film - Stalker film
Photograph by swanksaloton Flickr.
This effect is reinforced by occasional synthesizer effects which morph with the natural sounds and blurr the boundaries between artificial and alien sounds and the sounds of nature. After the three travellers appear from the tunnel the sound of dripping water can be heard. As this gave Artemyev the impression of frozen space, he used this inspiration and created a background tone on his synthesizer similar to the background tone performed on the tambura.
However, when the crew got back to Moscow, they found that all of the film had been improperly developed and their footage was unusable. Tarkovsky then began to be more and more interested in adapting the novel.
The implication is that our deepest, innermost desires are opaque even to ourselves, and the overt desire to win the lottery was coupled with the covert and unexpressed - perhaps unconscious - desire that his brother dies - and when Porcupine realized this, he killed himself to expiate his guilt. After having read the novel, initially Tarkovsky recommended it to his friend, the film director Mikhail Kalatozov thinking that he might be interested in adapting it into a film.
After seeing the poorly-developed material, Rerberg left the first screening session and never came back. Neither the draisine nor the scenery passing by is shown as the camera is completely focused on the faces of the characters.
It is the only such scene in the entire 160 minutes of the film; the content though is a kind of answer to what the same woman had said in the opening scene, when she blamed her husband for their miseries. A mysterious black dog that followed the three men through the Zone is now in the bar with them.
Although the Stalker describes extreme danger at all times, no harm comes to any of the three men; there is a tension between disbelief of the need for his elaborate precautions, and the possibility that they are necessary. These sounds grow richer and become more audible while the Stalker makes his first venture into the zone, initially leaving the professor and the writer behind, and is if the sound draws him towards the zone.
But Tarkovsky came up with a solution: he asked to make a two-part film, which meant additional deadlines and more funds. The sparseness of sounds in the zone draws attention to specific sounds, which similar to other scenes in the film are largely disconnected from the visual image.
The game later grew into an entire S.T.A.L.K.E.R. According to Tarkovsky the film has nothing in common with the novel except for the two words Stalker and Zone. An early draft of the screenplay was published as a novel Stalker that differs much from the finished film.
Their journey ends when they arrive at the entrance of the room. Periodically one hears what could be a train.
Tarkovsky ignored him and continued shooting. While the camera slowly pans to the right a waterfall appears.
Tarkovsky excluded them from the ending credits. Tarkovsky ended up re-shooting almost all of the film with a new cinematographer, Aleksandr Knyazhinsky.
As Kalatozov could not obtain the rights to the film from the Strugatsky brothers he abandoned the project. When the three arrive in the zone initially it appears to be silent.
Writer answers and says that this is not the clinic and hangs up. In the next scene Tarkovsky again uses the technique of disconnecting sound and visual image.
The first score was done with an orchestra alone but was rejected by Tarkovsky. By the time the film stock defect was found out, Tarkovsky had shot all the outdoor scenes, and had to burn them.
Other similarities between the film and the game are the throwing of nuts and bolts to find safe passage through the zone, and a forever present threat portrayed in both film and game of invisible threats and pitfalls. The three men fight verbally and physically; the Professor backs down from his plan to destroy the room.
The tar then improvised on the background sound, together with a flute as a European, Western instrument. The title sequence is accompanied by Artemyev s main theme. Safiullin contends that Tarkovsky was so despondent that he wanted to abandon further production of the film. After the loss of the film stock, the Soviet film boards wanted to shut the film down, officially writing it off.
When the Writer confronts the Stalker about his knowledge of the Zone and the room, he states that it all comes from Porcupine. They first walk through meadows, and then into a tunnel which the Stalker calls the meat grinder . In the film a stalker is a professional guide to the zone, someone who crosses the border into the forbidden zone with a specific goal. The sparseness of exposition leads to ambiguity as to the nature of The Zone. The setting of the film is a tiny town on the outskirts of The Zone , a wilderness area which has been cordoned off by the government.
