Even God Was

Overcome by
Laziness: An
interview with
Aleksandr
Sokurov
by Marko Bauer, Dasa Cerar and Luka Umek
Marko Bauer is a publicist, a failed copywriter and an even more
failed writer, a horoscope author that does not believe in astrology
and a renowned translator of jokes and inventor of headlines. He
lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
This interview took place at the end of 2006 at the International Film festival MannheimHeidelberg where Aleksandr Sokurov was honoured with the Master of Cinema Award. We
were granted a little more than 45 minutes. The equivalent of the duration of
Mozarts Requiem. Over time, we believe the interview has not lost any of its significance,
on the contrary. The necessity of the uncompleted; yet everything that needs to happen,
happens in between. There is a tree of knowledge and there is a tree of life and sometimes it
is the same tree. Terrence Malick was not mentioned during the interview. The interview
was originally published in the Slovenian film magazine Ekran (2006/7); English
translation by Ura Kozic
*****
Time will not allow us to include as much silence into this conversation
as one can find in your films and for this reason, we apologize in
advance.

Lets begin.

Aleksandr Sokurov. Photo by Luka Umek.

You rejected the nomination of the Russian Film Academy
for Solntse (The Sun, 2004) saying: I find it unnatural when my fellow
citizens know my name but not my films. It seems you are rejecting
yourself as an icon a gesture of iconoclasm?
Ive never thought of myself in that way. Its not quite so, I didnt compare myself to
anything. I am a citizen of Russia, I pay taxes, the country invests money in my films and
therefore I answer to my fellow citizens for my work. This is the most formal side of it; the
civil one. I have a very difficult and complicated relationship with the directors of all the
television channels in Russia, because I publicly criticize them all the time for preferring
commercial American films and thus slowing down the development of the national
cinema. They dont present national films on TV or in cinemas. As a citizen, I protest as
much as I can, and I refuse to participate at such festivals.
Your films can be compared to the images of Our Lady they stay
hidden throughout the year and appear only on a holy day. Besides
more or less legal DVD copies, the only opportunity to see them are
festivals, events of a rather profane character, a retrospective The
cult function of your art inevitably prevails over its exhibition function.
This is the situation, thats how it is. The films are in fact accessible, six or eight of them
appeared on DVD, one can buy them in Petersburg or Moscow, one can order them. You

know, this doesnt worry me, how should I put it A film doesnt need a viewer, a viewer
needs a film. He who seeks, finds. Hopefully, he is not disappointed, because I make films
which are not perfect, which are full of mistakes. Hopefully, he is not disappointed. Coming
across a viewer that has crossed some distance to find a film has more importance to me.
Who has not found himself in a cinema by chance? Its similar with a book you have to
find a way to it. You have to make an effort to read it. Films shouldnt be intrusive,
aggressive, they have to be humble and remain at their place on the vertical of the global
culture. Somewhere low. At the bottom. Literature, painting, music, architecture, science
and so on are at the top. Film is just a radical instrument. Surgery. Its easy to make the
mistake of giving it too much importance, since people underestimate the power of the
visual. The visual can ruin mans entire inner world. Its far more dangerous than any
nuclear weapon, ecological catastrophes, diseases Because the wounds inflicted by it
cannot be healed. We have to be more careful.
When we think about your filmography, we mostly refer to the screen
or rather the plane. Not to the things that are happening on it, but to
the plane itself, lets call it Sokurovs plane. The plane of numinous
presence. As in the case of an icon, Malevich or your kindred spirit
Petrov-Vodkin.
You are an ideal viewer. This is also understandable considering your Slavic soul. We are
related, we share the same blood, so to speak. You feel this like You feel it with a soul.
Its like the continuation of the end of Robert Bressons Journal dun
cur de champagne (Diary of a Country Priest, 1951), when the screen
breaks free from the image.
I love Bresson. I have a small collection of his films at home and I watch them very closely
again and again. Its like reading poetry. I dont particularly like films and I also dont
understand them very well. For me, watching a film presents a strain of a special kind.
However, when watching Bresson, I feel completely free and am scared of nothing. Im not
scared of anything. No wonder the French dont understand or appreciate him at all.
Theres nothing strange about it, he is too great even for a country like France.
Roundness and flatness of the plane recall the formula of God: sphere, the
centre of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. Like a Chinese
drawing, into which we dive when it surrounds us from all sides. Like da Vincis
circle in which Tarkovsky is crucified. How does this tendency advance from the
technological point of view?

