tarkovsky's stalker

I want to go to this but it is on in one hour and my tutorial just finished and I did not go and I feel a bit guilty and don't want to bump into anyone who might make me feel worse.

the last film I saw, in arch and presented by the guy that is presenting this, was 'alphaville' and I hadn't had a lot of sleep beforehand and did doze off OK, a little bit, and I haven't had a lot of sleep, now, and I could see it happening, again, and it does last for two hours and forty minutes.

do you like long takes? really long ones?

thanks xxxxx

(nb i love stalker)

they're showing 'alphaville' again, in a week or two, have you seen that?

they're showing that at the gft? I'm going to all the godard things at the gft, which inc. 'alphaville', yeah. I have it around here on video somewhere.

sokurov raises more questions about pretentiousness and lack of content (though i usually like him too)

when i've seen solaris it's been like a kick in the gut, i cry and cry--stalker i have a greater distance from, perhaps that's in the design; the best part is when he gets the phone call in The Zone

is it a published number i wonder?

he had a hard time getting films made, and often they were only made because he was a "prestige" asset

but eventually it was difficult enough that he left, and he died in france

newer?

the one I know has the loop of the rail trolly looping while the filtered electronics slowly grow louder

is there another version?

if you haven't had enough sleep, don't go see Stalker. I don't really love it.. I've seen it twice but still feel like I'm missing something.

in spite of his concerns with the metaphysical/religious/spiritual (maybe implied, or maybe i just misinterpret) not being ones i resonate with, i nonetheless find his films very appealing. i get the same kind of awe as when looking at a magnificent cathedral or stained-glass window - they don't make me believe in god or the afterlife, but they are magnificent.

i got more 'psychological' than spiritual stuff from them - memory, desire, regret - though from certain angles those kinds of feelings sometimes verge on something more 'profound'

he made me appreciate the visual details of things more, and his fascination with rain/trickling/dripping water has something almost sensually/biologically resonant about it (iirc there is a few-seconds shot in 'nostalgia' of rainwater droplets hitting bottles/jars in sunlight - delicate and transitory beauty, all colourbursting microrainbows & gentle chiming , created in the midst of a grotty hovel from 'miserable' weather and a leaky roof...)

solaris is my favourite - it is the only one i have seen more than once - nostalgia second fav - stalker/andrei rublev/the sacrifice all pretty equal to me
i have never got to a cinema to see 'mirror' grrrr

(and ha yes don't go to a hot cinema when short of sleep to see one - this was my downfall at the ica cinema's showing of andrei rublev - iirc (it was 20 yrs ago so i may not) it was at least 3hrs 30min long and i slept through approx 30 mins in the middle...)

I never seem to go to the cinema. : (((

I wish cozen would make me.

I will keep an eye open for showings. thanks, ray.

I don't know what's happening to me, because my tolerance for long-held shots used to be so low that I needed films like Requiem for a Dream and Run Lola Run. Now, I'm to the point where Stalker's shots didn't really strike me as all that long, all told. Perhaps because so many of them are moving, panning, or tracking shots.

But, yeah, gorgeous film. As of yet one of only two Tarkovskys I've seen (Solaris), but I can't wait to catch Nostalghia and Mirror.

although i suppose i prefer long shots that have a painterly aspect, that observes one or another principal of interesting composition--which really is most of the long take films that are most respected; i've seen a film by philippe garrel which seemed purposely drab and affectless and even artless in its long takes, and it tested my patience (i take that phrase seriously, i think it's good sometimes to test your patience)

i've never seen "nostalghia" or "the sacrifice"

thanks. make me aware of upcoming trips!

they are presenting 'alphaville' as an architectural film, here, too. they say it is a reorganisation of the city [paris] and its component parts. they also said something about strewn and 'like a situationist map'!!!! I've seen it.

Huh, I now recall the peculiar circumstances (the very early 80s, Moscow of all places) of watching Rublev myself...

stalker, funnily enough, was the film i had least patience. like, ive seen most of his films but that was the first time i got a bit fidgety. but i really wanted to fall asleep.

it just seems like lots of things in this movie were absurdly stretched out for minimal payoffs. how many times do i have to watch stalker take a nap??

exceptions: the trolley ride into the zone was great, the part where they are taking a nap in the creek is great, too, where we see all the different bits of detritus in the stream.

Maybe I will go rent Rublev tonight!

how about a 9-hour documentary on decaying abandoned chinese factories??

I liked Andrei Rublev, though.

(genuinely curious, not be snarky)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:_Shadow_of_Chernobyl

this movie is also at fantasia film fest... everyone seems to say it's worth checking so i may do so! i amde a thread for the fest, as well.

this is one of the best films ever!

and it's not boring!

