Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky (1932--1986) was, arguably, the greatest filmmaker of his nation. While perhaps not the innovator that fellow Russian Sergei Eisenstein was, Tarkovsky nevertheless imbued each of his films with a poetry that embraced life and sought to reveal the myriad ways in which humanity manifests itself.

Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was born on April 4, 1932, in the Russian town of Zavrazhye, located on the Volga River, about 500 kilometers northeast of Moscow in the Kostroma Region. Members of the Tarkovsky family were members of the Russian intelligentsia. His father, Arseny, was a poet and a translator while Tarkovsky's mother, Maria Ivanovna, was primarily an editor at the First State Publishing House in Moscow and also an actress. Tarkovsky also had a younger sister, Marina, who became a philologist. Tarkovsky was four years old when his parents separated; they ultimately divorced. His father remarried twice, but his mother...