Speaking of Soviet era scifi, I recently read Roadside Picnic, which Tarkovsky's amazing movie Stalker and the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series of video games are loosely based off of. It was, like you would...
Speaking of Soviet era scifi, I recently read Roadside Picnic, which Tarkovsky's amazing movie Stalker and the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series of video games are loosely based off of. It was, like you would expect from Soviet era literature, so much more bleak than any comparable Western European and North American scifi I have read from the same period.
The basic premise was really unique and interesting, too. Without giving too much away, it's a story of Alien "invasion" only when the Aliens visited Earth, instead of doing any of the standard scifi trope stuff, the event was basically that of a Roadside Picnic. That is to say they showed up, barely noticed the humans who were tantamount to ants to them, did whatever Alien travelers with insanely advanced technology do when visiting another world (which just so happened to wipe out a huge swath of the human population in the thankfully remote area), and left a bunch of trash behind when they left. The story is about "stalkers" that go in to the exceptionally dangerous wasteland left behind by the Alien invasion in order to recover this alien trash (also usually exceptionally dangerous, but also exceptionally powerful) in order to sell them on the black market. I highly recommend reading it.
Does anyone else know of any other particularly interesting Soviet era scifi that is worth reading?
The end of roadside picnic even broaches optimism :p. Other things to read: Hard to be a God again from the Strugatsky's, Stanislaw Lem's Solaris (much better than any of the movie adaptations...
The end of roadside picnic even broaches optimism :p.
Other things to read: Hard to be a God again from the Strugatsky's, Stanislaw Lem's Solaris (much better than any of the movie adaptations imo), Zamyatin's We (essentially an OG 1984)
Awesome, thanks for the recommendations! And nice, I didn't realize Tarkovsky's Solaris (and the incredibly terrible American remake) was also based on a book.
Awesome, thanks for the recommendations! And nice, I didn't realize Tarkovsky's Solaris (and the incredibly terrible American remake) was also based on a book.
Side discussion: I don't get the hype behind the movie Stalker. This is coming from a guy who loves slow moving sci-fi like 2001 and Blade Runner. Spoilers ahead: In Stalker nothing ever happens....
Side discussion: I don't get the hype behind the movie Stalker. This is coming from a guy who loves slow moving sci-fi like 2001 and Blade Runner.
Maybe I'm just a cinema philistine (and that's fine for me), but I don't understand why Stalker is so heavy on praise despite what feel like obvious shortcomings. Is there a specific aspect that bears a rewatch?
Well I can't speak for everyone, but for me Stalker was thoroughly enjoyable more for the incredible atmosphere, evocative imagery, flawless cinematography, bleak aesthetic and the pure artistic...
Well I can't speak for everyone, but for me Stalker was thoroughly enjoyable more for the incredible atmosphere, evocative imagery, flawless cinematography, bleak aesthetic and the pure artistic expression of it, moreso than for its plot. It's painfully slow if what you're expecting from it is any traditional film structure or pacing, but if you watch it purely for the experience then it can really draw you in like not many other films can. The only other films I can honestly think of that similarly managed to draw me in despite unconventional film structure were The Holy Mountain by Jodorowsky and the "documentary" Koyaanisqatsi.
TL;DR - Stalker is for film nerds and cinemaphiles. ;)
The thing with Stalker, and Tarkovsky, in general, is that he's more interested in leading the viewer to an altered state of mind in which is possible to draw exoterical connections. The problem...
The thing with Stalker, and Tarkovsky, in general, is that he's more interested in leading the viewer to an altered state of mind in which is possible to draw exoterical connections. The problem with this technique is that, much like hypnosis, it doesn't work with everyone. Especially if you watch it with some typical expectations, like, for example, the three-act structure, rational explanations, plausible causality etc.
Also: the water has a mystical meaning for Tarkovsky, it's prominent in all his movies. I think (my interpretation here...) it's the paradox of something that is at the same time perfect and subject to change. The water is perfect in its motion, but how can something perfect require change? It is a metaphor for God itself.
Ooh... that's not a bad idea and a subject I had never really considered reading anything about before, even though I watch a lot of Film theory and more "pretentious/artsy" movie review YouTube...
Ooh... that's not a bad idea and a subject I had never really considered reading anything about before, even though I watch a lot of Film theory and more "pretentious/artsy" movie review YouTube channels (and movies). Thanks. And it's definitely up my alley, Tarkovsky is amongst my favorite directors (along with Kurosawa, Jarmusch and Lynch).
Oh, you're gonna love Sculpting Time. It is a book dense with feeling, beautiful in every page and extremely personal. You should know that Tarkovsky was extremely religious, but in a way that is...