An extremely difficult question, its hard to decide where to start; with the technology which
is very important or with the philosophy. Its dangerous to discuss philosophical themes in
films, since the directors often deceive the viewers. They create false philosophical space,
so-called philosophical ideas, which in reality dont mean a thing. And then we dont know
what we want, what we need. For me, film is neither a circumference nor a sphere, but
flatness. Literature has taught me this. For now, film is just flat and still far away from the
dimension of a sphere, from the cosmic universality of a sphere. Film is still primitive.
When Borges catches sight of Aleph, he sees horses with flowing
manes on a shore of the Caspian Sea, he sees cancer, the most
metaphysical disease, he sees a ring of baked mud, where before
there had been a tree. From the visions-juxtapositions of an
early Skorbnoye beschuvstviye (Mournful Unconcern, 1987), past the
diarieselegies to Russkiy kovcheg (Russian Ark, 2002), Aleph is always
there.
You ask difficult questions. Very complex ones. In order to answer this question, one should
write a dissertation. Its already being written? Then I will have to read it, but twice, I wont
return it immediately.
The cave man painted animals in order to make contact with the
spirits, not the living. In Dni zatmeniya, (Days of Eclipse 1988) a boy
that is found by a doctor on his doorstep reminds us of a girl
from Nostalghia (Nostalgia, 1983). Both being angels, simply because
they dont have wings. From the moment the boy appears, the radio
speaks only Italian. A session with Tarkovsky who passed away just
before the film was made?
Of course there isnt any direct relation, more an indirect one. In Days of Eclipse we hear
a recording of a mass, which was recorded by Zefira in Switzerland. I found it musical,
completely angelic; how people speak without repetition. I have fallen under the spell of joy
of the Catholic mass. Sometimes when I listen to the mass in the Orthodox Church, it seems
to me that people are doing this because of an obligation. This foreign freedom bursting
from the Catholic prayer didnt seem inhumane, unusual. This is exactly what I demand of
my protagonist: be braver, be freer, be afraid of nothing, theres nothing worse than death.
Be kind, be patient. Make your own decisions. Dont let anybody force you into making
decisions. The protagonist of Days of Eclipse is a Russian who lives in a foreign
environment, among Asians and Muslims. Of course, he is going through hard times, he is
lonely, and Russians, Russian men make decisions too late. I dont know how it is with you,

but we decide too late. I became afraid for my protagonist: wont he be too late, wont he
miss it, isnt he too slow? Thats why a prayer can be heard, without spiritual connotations.
The elementary necessity of the subject. Its hard to combine film and philosophy.
Philosophy is a hyper-abstraction, a cosmic abstraction, film is still just hyperreal. It is
different from literature in the fact that the director must tell everything to the end,
whether he wants to or not. Even if he is misleading, hiding something, even then. Even
when were watching such mysterious films as that of Tarkovsky. He also has to show
everything; how the girl is leaving, how the mother is watching, the disappointed gaze of the
girl, sunk in reverie, Stalkers gazes and so on. He shows us everything in a very precise
manner, you just have to be smart enough to see it all. This is not the case with literature. A
writer can stop at the right time and doesnt tell everything to the end. The problem facing
directors is that they tell everything. Even the most mysterious ones.
Show everything, yet keep an enigma.
I try. I keep hold of myself all the time, I compare what I do with the procedures in
literature or painting, in the nature of the work of a writer, painter or a musician who
doesnt play something to the end. You have to know when to stop. Which is not always
achieved, its very difficult, very. This is Gods task, only God and even he made a mistake,
he didnt stop on time. Even he was overcome by laziness and created a woman just from a
rib. Do you understand?
Even God is a stranger. You often say you would rather be directing
radio dramas than films. A stranger like Kafka who wrote in German.
You, the outsider, achieve the most inside results.
Yes, I am a stranger in film. I know it and feel it and that is why I dont envy anyone or
worry about it. There are many things I dont know, so I dont have to envy or compare.
Heresy: if there is no God, everything can be divine; if there is no
place of birth, home is everywhere. Your village Podorvikha has
submerged during the construction of a hydroelectric power plant, you
are a son of Atlantis.
No. I am a son of Atlantis, but not in that sense, more in the sense that I am a Russian, I live
in a culture which is not formed, which remains uncompleted, which is out of joint,
intertwined with socio-political processes, transitions of power, with the stupidity of the
people, their mistakes and crimes. With the forsakenness of the people. I believe that the
Church also abandoned the people in order to be closer to power. Its what I believe, I could
be wrong. Its very hard to be a Russian. Getting harder every year. Many turn to Russia,

