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Sergei Parajanov had no free time. For him, art was at the same time a drive and
an instinct, as opposed to a need, a wish, a possibility or a job. Everything that
surrounded him in his waking life and that he interacted with in any way he
furnished with artistic meaning. That artistic meaning wasn't something he
invented, or patched with usual events. He would find it there and just point at it,
making a performance. Like in dreams.
Absolutely everything can be seen and perceived through art. Beauty is here;
one only has to notice it and give it due attention, at least equal to the attention
one dedicates to the practical relationship with the world around him: "Suitcases
turn into elephants, and then the elephants turn into suitcases" - painted Sergei
Parajanov with words. World would have been (would be) much more beautiful if
we hadn't been (weren't) repeaters, but inspired in our everyday duties, routines,
responsibilities, repetitions. Let alone the cases that directly invoke inspiration. If
world is a work of art (and if it is not) we can all be artists, but also background
actors and observers. And listeners. And thinkers...
What are the today's proportions of the notion "absolute artist"? The one who
decorates, beautifies everything that's "in front of his nose", makes art out of
scraps of paper, plastic, porcelain, his own desk, photography, philosophy,
human relations, relations with big and little artists (children!), relations with
ancestors, celebration of someone else's birthday, funeral, receiving guests,
being a guest, camera, fabric, reproduction, lace, story, pills, springs, pocket
calendars, press clippings in colour or black and white, customs, clothes, fruits,
facts, scissors, politics, inventions, bathing, conversations, anger, sorrow...
Andrei Tarkovsky analyzes his friend, apprentice and teacher: "He makes
collages, dolls, hats, drawings, something that could even be called design.
However, there is at the same time something much more powerful, an endless
talent and nobility. That is real art. What is the secret of that beauty? In
spontaneity. When he has an idea, he doesn't waste time on planning, organizing
and estimating the best way to do something. There is no difference between an
idea and its implementation, there is no elapsed time in whose cracks something
might disappear. The emotion that spawned creativity is turned into something
completed without having lost a single drop. It reaches us in its original purity,
spontaneity and naïveté.
His films were sometimes built out of images in a child's head, that inadvertently
occur while reading or listening to fairy tales. To a spectator he sometimes offers
fantastic, surreal images, awakening transformation, inspiration and
bewitchedness, like in the presence of a miracle, an outstanding moment.
Information, logic, history, fact and plot are used in the film only in their
transcended form. Parajanov is focused more on the awakening of the
artistic/poetic experience in the spectator and on kindling that experience, on
becoming an artist, than on creating a great work of art that is subject to analysis
and can be clarified by the use of different logics for revealing ambiguities. The
assertion that he is "too hermetic" doesn't stand, except in the case of flawed
analysis. His film language is not taught in film schools (there is no one to teach
it), but any possible exception should be honoured. He once compared his
filmmaking strivings to ballet: "Only in ballet can one see pure beauty", adding
that the best films would be those made for deaf and mute, because that is the
only way of keeping the absolute clarity of experience, without unnecessary
stories and rationalization. The best films will leave us speechless!