I should've gone.

it better be not boring! I am going to see it, and if I fall asleep like i did in solaris...

Probably the most beautiful movie I've ever seen that looks like it was filmed in a vat of toxic sewage (in other words, this film has got to be the Russian equivalent of "The Conqueror", no?)

i saw this with a group of friends the other night and loved it. it's really beautiful, although it kind of killed everyone's desire to go out drinking afterward.

it brought to mind lots of things that were made later...cube, house of leaves, lots of video games (half-life 2, fallout 3, uh, super mario bros).

yeah i don't get why people hate this one so much, i think it's great

Actual Stalker videogame would be 1000x awes.

uh, see the previous revive!

!!!

this is like "mindwalk" with a pedigree.
― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid), Monday, May 29, 2006 7:42 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark

i just watched this and i liked it a lot, but it did make me think of "mindwalk" once or twice. but even when the script droned on a little, there was still the gorgeous, ominous look and feel of the film. i think its ideas resonate much more in its non-verbal realms than in its dialogue.

restraining orders were really hard to get in russia back then

minor point of curiosity: why is it split into part 1 and part 2, with a separate credit and everything? was it originally made for tv or something?

it was something to do with soviet bureaucracy. Tarkovsky had already used his whole budget shooting the bulk of the film but the film stock was ruined and the footage was unusable. in order to get funding to reshoot it T had to imply to the authorities that the film was always conceived as two parts and he needed additional funding to shoot part two. i think he actually used the funding for part two to reshoot the whole thing.

ah. i knew about the reshooting. i guess that makes a sort of bureaucratic sense.

man, it was really something to watch, it's still replaying in my head. i'll probably need to watch it again but i want to give it more time to unspool and settle in.

it's really beautiful, although it kind of killed everyone's desire to go out drinking afterward.

new definition of "art film"?

Tried for a second time tonight. I'll need to be 100% alert and working on a minimum of 10-hours sleep if I'm ever going to last the whole way--drifted through most of the middle hour tonight. I'll forgo the kind of jokes I used to make when I saw it 15 years ago. The stalker's strong resemblance to Woody Harrelson was distracting.

If you can handle the candle scene from Ностальгия/Nostaghia you can handle Сталкер/Stalker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT_li-WHcII

i'm kind of surprised the some people (vahid!) think the pre-zone section is good and then it goes downhill. i think the getting to the zone section is often messy and boring but once they get there and less starts to happen, plot-wise, the film is electrifying.

otm

Uncanny, I tell you.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_khYoWIBgmBI/S13LXPOfn5I/AAAAAAAABrI/ryGqrXSAiak/s320/13stalker.jpg

http://www.hggirlonfire.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/woody-harrelson.jpg

I ate a bunch of weed on a train and watched this on my laptop. It blew my goddamn mind. One of my favorite movies, and xp- the film really starts getting good once they reach the zone. Absolutely. Their every step becomes measured, they ruminate, they argue, crazy shit starts happening around them...

I'm gonna watch this tonight again.

One of my favorite movies, and xp- the film really starts getting good once they reach the zone.

first part of that sentence OTM, one of my very favorite movies. but it's brilliant from the beginning. hell, the first shot is one of the best in the film. and so's the second...

thought thread might've been revived cos of this new book:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/05/zona-geoff-dyer-tarkovsky-stalker

amazing film.

Seven years after the making of the film, the Chernobyl accident led to the depopulation of an area rather like that in the film. Some of those employed to take care of the abandoned nuclear power plant refer to themselves as "stalkers" and to the area around the damaged reactor as "The Zone.

love this fact, through the whole film i kept thinking of chernobyl.

I love this movie so much I can't help feeling personally offended whenever anyone shits on it.

If someone doesn't like this movie, I automatically don't like them. I think there's something wrong with the way they open their senses.

And we were headed for such a beautiful friendship, elan.

I know I should be beyond the point where I feel so personally about things outside of myself (I got shit for saying more or less the same thing about The Tree of Life on the sandbox movie thread) but I wonder if this movie doesn't work as a sort of litmus test about whether or not one feels sure they know what reality really is, or whether they (like I do) are in constant doubt as to what is real and what isn't. Mind, this is drawn from very little experience but I wonder if anyone else feels the same way.

also n.b. I don't think everyone who dislikes this movie is a terrible person, but maybe people who are sure of themselves also tend to dislike this movie.

i dunno, i'm quite unsure of myself in certain respects (and full of headstrong confidence in others), but i like stalker and the tree of life primarily because i find them beautiful. i can certainly see why others might dislike either or both. they're long, slow, abstract and arguably pretentious films.