Oh, you're gonna love Sculpting Time. It is a book dense with feeling, beautiful in every page and extremely personal. You should know that Tarkovsky was extremely religious, but in a way that is very very different from what a western person would associate with the word "Christian". He was much closer to the mystical theology of someone like Meister Eckhart. He's a lot like Bergman (they admired each other's work), but Bergman comes from a Lutheran background and works his whole life to distance himself from superstitious beliefs, while Tarkovsky responded to his orthodox background by going even deeper in a mystical experience that transcends religion itself. Trust me: it is nothing like the hippie new-age image an American would draw from those references, and worth the read even if you are not a person of faith. It's more like Plato than Deepak Chopra ;)
That sounds super interesting, so I will definitely be picking it up now for sure. Thanks again! And speaking of Bergman, he is a director I have seriously neglected. To my shame, the only movie...
That sounds super interesting, so I will definitely be picking it up now for sure. Thanks again! And speaking of Bergman, he is a director I have seriously neglected. To my shame, the only movie of his I have watched is The Seventh Seal. Since you seem familiar with him (moreso than I am at least), any recommendations?
It's more like Plato than Deepak Chopra ;)
Thank FSM for that! Plato is amazing but Chopra (and his fan-base) genuinely make me wonder if we truly can survive as a species. ;)
Cool! Glad you enjoyed my comment! So Bergman was a straight-up genius, but he probably made more movies than he should, so there are some stinkers in there. I'd advise watching his movies for...
Cool! Glad you enjoyed my comment!
So Bergman was a straight-up genius, but he probably made more movies than he should, so there are some stinkers in there. I'd advise watching his movies for pure entertainment, don't try to "philosophize" or interpret them too much. Just watch, enjoy yourself. If something seems boring, maybe that's because it is. Hit stop without guilt. Yes, there are lots of philosophical content there, particularly existentialism, but, to me, what makes Bergman special is that he was probably the best actors director that ever lived. Woody Allen spent half his career successfully copying Bergman's techniques. With that in mind, I have some suggestions:
Persona: this movie has the most erotic scene in the history of film, in which every character is fully clothed.
Cries & Whispers: it's like a horror movie that makes we fear ourselves.
The Virgin Spring: a "regular" film (in terms of dialogue and structure) about a very current moral conundrum. One of the best "it's good to feel really awful movies".
The Devil's Eye: This movie is far from Bergman's best, but I love it because it 's a comedy (very rare for him!) and I think it says a lot about Bergman's background and his troubled relation with religion (he's basically a conflicted atheist who never stops talking about religion, which I find interesting).
Fanny and Alexander: this movie is 100% biographical, and it's kind of the key to understand Bergman's entire career, where his obsessions come from. There's a beautifull making-off in which you see him actually crying when the child actors reenact a scene from his childhood. It's beautiful, especially for me, because at this point in my like I feel like Bergman is part of my family... corny but true :P
Wild Strawberries: an old professor revisits the memories of his youth. Probably the best example of flashbacks used right. Only one other filmmaker comes close: Sergio Leone. If you're not one of those, it's best to avoid them :D
A good way to understand Bergman is to watch Woody Allen trying to do a Bergman film, and succeeding. I suggest you watch these:
September
Another Woman (which, in my opinion, is a better Bergman than Bergman ever was...)
Crimes and Misdeamors
Many people draw links between Bergman, existentialist philosophy and psyhoanalisis. That is possible, but please don't do that at first. Watch the movies. Feel them. Not because there's no philosophy in Bergman, but because, as a philosopher, Bergman was quite mediocre. As a filmmaker, though, he was a fucking giant.
Wow, that response was so much more than I could have hoped for (or realistically expect) Thanks a lot for taking to time to write all that and recommend so many movies for me to watch. I...
Wow, that response was so much more than I could have hoped for (or realistically expect) Thanks a lot for taking to time to write all that and recommend so many movies for me to watch. I genuinely appreciate that and really look forward to finally diving in to Bergman.
It's weird... I remember enjoying the The Seventh Seal a great deal, and I am very aware of Bergman, the praise he receives and his impressive body of work... but for some reason never took the time to watch more of his movies. And have no worries, I typically watch a movie once just for the "feel" of it, then psychoanalyze later (or on the second watch, if I really enjoyed a film and suspect there is more to it that I missed the first time). So I suspect Bergman will be perfect for me.
p.s. Is Bergman your favorite director? You certainly seem to know a great deal about him.
One step ahead of you... Coherance was great! ;) I definitely agree about Zemeckis and Eastwood... though unlike you I absolutely have a favorite director; Kurosawa (though Nicolas Winding Refn is...
