The Steamroller and the Violin

A frail young violinist and a gruff steamroller operator strike up an unlikely friendship in Andrei Tarkovsky’s skillful diploma film from the Soviet film academy, VGIK. A student film in name only, The Steamroller and the Violin holds the seeds of Tarkovsky’s future career, both in its theme of artistic survival and, more importantly, in its credits: it was here that Tarkovsky met his future cameraman and composer. Tarkovsky cowrote the film with Andrei Konchalovsky, who would himself become a great Soviet filmmaker.