Ordered that Geoff Dyer book yesterday, really looking forward to it. One of my favourite writers on one of my favourite films.

It's not like I think Stalker dislikers are bad or terrible! I just always feel like there's going to be a large gap between the way we experience things.

so with Zona out now, there'll be a Stalker screening in NYC Saturday eve with a panel (incl Walter Murch, Francine Prose, Phillip Lopate and Dyer) talking between the reels!

http://nyihumanities.org/event/tarkovsky-interruptus

G Kenny discusses the book (and Hoberman review of same) here:

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2012/03/geoff-dyers-zona.html

um, I love Tarkovsky and shamefully have never watched all of the film. I think I'm going to attempt some multiple viewing, book reading, extravaganza

Walter Murch on a panel? I hope there's coverage or a recording of the talking.

just read abt that in the wsj & it was vague enough that i thought there was also a screening/talk on fri ;_; sounds rad tho

Anyone read Dyer's bk?

no

he looks like a nudnik

Ws reading his wiki -- he's written on a wide range of subjects, you know.

yes but i saw him talking abt stalker w/ m kermode on bbc hds benighted 'the culture show'

& i distrust ppl called geoff

the bldgblog guy is named geoff and he seems ok

in your opinion

ws saying it as something to distrust really - travel one min, jazz the next, now not only film but STALKER! Sounds like a mid-life crisis bk instead of a fully researced account of Tarkovsky and his (and Soviet cinema's) struggle w/the authorities.

Ah well..xxp

there was one broadsheet review which was all 'less abt tarkovsky than abt geoff dyer' as if that might be more enticing

I've read books that ended up being semi-autobiographical about pretty boring people, this couldn't be worse

Not the recommenation I was looking for!

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2012/03/tarkovsky-interruptus.html

"...this emboldened Slate's Dana Stevens, whose contributions up to this point had been inoffensive enough to be ignorable/forgettable, to chime in about the "weak writing" in the film."

Why is Dana Stevens invited to these things? n.b. I can't recall ever reading a Dana Stevens review but her talks on the Culture Gabfest are...lacking.

"cultural vegetable."

Never heard this term before, only 10 year olds dislike all vegetables.

that phrase was at the center of an NYT Magazine-launched brouhaha over "difficult/boring" films last year.

There was this not exactly good article on slow cinema. Liked it ended w/Akerman although the quote doesn't sound intelligent.

wow, Kenny wrote they couldn't even find a good print for the New School thing. Imagine how universal that will be 10 years from now.

is it true that they all died from cancers they picked up while filming in that place?? i can't imagine how wading neck-deep in sewer water in an abandoned hydroelectric plant could have seemed like a good idea ... didn't they have an actor's union?

― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid)

tarkovsky, his wife, the DP, and the three lead actors all died within 15 yrs of this at relatively young ages iirc, at least three of them of cancer which i think was linked to the filming location (though not definitively.)

A while back I read that it was some rare type of cancer. The fact that they all had it lent itself to the idea that it was caused by shared environmental exposure.

From the Stalker wikipedia page:

Sound designer Vladimir Sharun recalls:
We were shooting near Tallinn in the area around the small river Jägala with a half-functioning hydroelectric station. Up the river was a chemical plant and it poured out poisonous liquids downstream. There is even this shot in Stalker: snow falling in the summer and white foam floating down the river. In fact it was some horrible poison. Many women in our crew got allergic reactions on their faces. Tarkovsky died from cancer of the right bronchial tube. And Tolya Solonitsyn too. That it was all connected to the location shooting for Stalker became clear to me when Larisa Tarkovskaya died from the same illness in Paris.[5]

oh, there was another Dyer/screening today :p

http://www.movingimage.us/films/2012/03/11/detail/geoff-dyer-on-tarkovsky-cinema-and-life/

Have always heard about The Conquerer being a movie that was actually fatal for the people involved; had no idea the same happened with Stalker.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/16/author-geoff-dyer-literary-establishment

^blood boils, etc.

Not really...just 'next', you know.

I am at fkn war w/proper spelling and punctuation tho'.

All nothing compared to the awfulness of people dying from the conditions surrounding the Stalker shoot. Was dimly aware of it when a camera man was talking about T and people who had passed on. A 5 min interview on a DVD that was a kinda gem. Wish I had that round here so I could remind myself of exactly what he said.

I read Zona today - I enjoyed it. It's pretty short (you can probably read it in less time than it takes to watch the film) but that's probably for the best. It was a lot lighter than I expected it to be - more of a cultural sorbet than a cultural vegetable.

