaning of all human activity lies in artistic consciousness, in the pointless and selfless creative act? Perhaps our capacity to create is evidence that we ourselves were created in the image and likeness of God? (241)

Bibliography

Blank, Ed. "'The Sacrifice' trapped by its monologues." The Pittsburgh Press. 2 Jan. 1987. Newsbank 86-87 FTV 112:C6-8.

Carroll, Noel. The Philosophy of Horror. New York: Routledge, 1990.

Crowder, Joan. "A 'Sacrifice' worth making." Santa Barbara News-Press. 28 Feb. 1987. Newsbank 86-97 FTV 84:EI4

Goodman, Walter. "Tarkovsky dies at 54." The New York Times. 30 Dec. 1986. B8.

Healy, Michael. "Cinematography is the major attraction of humorless sermon." Denver Post. 20 Feb. 1987. Newsbank 87 FTV 99:F2-3.

Heaton, Michael. "In films, life, Tarkovsky spurned compromise." Rev. of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Poet in the Cinema by Donatella Baglivo. San Francisco Examiner. 30 Jan. 1987. Newsbank 87 FTV 89: DI.

Horn, Laurie. "Tarkovsky's 'Sacrifice' charged with images." Miami Herald. 21 Nov. 1986. Newsbank 86-87 FTV 58:D4.

Kennedy, Harlan. "Tarkovsky: A Thought in Nine Parts." Film Comment. 23:3, 46.

Payne, Leanne. Pastoral Care Ministries. Fall 199 1. Milwaukee: Pastoral Care Ministries, Inc., 1991.

Ratshewa, Maria. "The Messianic Power of Pictures: The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky." Cineaste. 13:1 (1983):29.

Rickey, Carrie. "Starkly, a director explores materialism and spirituality.² Philadelphia Inquirer. 4 Feb. 1987. Newsbank 86-87 FTV 99:Fl

Sabulis, Tom. "Director's final 'Sacrifice' truly a gift." Dallas Times Herald. 16 Jan. 1987. Newsbank 86-87 FTV 84:E 1 2-13.

Staff. "'Sacrifice' Rolls in Sweden Next May." Weekly Variety. 317:7 (12 Sept. 1984): 41.

Taggart, Patrick. "Weighty Film." Austin American-Statesman. 3 April 1987. Newsbank 86-87 FTV 84:E14.

Tarkovsky, Andrei. Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema. Trans. Kitty Hunter-Blair. Austin: U. of Texas Press, 1987.

Verniere, James. "A beautiful 'Sacrifice."' The Boston Herald. 7 Nov. 1986. Newsbank 86-87 FTV 48:B 13.

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