Eisenstein, Tarkovsky, and the Prophet: Two Ways to Create, and One Encounter

There is a 17th-century Japanese haiku that two giants of cinema, Sergei Eisenstein and Andrei Tarkovsky, loved to quote in the directing classes they taught:

An ancient pond

 A frog jumps in 

The sound of water is heard 

(Matsuo Bashō)

One poem, but two completely opposite interpretations, revealing two different worldviews on the essence of creation.

Thesis: Creation as Intervention (Eisenstein)

For Eisenstein, the father of montage, the poem is a perfect example of the dialectical montage. The first line ("An ancient pond") is the thesis, shot A. The second line ("A frog jumps in") is the antithesis, shot B. The connection between them creates a new meaning, a new emotion, which is the synthesis – "The sound of water is heard." A+B=C.

This is a perception that sees creation as an active intervention in reality. The creator is the one who generates meaning by the collision of images; he "directs" the viewer's consciousness and controls his experience.

Antithesis: Creation as Observation (Tarkovsky)

Tarkovsky, in contrast to his great teacher, saw in this poem an example of poetic creation stemming from pure observation of reality. There is no dialectic here, but listening. There is no desire to control the viewer, but a desire to reveal to him a moment of hidden truth, a moment of life.

This is a position of observation from the side, of giving respect to reality itself, and from this, poetry is born.

Creator or Created? The Big Question

The gap between these two approaches is more than technical; it is ideological. It touches on a deep question about man's place in the world: Is the artist's role to create reality, or to be created from it? Is he an actor or an observer? Influencer or receiver?

And what does Hebrew prophecy have to say about this?

The Synthesis: The Listening and Creating Prophet

The prophetic school, as is its way, does not choose a side, but reconciles and unites the opposites and offers a third way. The prophet is both the listener and the creator.

On the one hand, the central quality required of the prophet is listening. He must quiet himself to hear the voice of his soul, the abundance of existence, the word of God. Hebrew logic, as the Rav HaNazir writes, is "auditory" (שמעי) – it does not look and build a theory, but listens. As Rabbi Sharki explains, the root N.B.A (נ.ב.א - prophesy) is close to the root B.A (ב.א - come) – that is, the prophet is one who listens to everything that comes to him from reality.

On the other hand, the prophet is also from the expression "Niv Sfatayim" (ניב שפתיים - utterance of the lips). He speaks, he intervenes, he influences and creates. Rav Kook writes extensively about the creative intellect, the creative will, and the creative imagination. Man in the ideal is an active partner in the act of creation.

Prophecy does not see reality dichotomously, but offers an encounter. Because prophecy, in its essence, is an encounter.

Therefore, Pre-Prophetic Cinema can offer the world an experience of encounter. Tension between distance and closeness, expectation and listening, between rising and falling currents, will meets will, unification, ascent, to infinity.

As Rabbi Judah Halevi wrote in the 12th century, out of that eternal tension of encounter:

"O Lord, where shall I find You? / Your place is high and hidden! 

And where shall I not find You? / Your glory fills the world! ..

.I have sought Your nearness, / With all my heart I called You,

 And going out to meet You – / I found You coming toward me."