Oh, I forgot why I posted. A quote from Zona

"As such it would have rendered that line of Stalker's - 'Home at last' - rather odd. [footnote-] Or maybe not. In the years when I used to go to Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert, we were greeted at the festival entrance with the words 'Welcome Home!' and tears always welled up in my eyes because it was true, because I believed absolutely in the Temporal Autonomous Zone of Black Rock City."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMdrz3HSAX0

^ interview here - more of a lamentation for people who passed on, love that shot of the lamp going off..

inside report from fukushima nuclear reactor evacuation zone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp9iJ3pPuL8

Roadside Picnic coming back into print (in English) for the first time in 30 years fwiw

bought it at B&N a couple of weeks ago actually!

More on the video game:

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/may/01/zone-chernobyl-tarkovsky-video-game/

> Roadside Picnic coming back into print (in English) for the first time in 30 years fwiw

amazon.co.uk have always had copies. in fact there as SF Masterworks edition which must be newer as the imprint isn't 30 years old. (2007 it says)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Roadside-Picnic-MASTERWORKS-Boris-Strugatsky/dp/0575079789/ref=sr_1_1

Yeah I read the SF Masterworks edition in 2008.

My brother gave me the Geoff Dyer book for my birthday, but I haven't read it yet. Not sure what to expect.

A heart-stopping, high-octane thrill ride that never let's up, that's what

Dyer's greatest regret in life = a good punchline, esp. 'cause you suspect he's serious.

okay in AMERICA I should have said

xp

the vid milton posted is amazing

otm, completely mesmerising.

i have an english PDF of roadside picnic ... one of the fort thunder guys had it downloadable on his website, i believe it was m4t br1nkm4n ... maybe it was even the fort thunder website itself?

seems to have been taken down now but i can share if anybody would like.

kind of a bummer because it was where i'd go to read all of the teratoid heights comics

RIP providence

http://www.bfi.org.uk/features/tarkovsky/?utm_content=buffer2cf57&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebookbfi&utm_campaign=buffer

Tarkovsky shot his final two features as an exile in the West. He left the Soviet Union behind, and never returned to science fiction. But he did express an unlikely admiration for James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984), claiming “its vision of the future and the relation between man and its destiny is pushing the frontier of cinema as an art.”

Shame T didn't stick around for Terminator 2.

Good piece - I suppose I'll never be able to read another article about these films w/out seeing a quote from Geoff Dyer but hey ho.

i think this might be my favorite movie now?

i watched it last night for the first time. first tarkovsky film i've seen, period. there are so many things that are wonderful about it, but i'll just point out a few things that stuck with me:

- the opening sequence. it starts with a really slow entrance through a set of open doors, but the doors almost seem to be floating in space. gradually a second layer is overlaid on top of the first, but it's so slow and subtle that i think some people wouldn't even notice. the second layer just barely ~shakes~ up and down, creating a hallucinatory feeling. i wish i was at home so i could include a screenshot, but the effect is absolutely amazing. iirc there's a sword that is part of one of the two layers, and it appears to be leaning up against the wall of the underlying layer. a minute later, an earthquake seemingly occurs and the scene really DOES shake - but of course that turns out to be the nearby train which passes periodically during the first part of the movie. it's just a mindblowing way to open the film.

- i think maybe pashmina mentioned this upthread, but the long take rail sequence into the zone is so good. each of the three characters gets a good, loooooooong time on camera, and then they each get a turn again. they're zooming off into toward this...zone...and they look fearful and courageous at the same time, and curious, and disoriented. but it's really the sound that makes the sequence, starting off with the rhythmic track noise and evolving into musique concrete. speaking of sound...

- the sound in this movie is unbelievably creative, and it carries the movie through some of the slower scenes that aren't as compelling as the others. so many of the sounds were obviously constructed in a studio and added in later. most of the time it's not 'realistic' at all but it's nearly always beautiful sounding. the film is pretty much a dreamtrance, and the sound is a big reason why it works so well. it reminds me of the sound design of Eraserhead, which Lynch and Alan Splet labored over for years, meticulously recording and editing each sound.

- i also enjoyed the allusions to wizard of oz (another lynch thing) - popping into color, falling asleep in the field of flowers, searching for something that grants wishes.

watching solaris (finally) later this week, i can hardly wait!

i'm PAINFULLY overdue for a rewatch of motherfucking Stalker

only took me ten years to finally watch this movie it was good !

it's one of my favourites, as well.

but i gather you need to be in the right state of mind to watch it, because of how slow it is, which is one of the things i love about it

yeah, the slowness is key. there's so much time to enjoy the visuals. i only wish that i didn't need the subtitles so that my eyes weren't spending so much time at the bottom of the frame.

