Comparative Study between Heidegger?s Thought and Tarkovsky?s Cinema

The relation between art, especially cinema, with philosophy, on one hand, and a philosopher with an artist’s thinker are the main subject of this paper. Martin Heidegger and Andrey Tarkovsky (1932-1986) are one of these philosophers and filmmakers. Accordingly, “philosophical film” separated from “film as philosophy”. Andrey Tarkovsky, Russian filmmaker, brings up in his works some issues such as time, death and care which are very important in the context of existential philosophy. Then, his works and thought included “film as philosophy”. In Heidegger’s thought, dosein is “being in the world”. He distinguishes between fallen and original dosein and emphasizes on dosein’s possibilities which the end of them is death. In order to indicate the relationship between what Tarkovsky, as a cinematic theorist, expresses in his films with the cinematic expression, and Heidegger’s philosophy, cinematic theories such as realism, formalism and phenomenological theories are very important. We discuss about them and basic properties of Tarkovsky’s films and fundamental issues of Heidegger’s philosophy. Finally, this paper intends to find and pursue some issues like “death”, “time” and “care”, in Heidegger’s thought and Tarkovsky’s films: “The Mirror”, “Stalker”, “Nostalghia” and “Sacrifice”.