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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Documentary on how Sven Nykvist lit/shot Tarkovky's The Sacrifice

Brandon J.F.

Brandon J.F.

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This documentary is amazing and freely available here:

http://filmarkivet.se/sv/Film/?movieid=820

Unfortunately it's only in Swedish and there are no plans to translate it (as per the FilmArkivet Facebook page).

Are there enough Swedish speaking people here to crowdsource the translation by breaking it into 5 to 10 minute chunks? The film is only 44 minutes long.

I'm halfway through the film now. It's really inspiring to watch two masters at work and I don't understand a word of Swedish.
 
Just watched great link thanks.

There really isn't too much of interest on the soundtrack neither technical or artistically, Nykvist and Tarkovsky are communication through a translator after all.

But I'll try to recap the highlights:

An unnamed gaffer says that for the studio shot they used 10 lights outside each window both for day and night shots. He also says that Nykvist works much more with top light then he is used to. Nykvist also used the dimmers, which other cinematographers seems more afraid of.

Reporter Q:
“Many seems surprised that you are measuring so little on set, especially on interiors. Working a lot with your eyes.”

Nykvist A:
“It's very good, that thing, to do it on feeling. Because if you become too technical that you are only measuring the contrast between the highlights and the shadows. Then it's easy to get stuck in a penal colony where you are so technical that everything looks the same all the way through. And that will lead to every film looking the same.

And one of the most important things for a cinematographer is to be able the change your style from film to film even though it's very hard.”

Also around 11min in Nykvist says:
“I have to work very hard to hide how incredible nontechnical I really am(laughs.) Every time I'm thinking this time I will learn this but then eh what the fuck, it's seems to work anyway. Instead you set up a different target and surround your self with people, who knows their jobs, than it’s not really that hard.”
 
Thanks for translating the highlights Alex!

Scott Crawley said:
That would be a crowd source campaign worth kicking in to!
Click to expand...

Absolutely! There's another documentary on the production design too, that I'd love to see. I haven't been able to find it anywhere though.

Here's a direct download link from that page: https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/filmarkivet-eu/FASE10-01017_.mp4

If we had a transcript in Swedish it would be quite easy to get a quick and dirty translation with Google translate. I can handle translating the Russian parts to English. Then we make an SRT file and we're set... With a polished translation we could give it to the Swedish Film Institute.
 
Alexandre de Mortemart said:
Brandon thanks for sharing. It is really outstanding how this collaboration between Tarkovsky and Nykvist worked out beautifully without them speaking the same language (actually 4 languages were spoken on the set-russian/swedish/italian/english).
You might appreciate this documentary in 2 parts...in french!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nb093T9m3M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h836uDa-4ys
Click to expand...

I completely agree! I have seen One day in the life of Andrei Arsenevich a few years ago. I'm going to have to watch it again soon. Thanks for the link!
 
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