a quick question

He himself said there isn't symbolism, which doesn't necessarily mean it is true. Like bunuel and others, maby he was just annoyed to explain his work, because after explaining it seems like its only that, and there couldn't be something else or another interpretation.
Anyway, the horse is a constant in tarkowsky films and I would also be curious to know what it stands for.

I tend to agree with you. However, I'd imagine Tarkovsky was of the view (like John Cage for example) that it is denigrating for an image to exist as a 'symbol' for something else. It simply is, but is multi-layered.

I think a white horse often represents death (perhaps through a variety of pagan mythologies, but I'm not entirely sure..)

In Twin Peaks, Sarah Palmer has a vision of a white horse in her living room just before a murder, and it might be that David Lynch is referring to a similar tradition of symbolism.

Tarkovsky clearly rejected pretentious and empty symbolism. Gates or bars between lovers or something stupid like that. But to say that his very poetic films are rid of symbolism? nahhh.

Water, fire and rain in Tarkovsky's films, however, don't nenecessary symbolize or mean anything. Tarkovsky took The Virgin Spring for example: When the heroine has been raped and killed, it starts to snow and Bergman shows us her face. That scenes comes to a "climax" when the snow falls on her eyelashes. What does that symbolize? It's impossible to tell and an artist of Bergmans calibre isn't trying to convey some far-fetched message or judgement. This is simply the form Bergman chooses to tell us what happened.

Kurosawa said that if a director constantly talks about his films, they can't be very interesting and the filmmaker can't have much of a future. Don't expect Tarkovsky to spell his films out but don't believe everything he says either. He didn't want to 'feed' the viewer or decide on his behalf.

A state of unquenchable longing for one's homeland. And since the homeland of the spirit lies far above this earth, "nostalghia" of the spirit for the Light is that inexplicable longing we feel when nothing on earth seems to satisfy us, nothing seems to come up to that ideal of harmony and beauty, which we carry deep inside us as a vague memory from our distant homeland. Far from being an imaginary place dreamt up by poets, it is a place as real as the earth - and it is precisely the reality of that memory, which the poets in all branches of the arts throughout all the ages have tried to convey to us the renewal.

Now summer has passed,
As if it had never been.
It is warm in the sun.

But this isn't enough.

All that might have been,
Like a five-cornered leaf
Fell right into my hands,
But this isn't enough.

Neither evil nor good
Had vanished in vain,
It all burnt with white light,
But this isn't enough.

Life took me under its wing,
Preserved and protected,
Indeed I have been lucky.
But this isn't enough.

Not a leaf had been scorched,
Not a branch broken off. . .
The day wiped clean as clear glass,
But this isn't enough.

Tarkovsky has said that objects in his films don't symbolize anything, but rather they express something. There's really a beautiful distinction here, in that symbolism necessitates knowledge of the symbol and what is it referring to (such as water referring to purity); but this connection is a construct, in the sense that we have stored this relationship in our conscious, and have more-or-less agreed to associate water with purification since they are often related to each other. It's like in high school English class when you would discuss how red was used to symbolize hate, or light would symbolize goodness, etc... and from there you would apply this learned knowledge of symbolism to later works.

But what an object expresses is much truer than what it symbolizes. That which an object expresses goes beyond the knowledge of a relationship between "A" and "B", and rather depends on the true emotions, thoughts, and feelings that are inherently conjured up and felt by the viewer when viewing the object. That's why the white horse is truly nothing more than a white horse (or a cigar is a cigar). But now you must ask yourself what do you feel and think about, and what are the impressions that a white horse in a field gives you? What does this object truly express to you? The point is not to convince yourself it symbolizes or is similar to something in a rational sense, but to explore what you truly feel by this image. The problem with this (and the basis for a lot of the resentment) is that it necessitate the viewer trying to come in contact with their subconscious, and unless the viewer is able to grasp the feelings which an image invokes in them (or even willing to really think about it on their own), they will be unable to understand how that object relates to the work.

The way I look at it is that symbolism is like paint-by-number: if you follow the directions you will arrive at a something that is understandable and doesn’t look too bad. But expression is the true language of existence and being; it goes beyond directions and simple formulas (beyond reason and rationality itself) and relies on the viewer to complete the message. To discuss what an object expresses is to accept the irreducibility of that object; to say the white horse symbolizes something is to reduce the white horse to that symbol, when clearly there are characteristics and thoughts and feelings that a white horse contains that the symbol does not. Because of this, the "meaning" of an object, when analyzed in terms of what it expresses, is infinitely truer than what one arrives at by analyzing symbols (even if it becomes harder to put this meaning into words afterwards).

It is really strange this happens whenever people talk about symbolism in Tarkovsky on this board.

Of course symbolists can be low or high. Symbolism is a vast topic but when did people say things like the milk in Tarkovsky equal fertility?!

We feel in a certain image, and we like to ask why we feel this but not that. Why this image is codified like that? symbolism might be one of the answers!

After reading through this thread, I decided to post an extract from Tarkovsky's book Sculpting In Time: Tarkovsky The Great Russian Filmaker Discusses His Art to dispel some of the misconceptions regarding Tarkovsky's interpretation of symbolism:

Vyacheslav Ivanov made some extraordinarily penetrating and apt comments on this when he wrote of the wholeness of the artistic image (which he calls 'symbol'):

'A symbol is only a true symbol when it is inexhaustible and unlimited in its meaning, when it utters in its arcane (hieratic and magical) language of hint and intimation something that cannot be set forth, that does not correspond to words. It has many faces and many thoughts, and in its remotest depths it remains inscrutable . . . It is formed by organic process, like a crystal . . . Indeed it is a monad, and thus constitutionally different from complex and reducible allegories, parables and similes. . . Symbols cannot be stated or explained, and, confronted by their secret meaning in its totality, we are powerless.'