Drawing together preliminary findings from our research into Tarkovsky's film-image, we will present a paper entitled 'Constructing Atmospheres: A Phenomenology of the Film Image and its Relation to Place' for the Architecture and Phenomenology, Second International Conference at Kyoto Seika University, Japan (26-29 June, 2009) . The paper focuses explicitly on the phenomenological relationship between the film-image and worldly place. The following is extracted from the conference paper abstract:
Tarkovsky theorises the film-image in particular relation to time. In this paper we position his argument in relation to discussions in phenomenology and film-theory to suggest that, imbued with a sense of time, the film-image also gives rise to a corporeal understanding of place for both the film-maker and recipient of the film- image – and we liken this embodied act of cognition to one engendered by certain architectural experiences. We then turn to a specific scene from Nostalghia in order to appreciate that the film-image is, in fact, a ‘constructed atmosphere’: one that bears a naturalistic and poetic – material and symbolic – relation to place; one that therefore cultivates and embodied and imagined occupation of place.