About this episode

The episode features a discussion on Andrei Tarkovsky's film Ivan's Childhood with guest Taylor R. Genovese, exploring its historical context and artistic themes.

"I want to underline my own belief that art must carry man's craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it; that art must give man hope and faith. And the more hopeless the world in the artist's version, the more clearly perhaps must we see the ideal that stands in opposition to it—otherwise life would become impossible! Art symbolises the meaning of our existence." ― Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time (1986) The Cold War Cinema team is joined by guest Taylor R. Genovese to discuss Andrei Tarkovsky's debut feature film, Ivan's Childhood (1962), a Soviet masterpiece about the Great Patriotic War and prime example of Thaw–era cinema. Taylor R. Genovese is an assistant professor of philosophy at Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, New York. He has also been a filmmaker and photographer for over a decade. His multimodal and transdisciplinary research focuses on Marxism, historical memory, and borderlands. He is also an editor and board member at Iskra Books, a nonprofit scholarly publisher that releases original works of revolutionary theory, history, ecology, and art. In this episode we discuss: Andrei Tarkovsky's life and career The historical…

People in this episode

Hosts: Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, Paul T. Klein

Guest: Taylor R. Genovese

Topics covered

• Andrei Tarkovsky
• Soviet cinema
• Great Patriotic War
• Thaw-era cinema
• aesthetic vision
• literary and cinematic arts
• trauma and transcendence

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Dutchess Community College, Iskra Books

Books & works: Ivan's Childhood

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