On May 5, Cafesjian Center for the Arts hosted the presentation of the two-volume book “Marking Time” by RA People’s Artist, Saint Mesrop Mashtots Order, film director, screenwriter and actor Artavazd Peleshyan and the screening of “Poet of Cinema: Artavazd Peleshyan” telling about the maestro. The “Marking Time” two-volume book is a summary of the best articles about Peleshyan and the authors of articles with vast geography, multi-language and multi-profession.
The book was published in Russian. Peleshyan personally was involved in the preparation works of the book by arriving from Moscow to Yerevan. The film is a joint work of the Ministry of Culture, the National Cinema Center of Armenia and Hayk Ordyan, which premiered on December 9, 2009. The film was shown on the Public TV of Armenia, and in May 2010, it attended the film markets of the “East Silver” festivals in Cannes and Prague. The documentary film shares impressions about the filmmaker by the American filmmaker of experimental documentary films, Godfrey Reggio, German famous film critic Hans-Joachim Schlegel, Russian film-world authorities Mikhail Shvydkoy, Sergey Miroshnichenko, Peleshyan’s friends: painter Hakob Hakobyan, composer Tigran Mansuryan and just those who were familiar with his works.
The event was attended by RA Distinguished Artist David Muradyan who noted that the word and Peleshyan’s film are not so compatible with each other, “Peleshyan has expelled the words from his films because he does not trust because the word is given to a man to conceal his thoughts. He expels the word and frees the film as the word can be temporary while the image is eternal. Peleshyan’s film is more than the time. Our art has always looked at Ararat, which is very important for identity. It is even more important when the Armenian artist is able to look at the world from the peak of Ararat. This means that your feet are on the pillar of your national state. This was achieved by Charents, Abovyan, Aram Khachatryan, Yervand Kochar, Konstant Zaryan and this was achieved by Artavazd Peleshyan. Peleshyan is a film symphonist. These films are film symphonies.”
Composer Tigran Mansuryan spoke about the book, emphasizing that we have few of such valuable books, “Today, a glorious book was born, a monumental book by its nature and unmeasurable by its content. A value that has become a commonality and entered into a relation with the reality of international culture and a beauty born from the Armenian land is unmeasurable, where the world biggest filmmakers and artists are saying their word. When such a word is said to Peleshyan’s film, one way or another, each of us take a great pride considering that it is a word said perhaps first and foremost to Peleshyan and his art but also us, the Armenians, each of us individually. We are again filled with pride. The book is really an extraordinary value today, but not only because the number of this book is very few in recent decades but generally, the word and the content of such works are not much among us.”
At the end of the event, maestro Artavazd Peleshyan also spoke, “I think the movie was ahead of all the arts but technically it appeared after all the arts. The cinema has a special attitude to the time. The whole world uses one idea that cinema is a stamped and recorded time, I think that time is not recorded and stamped. We record something on the tape during the time. While time is never recorded on the tape. The film is a memory for the time. There is a good word to say, “I am going to take a picture. I took a picture, what I took – a picture, where from – from the hands of the time. There is no other option. The film is against time.”
The film producer remembered an article about himself in one of the French newspapers, adding that although the article was positive but the heading was chosen wrong “Peleshyan is against the time and word”, “Peleshyan is a very small person to be against this monstrous time and powerful time. Peleshyna is not against time but time is against Peleshyan. I am not against the word, there are wonderful films with words, for example, recently I saw a film about Tonino Guero by Leonid Gevordyants which is made based on the words, where the image continues the speech, the speech continues the image. I am using few words because of the time, saving time for the audience. Time is a very powerful thing but anyway, the film is also powerful in its capabilities. Everyone is afraid of time but the powerful time, in turn, fears of the powerful film.”
Arpi KIRAKOSYAN