As the Stalker leaves the bar with his family and the dog, we see that his child, nick-named Monkey (who earlier dialogue has suggested is affected by some form of genetic mutation as a child of the Zone ) is crippled, and cannot walk unaided. Music was added to the scene were the three are travelling to the zone on a motorized draisine.
Animals can be heard in the distance, but are never shown. A breeze can be heard, but no visual reference is shown.
In one of the decayed buildings, a phone inexplicably begins to ring. Apart from remixing the mono soundtrack into stereo surround sound, music and sound effects were removed and added in several scenes.
The Zone usually appears peaceful and harmless, with no visible dangers anywhere—Writer is skeptical that there is any real danger, while Professor generally follows the Stalker s advice. Much of the film focuses on the trip through the dangerous Zone, and the philosophical discussions which the characters share about their reasons for wanting to visit the room. In a conversation with Artemyev he explained that he needed music that reflects the idea that although the East and the West can co-exist they are not able to understand each other. Rethinking their approach they finally found the solution in a theme that would create a state of inner calmness and inner satisfaction, or as Tarkovsky said space frozen in a dynamic equilibrium .
While the visual transition of the panning shot is slow, the aural transition is sudden. The presence of the draisine is only registered through the clanking sound of the wheels on the tracks.
Writer and Professor are not identified by name—the Stalker prefers to refer to them in this way. Residual effects of an unnamed previous occurrence have transformed an otherwise mundane rural area scattered with ruined buildings into an area where the normal laws of physics no longer apply. The film begins with the Stalker in his home with his wife and daughter.
Rain begins to fall from a dark sky where a ceiling once was, into the ruined building, and the rainstorm gradually fades away, all in one shot. The next scene shows the Stalker, Writer, and Professor back in the bar. This technique is even more evident in the next scene where the three travellers are resting.
Professor then uses the phone to call a colleague. Many attribute this to the long and arduous shooting schedule of the film as well as toxins present at the shooting locations.
This alternative soundtrack was created for the 2001 DVD release by the Russian Cinema Council (Ruscico). For example, when the professor exstinguishes the fire by throwing his coffee on it all but the sound of the dripping water fall off.
In the resultant conversation, he reveals some of his true motives for having come to the room. Then the camera cuts back to the professor while the audience can still hear the river for a few more seconds.
The sounds of a river, the wind, dripping water and fire can be heard in a discontinuous way that is not partially disconnected from the visual image. He told Tarkovsky to re-write the script in order to come to a good result.
Similarly, we can hear and see the Stalker and the river. A long take, with the camera in the room, leaves the men sitting outside the room, and does not clarify whether they ever enter.
As the third glass begins to move, a train passes by (as in the beginning of the film), causing the entire apartment to shake, leaving the audience to wonder whether it was Monkey or the vibrations from the train that moved the glasses. Supporting actors: The film is loosely based on the novel Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. Rerberg felt that Tarkovsky was not ready for this script.
In an interview Tarkovsky dismissed the idea that water has a symbolic meaning in his films by saying that there was so much rain in his films because it is always raining in Russia. Stalker sold 4.3 million tickets in the Soviet Union. Officials at Goskino were critical of the film the film needs to 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 am only interested in the views of two people: one is called Bresson and one called Bergman Seven years after the making of the film, the Chernobyl accident led to the depopulation of an area rather like that in the film. Artemyev knew about a musical piece from Indian classical music where a prolonged and unchanged background tone is performed on a tambura.
Some shots from the Zone were filmed in Maardu, next to the Iru powerplant and the shot with the gates to the Zone was filmed in Lasnamäe, next to Punane Street behind the Idakeskus. The documentary film Rerberg and Tarkovsky: The Reverse Side of Stalker by Igor Mayboroda sheds new light on the production of Stalker . His wife emotionally urges him not to leave her again to go into the Zone due to the legal consequences, but he ignores her pleas.
This aural impression is quickly subverted by the muffled sound of Beethoven s 9th symphony. His wife asks where he got it; Stalker says that it got attached to him and he couldn t leave it in the Zone.