Just noticed the comments from a few years ago about the Roadside Picnic PDF. I did that, and I had to take it down because I got a cease & desist letter from a lawyer when the new edition was coming out. (And I was not a member of Fort Thunder, but I did run their web site.)

Around 2003 I spent some time making nice PDFs out of Gutenberg Project texts, mostly as an excuse for experimenting with my text justification postscript code. (I think I was also responsable for the first hypertext version of Gibbon's Decline & Fall?) Roadside Picnic was the only thing I did that wasn't completely legal, copyright-wise. (It wasn't clearly illegal either, but not something to argue with lawyers about.)

this thread is vintage good ilx

very grateful to have seen stalker on projected 35mm last night (even if screen was 'small') but the subtitles were so bad! so many phrases seem to have gone untranslated

remember this thread once this place get engulfed by #futureOfInternets

Lol

i mean

like

http://www.ferdyonfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/stalker38.jpg

"Yes?"

this is surely amongst the great works

it is one of the greatest

The toxic looking set of Stalker is no special effect:
"We were shooting near Tallinn in the area around the small river Jägala with a half-functioning hydroelectric station. Up the river was a chemical plant and it poured out poisonous liquids downstream. There is even this shot in Stalker: snow falling in the summer and white foam floating down the river. In fact it was some horrible poison. Many women in our crew got allergic reactions on their faces. Tarkovsky died from cancer of the right bronchial tube. And Tolya Solonitsyn too. That it was all connected to the location shooting for Stalker became clear to me when Larisa Tarkovskaya died from the same illness in Paris"

That's a horrific story

yeah but look what they made

Not worth it, even for such a huge masterpiece, ymmv

When you work in the trades you develop a gallows humour about faked asbestos reports and risk assessments and exposure to carcinogens. I'd imagine if you were working for the Soviet film industry in the 70's it would be even more lackadaisical.

i thought this was so boring, should i rewatch it?

depends on if you thought it was boring in the past five years or not and if you can see it in a theater imo

That's a horrific story

― too young for seapunk (Moodles), Friday, 30 October 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah but look what they made

― twunty fifteen (imago), Friday, 30 October 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You are Geoff Dyer and I claim my 50p.

It could be worse, they could've died from making The Conqueror:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/the-conqueror/making-of-movie-that-killed-john-wayne/

My conclusion from reading that = Money is great.

I was about to bring up The Conqueror.

so many phrases seem to have gone untranslated

Pretty common in foreign films that didn't have an upper-tier UK-US distributor in that era.

wowwwww

innit just

watched this again on blu-ray a couple of weeks ago - never fails to be absolutely captivating

the stalker's dream is one of the most spellbinding sequences in cinema imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0VJa3HmsJQ

oh i started watching this the other day but my O/h was really tired and not in the mood for b/w with subtitles and gloominess. I really want to watch it though.

love this so much.

dl, it's only in black and white for a while before it transitions to colour (in another indelible sequence)

the b&w photography is so, so beautiful though. it's got so much texture to it

Yeah, it reminded me of Werckmeister Harmonies quite a lot (I can imagine Bela Tar was highly influenced by this film). As I say, we barely got 20 mins through before we realised this was a film for another time.

A few visual similarities aside, I don't think Tarkovsky and Tarr have v much in common. In fact, Tarr articulated the difference quite well: “Tarkovsky is religious and we are not… he always had hope; he believed in God. He’s much more innocent than us – than me. No, we have seen too many things to make his kind of film… he is much softer, much nicer. Rain in his films purifies people. In mine it just makes mud.”

It is a great quote but Tarkovsky must have seen some brutality himself growing up during the great terror and then the war.

I think that even the religious hope in Tarkovsky's films is tempered by some extreme self-doubt. God is hardly pedestaled as some end to suffering.

I like his famous quote about how Stalker should be “slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts.”

I agree. That sequence from Stalker posted above is a good demonstration. Mankind is destined to die and be forgotten, and all of its works, including religion. It's like his faith was in the face of knowing there was no destiny or future for mankind beyond this sort-of ultimate apocalypse, and why his works are so emotionally extreme in their beauty. I'm not a Tarkovsky or film scholar by any means, but that's what I get from it at least.

It is a great quote but Tarkovsky must have seen some brutality himself growing up during the great terror and then the war.

Yeah, nihilists/cynics etc. always think they've seen more that others - the scales have fallen from their eyes, rather than their eyes having scabbed up.

That Tarr quote makes me think significantly less of him.

Reading his dad's poetry and its fantastic, some of the most affecting Russian poetry this side of Tsvetaeva!

