While the internet is no doubt useful to maintain our required daily cute animal fix, it’s also home to many recordings of older and foreign television programs that otherwise would never have seen the light of day. Case in point, the Criterion-approved Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky was profiled for an hour-long special on the iconic BBC series, Arena, a treat that would have never made it on the airwaves outside of Britain, then or now.
Broadcast a few months after Tarkovsky’s death, the special spans the director’s entire career, from his Soviet Union beginnings, including the powerful “Ivan’s Childhood” and his landmark adaptation of “Solaris,” as well as his final two non-Russian films, the documentary “Voyage in Time” and “The Sacrifice.” It’s a great in-depth look at the director that Ingmar Bergman called “the greatest of them all.”
Watch the special below via The Seventh Art. If you’re looking for a place to start with Tarkovsky, his first three films were issued through Criterion and are available on Hulu Plus through courtesy of the boutique label.
