But how can I put a name to what it is that I want? How am I to know that I really don't want what I want, or that I really don't want what I don't w… - Andrei Tarkovsky

There was a time when I thought that film, unlike other art forms (being the most democratic of them all) had a total effect, identical of every audience. That it was first and foremost a series of recorded images; that the images are photographic and unequivocal. That being so, because it appears unambiguous, it is going to be perceived in one and the same way by everyone who sees it. (Up to a certain point, obviously)
But I was wrong. One has to work out a principle which allows for film to affect people individually. The 'total' image must become something private. (comparable with the images of literature, painting, poetry, music.)
The basic principle- as it were, the mainspring- is, I think, that as little as possible has actually to be shown, and form that little the audience has to build up an idea of the rest, of the whole. In my view that has to be the basis for constructing the cinematographic image. And if one looks at it from the point of view of symbols, then the symbol in cinema is a symbol of nature, of reality. Off course, it isn't a question of details, but of what is hidden.

το αν θα τα καταφέρουμε ή όχι εξαρτάται από τον δικό μας αυτοσεβασμό και από την ικανότητά μας να ξεχωρίζουμε ανάμεσα σε αυτό που έχει σημασία και στο απλώς εφήμερο.

All that I wanted was to tempt into life things that wanted to come out of me.