Completely agree. Hearing it in Mirror for the first time blew me away.

dowd otm and with best poetic imagery.

he stalker's strong resemblance to Woody Harrelson was distracting.

Haha -- true!

One of our art houses will show Stalker next Tuesday -- I'm looking forward to seeing it again. I wonder if they got their hands on the Criterion early?

The 4K resto is via Janus Films, ie the version that Criterion puts out. It's the way the Film Forum in NYC operates now. So really, fuck DCP.

I'll be seeing the restoration next Wednesday. They showed the Solaris restoration this week, which was really great.

Restoration is striking. Saw it in NYC a few weeks back.

Totally. After only seeing it on that crummy DVD, this looked stunning. Great work.

DCP is great though

If there's a disc, I don't need to pay $15 to see the same thing larger though.

What's DCP?

Digital Cinema Package- it's the hard drive that digitally projected films are bundled onto.

I'd reckon that a DCP projections has way more in common with a film projection than with a small television

Digital Cinema Package- it's the hard drive that digitally projected films are bundled onto.

― You guys are caterpillar (Telephone thing),

Thanks. Oh, that thing! I haven't seen any notable differences. Stevie otm.

It depends on the smallness of the television, of course, but dcp and celluloid are two fundamentally different things, and they look very different. DCP is fine though, when I helped arrange a showing of Solaris recently we chose the DCP as well.

The 4K resto is via Janus Films, ie the version that Criterion puts out. It's the way the Film Forum in NYC operates now. So really, fuck DCP

Cannot compute this post.

Saw the restoration (on DCP) in Philly a few weeks back and was blown away for what it's worth.

Anyone know the Sokurov scifi film Days of Eclipse (1988)? It shares a pair of novelist/screenwriters with Stalker. Showing tonight at NYC MoMA.

https://criticsroundup.com/film/days-of-eclipse/

btw i never knew the source novel that was loosely adapted for Stalker has the title Roadside Picnic (tho it's referenced at the start of the thread).

Then no wonder you didn't get the point of my screenname I used for this post

i'm only one man.

Also, Roadside Picnic is by the same guys who wrote Hard To Be A God.

I got to catch the restored version on the big screen a month ago, it was quite an experience. There was tons of detail like the specifics of the debris in the water or the rusting tanks in the field that I completely missed in many previous TV viewings. My big takeaway is that this may be the most physically textured film ever. Every single shot has a strong tactile quality.

Roadside Picnic is great, and I think I had this thread to thank for leading me to the pdf (when it was out of print).

I mentioned trying for a second time upthread (five years ago); I think tonight might have been the fourth. I think I basically get it, or part of it, in broad outline--the Zone is Oz, it's Godot, it's Miracle City in The Leftovers. (Or maybe it's the Black Lodge, or Room 101.) It's a great film to talk about--my friend and I went for coffee afterwards and compared notes for 20 or 30 minutes. The actual watching of it, sorry; I just find it tedious. I get very little out of it visually (except the last shot). Not that I loved The Mirror, but it did have that incredible pre-Ringu image. I find the brown parts in Stalker exceedingly ugly. Which they're supposed to be, I guess. The guy who made a big deal about going back to get his napsack reminded me of the babysitter in Goodfellas and her lucky hat. These are the silly things I think about when I'm bored, and I feel like I'm betraying the seriousness of the film when I do. My friend's going to lend me the Geoff Dyer book Zona--don't know anything about him or the book, but I'm hoping it sheds some light.

were you at tonight's screening in TO? more walkouts than I was expecting for a 14$ rep screening lmao

I was, yeah. Didn't notice the walkouts--we were maybe halfway down in the middle. I think I only drifted for 10 or 15 minutes tonight, better than the other times (lost some towards the end of part one).

For anyone who counts it as one of your favourite films--it won the ILX road-movie poll--I wish I could experience it as you do. I have some of the same problems with The Tree of Life. Maybe it's a temperament thing, I don't know. There are long, slow films I love. My attention doesn't flag for a second during six hours of Frederick Wiseman's Near Death.

weirdly, I drifted off a bit during the screenings of The Sacrifice and The Mirror but stayed totally awake for Stalker. I find power-napping to Tarkovsky movies to be extremely pleasant (less so in public where snoring is a real danger)

my main takeaway from this screening was that I really wish the men had brought that woman along with them to the Zone

Agree wholeheartedly; she had more personality than the three of them put together. (Which, again, I realize is beside the point--I know, I know...)

Saw it on the big screen a few months ago, loved it even more. There are whole visual layers that are hard to see on TV. I get the "boring" tag, but I just find the whole thing sort of texturally exciting from one shot to the next.

