Tarkovsky never forgave me
 Mr. Vadim Jusov, who has worked as Director of Photography in the most famous films of Andrei Tarkovsky, has come to Belgrade for the screening of “Andrei Rublev”, which will be closing the program Europe out of Europe. He has worked with Tarkovski on the films " Katok i skripka", " Ivanovo detstvo", " Andrej Rubljov", "Solaris". Mr. Jusov believes that working with this great director was a unique experience and that it was hard for him to choose his favourite among the films he has worked on with Tarkovsky. He is aware that he became the director of photography he is owing to this experience. It is interesting that he refused to work on “the Mirror”. Here is how he explains it:
“I refused for several reasons. First of all, I refused because I had been working a lot and for a very long time with Tarkovsky. In such a situation, you can often feel pressure from the director, which is not good for the film. This long work together affects the relationship between two people. Pressure and possessiveness lead to boring routine. The second reason for I refused to do “the Mirror” was the problem that I had to understand the concept of the script. I knew that the script and the film were two completely different things, but I recognize in the scenario things I could not understand and accept. First of all, the script contained some biographic elements from Tarkovsky’s life and I felt that the director could have turned against the film and against me. It seemed to me that Tarkovsky was getting ready on the preparations for the shooting to reject all my ideas and viewpoints, i.e. that he would want to direct his own vision himself. I thought it would have been devastating for me.
Finally, the third reason was that, when the shooting began, the life of Andrei Tarkovsky changed, because he was getting under the increasing influence of his wife Larissa. He turned towards his new family life, eliminating all the influences of his old acquaintances. For that reason, I believed I shouldn’t be working as the director of photography for “the Mirror”. I think that Tarkovsky never forgave me for that till the end of his life.
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