but its people are ill. They are counting on the support of the people who arent cured
themselves. Its very hard to be a Russian, an enormous culture on the one hand and a
culture which coexists very badly with the people on the other. The people are not
interested in culture, it is torn away from them. It has always been like this. A very difficult
situation.
Isnt it precisely for this reason necessary to bet on the overlooked
Russian-American alliance, the kinship between Russian religious
thought and American transcendentalism? Thoureaus Walden is
supposed to be Tarkovskys favourite book.
Oh, oh, I dont know. Such a mess has come out of this, you have mixed up everything. Such
mixtures and influences do not exist in culture and art, its artificial. Your view on art is
dictated by your education. Of course you are right to see it that way.
The visions of the landscape, ceaseless monologues, the company of
brothers
Have you seen Povinnost (Confession, 1998) and Dukhovnye golosa (Spiritual
Voices, 1995)? Where have you seen them, how did you obtain them? On DVDs? Then I do
understand what you are asking me. How a man feels in the army, thats a completely
different, independent point. Its something a woman will never be able to understand; why
a company of soldiers is so important to husbands and brothers. A great and a serious
theme that nobody in global culture has dealt with. What is happening to a man? The entire
culture is based on feminism, on women. This is probably understandable and necessary.
The entire art revolves around women.
Otets i syn (Father and Son, 2003) are wondering how to stay together as
brothers without life separating them. Domenico, from Nostalgia, locks
his family in a house.
I wanted to make a couple of films about situations in which there is too much love. Not too
little of it, too much.

The possibilities of brotherhood; dont you see the connection

between Moby Dickand the sea as your films see it? The connection
between the house in the woods inWalden and the one in which Mat i
syn (Mother and Son, 1997) are embracing each other?
Thank God so many analogies can be found in culture and that they are so noble. After all, it
is true that everything has been said in the Bible stories, everything is there. There can no
longer be new motives, novelties. Nothing new can happen in art, art is completed.
However, there can be a new human in art. Art is an already built house in which a new
human can enter. But the house itself is already built. That is why it is unreasonable to
imagine one could create new art. Something new. Impossible. Maybe somewhere else: in
design, psychiatry, pharmacology, science. Achieving this in art is, in my opinion,
impossible. Thank God it is complete.
Adi and Eva from Molokh (1999) are also biblical figures. Agreeing with
Kleist: the only way to return grace and mercy is to eat again from the
tree of knowledge.
How else? Of course. If Hitler had come to us as an infection from the moon, it would have
been simple, we would have treated the infection. But he is a human, thats the problem.
Nazism developed inside of a humans head. In a head such as ours. Which means it can
spring up inside every head. More or less. Thats the horror.
Hitler as a haiku poet. Does the Shoah have its own poetry?
I cant comment. I dont know. This is very complicated.
Does one have overcome oneself in order to be in a landscape
completely, to become the sky, the sea, the mist, does Mozart become
a notation, beyond life and death?
And after that, what? You have formulated an idea which I cant object to. A precise
formulation.
Okay, how come a tree is the most perfect form? A trunk with a halo?
You said that. I dont object. In the form of a tree there is some kind of volume, because a
tree is an animal and a plant, a strength, but also a weakness. A tree is dying standing,
dying beautifully, even a dead tree is of vital importance and can live forever. Its very
beautiful in its essence. It has been beautifully conceived. If God had done that, he did a

really good job. He created a woman just from a rib, yet he designed a tree in such detail.
Tell me, why is that? How come just from a rib, was he in a hurry or something? But a tree
is so well thought out. In general, he was much more creative with plants. It was more
interesting creating them than a human. The plant life is extremely diverse and immensely
beautiful. Evidently it took him more than just seven days to create it, it took him much
more.
Epilogue
Adam & Eve (the man-director & the woman-translator):
Can you tell me why God created a woman just from a rib?
I dont know, I havent thought about it.
I have asked a lot of people about this, but nobody could answer me.
I dont know. I dont want to think about this.
Too bad. You refuse to, others refuse it too. Who will answer my question?
I cant.
Nobody can.
Who said that this is even true?
Now you have answered. So the Bible is a lie?
I dont know.
Neither do I.