I recently watched it at home for the first time, after trying and giving up once before. I don't know whether I 'got it' or not. There was an interview with Geoff Dyer on the Criterion Collection that I watched afterwards, and he made the interesting point that the first segments of the Zone (in Part I) strongly reminded him of being a child, wandering aimlessly and making up games to play among the remnants of old disused rail depots in the English countryside.

For me, the most mind-blowing moment in the entire movie (*minor spoiler alert*) came after the Zone, when we go back to the bedroom in Stalker's house where the opening sequence took place; but now the camera has been turned 90 degrees to reveal a wall, previously concealed out of frame, whose floor-to-ceiling shelves are completely stuffed with books.

even though I stayed awake this time the movie seems designed to lull you into a nap, including placing the Part 2 marker only an hour in

x-post: Ah nice, I've missed that. Claire Denis does the same in 35 Shots of Rhum, and it's also completely mind-blowing.

For anyone who counts it as one of your favourite films--it won the ILX road-movie poll--I wish I could experience it as you do. I have some of the same problems with The Tree of Life. Maybe it's a temperament thing, I don't know. There are long, slow films I love. My attention doesn't flag for a second during six hours of Frederick Wiseman's Near Death.

― clemenza, Tuesday, November 21, 2017 4:40 AM (nine hours ago)

a) it didn't win, it was #2!
b) I fucking hate Tree of Life and find the comparison v insulting.
c) Sometimes people just don't gel with something! And that's okay (sorry for accidental clickbait phrasing).

my main takeaway from this screening was that I really wish the men had brought that woman along with them to the Zone

I know what you mean, but for me the contrast between the 'men in the Zone' bulk of the film and the sudden voice & agency of the female characters is startling in the best way. It had an enormous emotional impact on me when I first saw it.

the Dyer book is worth the read, but it's paced like the film.

I've watched it three times, agree with clemenza.

Apparently I bought the wrong Blu-Ray edition as the Curzon Home Cinema version uses an un-restored print, and it shows. You can see the film jump at every reel change, the soundtrack is often buried under crackling and so much of that incredible surface detail is lost in the murk. Seriously disappointing.

If I'd known how bad it was I wouldn't have bothered.

(xpost) Obviously, no insult intended--I guess I think of them both as somewhat mystical (which probably just tells you that I'm not getting one or both of them).

Forgot--Badlands won the road-movie poll.

Another guy at his wit's end.

http://yarn.co/yarn-clip/b4d2f220-0c8f-48ce-97d7-8f2f37246f72#BJTxAHj8QWG.copy

stalker is a headphones movie

That's what I used to say about the Alan Parsons Project's Tales of Mystery and Imagination back in high school. Except for the movie part.

what other movies do people like to sleep through

Leviathan (2012)

yes! i love falling asleep to Leviathan. also Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Third Man

... I have, on more than one occasion, put on a DVD of Tarkovsky's Solaris as a soporific

visiting locations in Estonia

https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/andrei-tarkovsky-stalker-locations

😍

😍

☣️

uh sorry, i mean ☢️

I wonder if it was procion dye waste that was being dumped into the Jagala river. I used to knock about places that remind me of some of the Stalker locations and a dye company was dumping waste into the waterways at the time. The water + even some of the greenery in the surrounding area used to have a yellow tint and was horrible smelling at times. Also had an uncle who worked at the L B Dyes factory for 20 odd years and he was known as "Yellow Eddie" and loads of his co-workers died of lung cancer, but the yellow man defied the odds and died of a stroke.

Lots of skepticism from me on this thread, and if I were to watch it tomorrow, I know I'd drift off for stretches. But thinking about my twilight walks around town right now, I never would have guessed that life would more or less turn into this movie (or at least this movie plus the occasional car).

Finally watched this some months ago. Very moving, honestly.

Working my way through the ilx list and we watched this last night. It's a great film and liked it very much. It's possible it could have been edited tighter and it wouldn't have lost much and might have gained power. Otoh, I understand and accept the argument that the length is part of the journey and helps put you in the place of the characters.

Visually stunning and the final shot of the reactor is incredible.

I kept thinking about how this SF movie is largely without effects other than some lighting. Does anyone know how much of certain shots were staged versus just shooting what was there? Thinking of the dream sequence with the shots of objects in the water.

Watched this today, cocooned in a blanket, wind raging outside. I'm still processing it - the material reality of the film, and the experiential aspect of watching the thing. It felt quite close to meditation in places - watching the screen became watching the mind and what drifted across the internal screen. Did any of this chime with the stuff on the screen etc.

