Fausty
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Dec 3, 2004
- Messages
- 1,369
Referring to Soviet director Tarkovsky's Stalker.
I read a review once that referred to it as "the greatest film ever made by the greatest director ever." It seemed hyperbolic, but now I agree.
It took several revisitations for me to start getting the flow of the movie. Now it is somewhat of a permanent part of my psyche. I think of scenes from it often, during the day. I hear sounds and they remind me of scenes in the movie (the clack-clack-clack of the hand-track seems to haunt the outer edges of my my hearing).
And the landscapes, they haunt not just my daily perceptions but also my dreams at night. It is under my skin in a way only [o]Dead Man[/i] has done before, but in a far more totalistic way.
There's a question of fundamental importance embedded in this film. It was also kicking around inside Solaris, but here Tarkovsky has brought it fully into view and really taken the lid off. And I don't think this question has an answer - to answer it is to step outside of mortality. We can't.
The scene in "the room" was shot, as continuous take, first try. The rain was not added artificially - it was a short squall that arrived during shooting.
Several of the folks involved in making the film - including Tarkovsky himself - contracted strange illnesses as a result of the toxins in the settings they chose for the film. Most were dead within several years. The film carries enormous power.
Peace,
Fausty
I read a review once that referred to it as "the greatest film ever made by the greatest director ever." It seemed hyperbolic, but now I agree.
It took several revisitations for me to start getting the flow of the movie. Now it is somewhat of a permanent part of my psyche. I think of scenes from it often, during the day. I hear sounds and they remind me of scenes in the movie (the clack-clack-clack of the hand-track seems to haunt the outer edges of my my hearing).
And the landscapes, they haunt not just my daily perceptions but also my dreams at night. It is under my skin in a way only [o]Dead Man[/i] has done before, but in a far more totalistic way.
There's a question of fundamental importance embedded in this film. It was also kicking around inside Solaris, but here Tarkovsky has brought it fully into view and really taken the lid off. And I don't think this question has an answer - to answer it is to step outside of mortality. We can't.
The scene in "the room" was shot, as continuous take, first try. The rain was not added artificially - it was a short squall that arrived during shooting.
Several of the folks involved in making the film - including Tarkovsky himself - contracted strange illnesses as a result of the toxins in the settings they chose for the film. Most were dead within several years. The film carries enormous power.
Peace,
Fausty
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
), you'll be dependent on the subtitles to catch these clues or miss entire threads of the movie. It's similar in Solaris, I think - I had to read the original novella and watch the Soderberg version a few times before I finally started to "get" the narrative arc of the Tarkovsky masterpiece. Plus I keep getting hypnotized by the cinematography, and just can't help but fall into the purely visual element of the film. 