From: wildman@athena.mit.edu (Timothy Worsley)
Subject: Re: Russian movie "Stalker, The Zone"         
Reply-To: eprice@sql.sybase.com
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 13:10:30 GMT

In article <1992Aug28.192945.29360@athena.mit.edu>
ljva@athena.mit.edu (L. James Valverde A. Jr.) writes:

><1992Aug27.221947.22152@gallant.apple.com>:
>
>>be sure to mentally edit out the car ride through Tokyo -- if you've
>>seen the film you already know exactly what I mean, if you haven't
>>seen it yet, you *will* know what I mean, and *trust me*... you'll
>>enjoy the whole film more if you just mentally edit out that one
>>scene.

I don't trust you, sorry -- I advise that people watch the whole movie
and judge for themselves which shots are effective and which are not.
In fact, when Solaris first came out (1970 I believe) some reviewers
singled out this scene as being particularly impressive (even saying
that it surpassed anything in 2001 for example).  I would not go that
far, but I don't see why this sequence should be so painful to you...

However, I have heard (sorry, I can't remember where) that this scene
was filmed just because they (whoever they are) wanted to have
something that looked futuristic (and apparently Tokyo fit the bill).

>It was my understanding that Lem intended this scene to be a metaphor
>for science as an intrinsically *human* endeavor. This idea, when
>first presented to me, seemed rather subliminal. After reading the
>book, however, it seemed to make more sense. The basic idea is that
>the Solarists, in their inquiry of the planet, had embarked upon a
>seemingly endless journey in a quest for knowledge and understanding.
>After decades of research and exploration, they still knew very
>little about the planet.

This is a very reasonable interpretation, but what does it have to do
with the Tokyo freeway scene?  BTW, you must mean "Tarkovsky intended"
not "Lem intended" because it is not in the book and Lem did not have
very much to do with making the movie.  (For anyone that missed the
"more than you could possibly want to know about Lem and Solaris"
articles a month or two ago, email me and I'll send you the relevant
material, mostly excerpts from interviews with Lem where he is asked
his opinion of Tarkovsky's film.)

Tarkovsky on Solaris:

``... SOLARIS had been about people lost in the Cosmos and obliged,
whether they liked it or not, to acquire and master one more piece of
knowledge.  Man's unending quest for knowledge, given him
gratuitously, is a source of great tension, for it brings with it
constant anxiety, grief and disappointment, as the final truth can
never be known.  Moreover, man has been given a conscience which means
that he is tormented when his actions infringe the moral law, and in
that sense even conscience involves an element of tragedy.  The
characters in SOLARIS were dogged by disappointments, and the way out
we offered them was illusory enough.  It lay in dreams, in the
opportunity to recognise their own roots--those roots which forever
link man to the Earth which bore him.  But even those links had
already become unreal for them.''  [Sculpting in Time, pp. 198-99]

``I was no more interested, therefore, in the fantastic plot of
STALKER than I had been in the story-line of SOLARIS.  Unfortunately
the science fiction element in SOLARIS was nonetheless too prominent
and became a distraction.  The rockets and space stations--required by
Lem's novel--were interesting to construct; but it seems to me now
that the idea of the film would have stood out more vividly and boldly
had we managed to dispense with these things altogether'' [SiT, p. 199]

I would argue that it is unfortunate that Tarkovsky took *only* the
"fantastic plot" of Lem's novel as the basis for his film.  The gist
of the disagreement between Lem and Tarkovsky over the movie was
essentially that Tarkovsky had no interest in the themes of the novel,
and Lem had no interest in the themes Tarkvosky typically used in his
movies.  So the movie turned out to be only a superficial adaptation
of the book.  I have heard that there was actually another Soviet film
of SOLARIS, an earlier one, in black and white, which is more faithful
to the novel.  Anyone here ever seen it?

Tarkovsky on the Zone:

``People have often asked me what the Zone is, and what it symbolises,
and have put forward wild conjectures on the subject.  I'm reduced to
a state of fury and despair by such questions.  The Zone doesn't
symbolise anything, any more than anything else does in my films: the
zone is a zone, it's life, and as he makes hiw way across it a m an
may break down or he may come through.  Whether he comes through or
not depends on his own self-respect, and his capacity to distinguish
between what matters and what is merely passing.'' [SiT, p. 200]

STALKER is the probably the best SF film I've ever seen.  SOLARIS is
also one of the best SF films I've ever seen, but it is Tarkovsky's
worst movie.

I find the "special effects" (such as they are) in STALKER to be
awe-inspiring -- much more so than the laughable excesses of, say,
TERMINATOR 2.

Both SOLARIS and STALKER are available on laserdisc from Japan but I
haven't seen them so I don't know if they are letterboxed or if they
are uncut.  SOLARIS was edited for release in the US at least (no
reason except concern about Ameican attention span I guess).  Some
theaters showed a version that had extra footage from a different
print added in (and dubbed into English, unlike the rest).  Finally
the original version was shown a few years ago (I saw it both in NYC
and in Boston).

SOLARIS is also out on videotape (but again, I haven't seen it).

-Ed (not Tim), eprice@sql.sybase.com (not wildman@...)

PS (ObAliens) I like ALIEN the best.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.movies