The two shots that are currently bouncing around in my head are the lingering (when doesn't the camera linger?) shot of the heroin paraphernalia in the apartment and the vast wall of books - and what both mean for the stalker's state of mind and his purpose for entering and re-entering the zone. Are we to believe that he's been multiple times but hasn't been 'able' to enter the room?

I've read the Strugatsky book but don't remember it sufficiently to know how whether a re-read will throw new light on the the film. Man, what a trip.

I’ve seen this movie three times and I’ve never noticed the heroin paraphernalia. Like needle, what else?

I have maybe concocted it but definitely recall a tray with a syringe and cotton wool balls. Multiple syringes underwater throughout as well. And I read his wife's first tirade as a reaction to his falling back into addiction (as well, clearly, as continually falling for the allure of the Zone).

I would assume that was an allusion to the unspecified health problems of the daughter?

That’s what I might have thought

We’re ringing down the curtain on 2022 with this tonight, gonna be a good time

I specifically left tonight empty with no obligation to do anything. My 16yr old son has just asked if a 'few friends' can come over as they have nowhere else to go. Give me Stalker any day.

xps - ah ok, that makes perfect sense.

Maybe this could be an NYE tradition: watch Stalker and then watch Dinner for One.

I’m due for another viewing but to me seems like a more perfect reflective New Year’s Day viewing.

But my wife didn’t like Andrei Rublev and I’m afraid what she’s think about Stalker. 🙁

definitely saw the drug paraphernalia as medicating the kid who is getting telekinesis

(this thread being bumped prompted me to t0r3nt every tarkovsky for my collection)

I did that years ago and it was a very good move

(Genuine question from someone who has forgotten how: um, where does one t0r3nt from these days? All my old places are long dead.)

With regard to the stalker and his obsessive returning to the room, I can't stop thinking of the phrase 'you had everything you needed right there'.

https://i.imgur.com/zT6HsAK.png

chinaski, drop me a line via ilx mail about plex

stalker was available for a long time on youtube, some semi-official moscow film upload

oh, still is - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3hBLv-HLEc

Nice, thanks! In 4K, no less! It looks like Mosfilm also uploaded *Andrei Rublev* (first cut (205 min) and final cut (182 min)), *The Mirror* and *Ivan's Childhood*.

"(Genuine question from someone who has forgotten how: um, where does one t0r3nt from these days? All my old places are long dead.)"

I went through the same despair, now I pay a few quid per 6 months for a usenet provider and something similar for a nzb site and now I don't bother with the ghost-towns of formerly good torrent sites any more!

they’re all on criterion, just subscribe to criterion

there is always one bloody venture scout on every thread! (joking obv)

Point taken obviously, but it's not available in the UK, and never has been. (I could get a VPN, of course.)

Right. We had this discussion earlier about Criterion being US-only.

I was in a 7/8 class this morning, so for Tarkovsky's birthday (and forgetting it was MLK Day--got to him later) I talked about the S&S poll, then played the final three minutes of Stalker. Couldn't get any sound, which definitely mattered.

They were a good class, so they listened and watched without interruption. But I sensed the general feeling in the room was "What the fuck is this guy going on about?"

I know you will have told them!

In my own fumbling manner--"So to sit there completely mystified for two-and-a-half-hours, and then to end with this...amazing!--yes. (Told them I loved the ending, that I've struggled with the film three or four times, and that I have drifted off every time.)

You should show them the rail journey. That's my fave part.

If I had to introduce somebody to Tarkovsky using a clip of only a few minutes...maybe the balloon ride from Rublev? Or the missile attack in The Sacrifice where the milk jug crashes to the floor?

The clip I feel like I see used most as a Tarkovsky emblem is this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-Q7cvTh_jU

Watching Stalker for the first time was actually life-changing, inasmuch as it totally rewired my brain's way of thinking about landscape, art and even time.

Currently reading the Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer which feels like it is consciously riffing off the Zona/Roadside Picnic/Stalker (as did M. John Harrison in his Kefahuchi Tract books). Really good.

The film of Annihilation definitely plays off of Stalker too.

except, sucks

I don't suppose anyone managed to save the 4K Stalker before it disappeared?

I enjoyed Annihilation for its proggy trippiness.

you mean on blu-ray? can't find anything about this. link?

xp

oh wait, you're talking about the mosfilm yt upload. seems strange that it got pulled when the others are still up there.

I think it's most likely geoblocked? Might try to find a solution.

Mosfilm has so much good stuff up. The other day I watched a 90's comedy about a 19th century noblewoman who dreams she works in a canteen in Moscow in the 90's, it basically felt like Traumazone: The Movie.

what was it called?

Dreams