The camera follows their passage from urban setting to rural, and from the darkness required for their infiltration of the zone, to light. Once in the Zone, the Stalker tells the others that they must do exactly as he says to survive the dangers that are all around them. According to Safiullin, the finished version of Stalker is completely different to the one Tarkovsky originally shot. The film mixes sepia and color footage; within the Zone, in the countryside, all is colorful, while the outside, urban world is tinted sepia. The central part of the film, in which the characters move around the Zone, was shot in a few days at a deserted hydro power plant on the Jägala river near Tallinn, Estonia.
She recites a poem (written by Fyodor Tyutchev), and then lays her head on the table and appears to telekinetically push three drinking glasses across the table, one after the other, with the last one falling to the floor. Stalker s wife and child arrive.
In Roadside Picnic, the Zone is full of strange artifacts and phenomena that defy known science. The shot before they enter the Zone is an old Flora chemical factory in the center of Tallinn, next to the old Rotermann salt storage and the electric plant—now a culture factory where a memorial plate of the film has been set up in 2008.
In the opening and the final scene Beethoven s 9th symphony was removed and in the opening scene in Stalker s house ambient sounds were added, completely changing the original soundtrack in which this scene was completely silent except for the sound of a train. Initially Tarkovsky had no clear understanding of the musical atmosphere of the final film and only an approximate idea where in the film the music was to be. The source of this music is unclear, thus setting the tone for the blurring of reality in the film. The journey to the zone on a motorized draisine features a disconnect between the visual image and the sound.
Not only Rerberg had problems with Tarkovsky, many other crew members were also sent home by him. He has brought a bomb with him, and intends to destroy the room out of fear that it could be used for personal gain by evil men.
The sound becomes louder and clearer over time until the sound and the vibrations of objects in the room give a sense of a train passing by without the train being visible. People who have seen both the first version shot by Rerberg (as Director of Photography) and the final theatrical release state that they are almost identical.
It depicts an expedition led by the Stalker (guide) to bring his two clients to a site known as the Zone , which has the supposed potential to fulfill a person s innermost desires. The title of the film, which is the same in Russian and English, is derived from the English word to stalk in the traditional meaning of approaching furtively and not related to the contemporary meaning of harassing. Throughout the film, the Stalker refers to a previous Stalker, named Porcupine, who led his poet brother to death in the Zone, won the lottery, and then hanged himself.
He concludes that the Zone is to humankind as the picnic s leftovers are to the forest animals; what the aliens carelessly toss aside is beyond our understanding and a source of power and danger. In an interview on the MK2 DVD, production designer Rashit Safiullin describes the Zone as a space in which humans can live without the trappings of society, and can speak about the most important things freely. Some elements of the original novel remain. Vladimir Sharun recalls: Like Tarkovsky s other films, Stalker relies on long takes with slow, subtle movement of camera, rejecting the conventional use of rapid montage.
The second score that was used in the final film was created on a synthesizer along with traditional instruments that were manipulated using sound effects. In addition to the original mono soundtrack a newer, alternative soundtrack remixed in 5.1 surround sound exists. franchise, all taking place in the same Zone and heavily borrowing from the movie: while S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky gathered rather after mixed reviews in 2008, the developer GSC Game World returned with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat in late 2009/early 2010 (EU and US, respectively) which is another hit among fans, generating further exposure for the movie. .
This impressionist use of sound prepares the audience for the dream sequences that is accompanied by a variation of the Stalker theme that has been already heard during the title sequence. During the journey in the zone the sound of water becomes more and more prominent, what combined with the visual image presents the zone as a drenched world. The opening sequence of the film showing Stalker s room is mostly silent.
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. Although not an official tie-in, the 2007 Ukrainian PC game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl borrowed several elements from the film. After multiple arguments, Tarkovsky sent Rerberg home.
