tarkovsky's stalker

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