When the Bell Rings…

Suzdal. Many of the places where The Bell, the novella in the film Andrei Rublev, was shot are now overgrown and hard to reach, and some have been built over. Yet Nikolai Petrovich Burlyaev, People’s Artist of Russia, who once had to fight hard to win from Andrei Tarkovsky the role of Boriska, the young bell maker, finds them unerringly.

The actor and director talks about what drew him to the role, about the demanding work with Andrei Tarkovsky, the astonishing creative choices of cinematographer Vadim Yusov, his relationships with the other actors, and how the birth of a bell was portrayed in the famous film.

“The story that Andrei Konchalovsky and Andrei Tarkovsky wrote in The Bell resonates with every profession. At first no one knows how to do the work they are called to. If you work in tune with God’s providence, your bell gets cast even if you don’t know how it’s done. And then your bell will ring,” says Nikolai Burlyaev.

The monument to Andrei Tarkovsky, Anatoly Solonitsyn as Andrei Rublev and the young Nikolai Burlyaev as Boriska, which stands on the bank of the Kamenka River, bears the engraved inscription:  “To the greatest film of all times and peoples, Andrei Rublev, and to its creator — the great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky”.