As soon as the waterfall appears, the sound of the dripping water falls off while the thundering sound of the waterfall emerges, almost as if time has jumped. Ultimately, Tarkovsky re-shot this movie three times, consuming over 5,000 meters of film.
After the picnickers depart, nervous animals venture forth from the adjacent forest and discover the picnic garbage: spilled motor oil, faded unknown flowers, a box of matches, a clockwork teddy bear, balloons, candy wrappers. The film ends with Monkey alone in the kitchen.
The relation between Rerberg and Tarkovsky suffered tremendously during the production of Stalker . The Stalker goes to a bar, where he meets the Writer and the Professor, who will be his clients on his next trip into the Zone.
The film s main character, the Stalker, works as a guide to bring people in and out of the Zone, to a room which is said to grant the deepest, innermost wishes. This and the previous disconnect of sound and the visual image illustrates the Zone’s power to alter time and space.
For Stalker Artemyev composed and recorded two different versions of the score. Many people involved in the film production had untimely deaths.
This disconnects draws the audience into the inner world of the characters and transforms the physical journey into an inner journey. In Roadside Picnic, the site was specifically described as the site of alien visitation; the name of the novel deriving from a metaphor proposed by a character who compares the visit to a roadside picnic.
It carries clear allusions to Christ (who also called strangers to follow me ) and as some reviewers pointed out, echoes the style of 19th century Russian novels with their bold and passionate heroines. In an interview on the MK2 DVD, the production designer, Rashit Safiullin, recalls that Tarkovsky spent a year shooting a version of the outdoor scenes of Stalker. The film had been shot on experimental Kodak stock with which Soviet laboratories were unfamiliar. Even before the film stock problem was discovered, relations between Tarkovsky and the first cinematographer, Georgy Rerberg, had been in serious deterioration.
The Stalker tests various routes by throwing metal nuts tied with strips of cloth ahead of him before walking into a new area. This effect on the audience is reinforced by Artemyev s synthesizer effects, which make the clanking wheels sound less and less natural as the journey progresses.
Even after he had shot all the material he continued his search for the ideal film score, wanting a combination of Oriental and Western music. The cause is a second disaster in Chernobyl, not alien contact, although it is heavily implied that the monolith is a result of alien interference/presence (though this is later revealed to be a hoax established by the C Conciousness).
A vestige of this idea carries over to the film, in the form of Stalker s habit of throwing metal nuts down a path before walking along it; the characters in Roadside Picnic do something similar when they suspect they are near gravitational anomalies that could crush them. In another sharp contrast, the penultimate scene of the movie is a first person monologue by the Stalker s wife, where she looks directly into the camera and explains, with increasing authority, how she met the Stalker and decided to stick with him. Writer appears concerned that he is losing his inspiration, Professor apparently hopes to win a Nobel prize, the Stalker—who explains that he never visits the room himself—quotes from the New Testament and bemoans the loss of faith in society.
Finding the professor outside, the three are surprised to realize that the have ended up at an earlier point in time. He hoped that it would allow him to make a film that conforms to the classical Aristotelian unity, that is the unity of action, the unity of location and the unity of time. The film departs considerably from the novel.
While the camera pans over the burning ashes of a fire and water while the audience hears the conversation of the Stalker and the writer who are back in the tunnel looking for the professor. Stalker (Russian: Сталкер) is a 1979 science fiction film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, with a screenplay written by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, loosely based on their novel Roadside Picnic.
The Zone is used to describe the area affected by Chernobyl. The game s Anomalies and Artifacts are analogous to the enhanced gravity fields in Stalker, while the golden globe featured in Roadside Picnic and the room in Stalker are represented in the game by The Monolith , a huge object in the destroyed reactor hall of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, which has wish-granting abilities.
Later, when the Stalker s wife mentions she would like to visit the room, he seems to have doubts about the Zone because he tells her he fears her dreams won t be fulfilled. Only after some time, and only slightly audible one can hear the sound of a distant river, the sound of the blowing wind or the occasional cry of an animal.
