wytchcroft: heavent sent (wintry)


Reading Tarkovsky’s diaries once again, it’s interesting to me to read that at one stage he considered a sequel to Stalker. The proposed continuation would see the Stalker turning into a messianic figure, forcibly dragging people to the wishing room. Can, Tarkovsky wonders, people be thus bullied into happiness?

The stalker would become a ‘votary’ and ‘fascist’ (Tarkovsky’s labels).

Of course, this idea was not pursued – perhaps Andrey realised that such contradictions are already implied within the thematic narrative of Stalker. Best to leave the resonance and the questioning to the audience…
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wytchcroft: heavent sent (city)


The Perilous Miracle of Transformation


Like Crustaceans we depend upon... a shell of historic cities

and houses filled with things

belonging to definable portions of the past.

George Kubler, The Shape of Time; Remarks on the History of Things 1962


To bring this exploration of the Zone to a conclusion, I shall first briefly summarise the plot of novel and film and then explore some of the potential thematic elements of both.
wytchcroft: heavent sent (city)
 
The brothers Strugatsky

The second section of the novel Roadside Picnic ends on something of a cliff hanger.
wytchcroft: heavent sent (city)
 

The novel Roadside picnic  by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, begins with a sublime piece of misdirection, an interview with a scientist via Radio, and a classic piece of Russian humour - a swift bit of build up and knock down:

"I suppose that your first serious discovery, Dr Pilman, should be considered what is now called the Pilman Radiant?"
"I don't think so. The Pilman Radiant wasn't the wasn't the first, nor was it serious, nor was it really a discovery. And it wasn't completely mine, either."


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