Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky’s "Andrei Rublev," a summary

The screenplay for Andrei Rublev was written by Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky and Andrei Tarkovsky between 1961 and 1964 and published in the magazine Iskusstvo Kino (Art of Cinema) in 1964. The action spans the years 1400–1424 and is structured as a series of separate short stories linked by the figure of icon painter Andrei Rublev — a monk, artist, and witness to a most difficult period in Russian history.

Based on this script, Tarkovsky directed a film of the same name in 1966, which won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival and was shown out of competition. In the USSR, the film was shelved for a long time due to accusations of being "dark" and "unpatriotic."

Departure from Trinity Monastery

In the summer of 1400, three monks and icon painters — thirty-year-old Kirill, forty-year-old Daniil Cherny, and twenty-three-year-old Andrei — leave Trinity Monastery to go to Moscow. An acolyte shouts after them that there’s no one left at Trinity to paint icons, but Kirill only snaps back. The monks leave in a growing downpour, regretting the ten years they spent in the monastery.

Taking shelter from a thunderstorm in a village outbuilding, they find a buffoon dancing in front of some tipsy peasants, mocking a boyar with a shaved beard. The scene is interrupted by the arrival of warriors — one of them silently grabs the buffoon by the scruff of the neck and throws him against the wall, after which he is dragged through the mud. At that moment, Kirill suspiciously appears outside, near the horsemen. Andrei remarks only: "They killed the buffoon for nothing."

Theophanes the Greek

In the winter of 1401, the monks reach Moscow. After much effort, they manage to gain entry to the cathedral where Theophanes the Greek, a skinny, disheveled old man with an aquiline nose and a single tooth, works. Andrei stands before the icon of the Savior and, stunned, mentally analyzes the entire process of its creation, layer by layer: from the blank canvas to the piercing gaps of light that lie on the face "like scars."

Feofan looks down on the icon painters with condescension, says he’ll die soon, and recounts how he once abandoned an unfinished work — he’d had enough. He’d been making pickled cabbage with the unfinished icon. After their meeting in the forest, Andrei tells Kirill, "I can do better. Better than Theophan the Greek." Kirill calls this the sin of pride.

Hunting

In the summer of 1403, Andrei wanders along a forest road with his student Thomas, a lanky fifteen-year-old liar who has damaged an ancient icon with an unauthorized repaint. The teacher scolds him, and Thomas snaps back. In the ferns near a forest lake, they pause: several pairs of swans float on the water. The leader circles restlessly around the lake until the flock takes flight — and immediately falls, shot down by hunting arrows.

Horsemen fly out of the forest, dogs choking with barking: a young prince is hunting on someone else’s estate. One by one, the white birds fall into the water, their wings broken. When the noise dies down, fluff slowly floats over the lake.

The Last Judgment and the Crisis

In 1405, Andrei received a commission to paint the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir. For a long time, he hesitated to paint a fresco of the Last Judgment: he didn’t want to frighten people. But observing life around him — the labor, the faces, the folds of clothing on ordinary people sitting at tables — he suddenly felt the idea dawn on him. He picked up a piece of coal from the ground, looked at the whitewashed wall, and made up his mind.

Tatar raid

In the autumn of 1408, the younger prince led the Tatars to the walls of Vladimir to retake the city from his elder brother. The invaders burned, killed, stripped icons of their frames, and dragged the sacristan Patrikei on a horse’s tail across the cathedral’s stone slabs. Andrei, finding himself in the plundered Dormition Cathedral, killed a Tatar warrior, defending a foolish girl. For a monk, this was the impossible: to shed human blood, even if it was a villain.

In the ruins of the cathedral, amid corpses and slowly falling snow, Andrei has a vision — the already dead Theophanes the Greek. Andrei tells him he will never again pick up a brush: his iconostasis has been burned, by the very people for whom he worked. "I will never paint again." Theophanes objects: this is wrong, it is a sin. But Andrei is unwavering — he takes a vow of silence and withdraws into himself.

Borisna and the bell

Between 1419 and 1423, the silent Andrey witnesses the young Boriska at work. The young master undertakes to cast a bell for the prince, claiming that his father passed on the secret of casting to him before his death. In fact, Boriska knows no secret — he works by touch, risking his life with every decision. Around him, the construction work rages: a huge pit, molds, clay, endless disputes with the artisans.

When the bell is finally raised and rings over the countryside, Boriska falls to the ground and sobs: his father told him nothing, there was no secret, he made it all up himself and was afraid at every turn. Andrei, shocked by this confession, breaks his years-long silence. Someone else’s courage — the courage of a boy who created from nothing — restores his faith in people and in his own work.

After a black-and-white narrative, the script concludes with color shots of Andrei Rublev’s icons — living and radiant. The paintings, having survived all that fire and hatred have destroyed, remain on their panels.