Offscreen Notes
Vadim Yusov: RIP, 1929-2013
One of the great Soviet artists, cinematographer Vadim Yusov died on August 23, 2013 at the age of 84. Yusov had worked with Andrei Tarkovsky on his first four films, including his diploma film Steamroller and the Violin (1959), and his first three features, all masterpieces, Ivan’s Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), and Solaris (1972). Creative differences saw him break his working relationship with Tarkovsky for his next film, Mirror (1975) —he thought the film was too autobiographical. Not many cinematographers can claim to have filmed in sequence three such startlingly beautiful and magically inventive pieces of cinema. I have seen these films in total well over a dozen times and each new viewing reveals new bits of mystery and poetry.
