Tarkovsky, Andrey

Tarkovsky, Andrey (Arsenyevich)

(born April 4, 1932, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.—died Dec. 29, 1986, Paris, France) Soviet film director. The son of a poet, he studied at the Soviet State Film School and won praise for his first feature film, Ivan's Childhood (1962). His religious and aesthetic concerns were reflected in Andrei Rublev (1966), about a medieval icon painter confronted with the brutality of war. His later films, noted for their striking visual images, visionary tone, and paucity of conventional plot, include Solaris (1972), A Mirror (1975), and Stalker (1978). Soviet authorities hindered domestic distribution of his films, and in 1984, after making Nostalgia (1983), he defected to the West, where he made his last film, the acclaimed The Sacrifice (1986).