One step ahead of you... Coherance was great! ;)
I definitely agree about Zemeckis and Eastwood... though unlike you I absolutely have a favorite director; Kurosawa (though Nicolas Winding Refn is gaining ground at a rapid pace) and Dreams is easily my all time favorite of Kurosawa's films. You should check it out if you haven't already seen it. It's a series of vignettes that are all absolutely gorgeously shot and incredibly emotionally evocative. The Blizzard one in particular still haunts me.
That's awesome. I always had a hard time with Kurosawa. And I think I'd have a hard time with Tarkovsky today. My attention span is lessening with my age. I don't know what is going on, isn't it...
That's awesome. I always had a hard time with Kurosawa. And I think I'd have a hard time with Tarkovsky today. My attention span is lessening with my age. I don't know what is going on, isn't it supposed to go the other way around? :P
Speaking of Soviet era scifi, I recently read Roadside Picnic, which Tarkovsky's amazing movie Stalker and the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series of video games are loosely based off of. It was, like you would expect from Soviet era literature, so much more bleak than any comparable Western European and North American scifi I have read from the same period.
The basic premise was really unique and interesting, too. Without giving too much away, it's a story of Alien "invasion" only when the Aliens visited Earth, instead of doing any of the standard scifi trope stuff, the event was basically that of a Roadside Picnic. That is to say they showed up, barely noticed the humans who were tantamount to ants to them, did whatever Alien travelers with insanely advanced technology do when visiting another world (which just so happened to wipe out a huge swath of the human population in the thankfully remote area), and left a bunch of trash behind when they left. The story is about "stalkers" that go in to the exceptionally dangerous wasteland left behind by the Alien invasion in order to recover this alien trash (also usually exceptionally dangerous, but also exceptionally powerful) in order to sell them on the black market. I highly recommend reading it.
Does anyone else know of any other particularly interesting Soviet era scifi that is worth reading?
The end of roadside picnic even broaches optimism :p.
Other things to read: Hard to be a God again from the Strugatsky's, Stanislaw Lem's Solaris (much better than any of the movie adaptations imo), Zamyatin's We (essentially an OG 1984)
Awesome, thanks for the recommendations! And nice, I didn't realize Tarkovsky's Solaris (and the incredibly terrible American remake) was also based on a book.
Side discussion: I don't get the hype behind the movie Stalker. This is coming from a guy who loves slow moving sci-fi like 2001 and Blade Runner.
Spoilers ahead:
In Stalker nothing ever happens. Despite the stalker's vigilance and admonishments, his charges traipse through the Zone with little consequence for such a blasé approach. Walk through an abandoned house, go backwards, run through a dangerous tunnel: everyone is excited but otherwise fine. Since said charges are experts in their relative fields, they arrogantly talk past each other for most of the movie while the curmudgeonly stalker offers third party commentary that's pretty much ignored by the author and scientist. The director opted for several excruciating takes with flowers, doorways, phone poles, or nearby concrete structures taking up more than a third of the screen for several minutes. There just aren't any metrics where I could recommend the movie to anyone.
Maybe I'm just a cinema philistine (and that's fine for me), but I don't understand why Stalker is so heavy on praise despite what feel like obvious shortcomings. Is there a specific aspect that bears a rewatch?
Well I can't speak for everyone, but for me Stalker was thoroughly enjoyable more for the incredible atmosphere, evocative imagery, flawless cinematography, bleak aesthetic and the pure artistic expression of it, moreso than for its plot. It's painfully slow if what you're expecting from it is any traditional film structure or pacing, but if you watch it purely for the experience then it can really draw you in like not many other films can. The only other films I can honestly think of that similarly managed to draw me in despite unconventional film structure were The Holy Mountain by Jodorowsky and the "documentary" Koyaanisqatsi.
TL;DR - Stalker is for film nerds and cinemaphiles. ;)
The thing with Stalker, and Tarkovsky, in general, is that he's more interested in leading the viewer to an altered state of mind in which is possible to draw exoterical connections. The problem with this technique is that, much like hypnosis, it doesn't work with everyone. Especially if you watch it with some typical expectations, like, for example, the three-act structure, rational explanations, plausible causality etc.
Also: the water has a mystical meaning for Tarkovsky, it's prominent in all his movies. I think (my interpretation here...) it's the paradox of something that is at the same time perfect and subject to change. The water is perfect in its motion, but how can something perfect require change? It is a metaphor for God itself.
Not exactly, but Sculpting Time is a daunting attempt at film theory by Tarkovsky that would greatly move someone with your sensibilities.
Ooh... that's not a bad idea and a subject I had never really considered reading anything about before, even though I watch a lot of Film theory and more "pretentious/artsy" movie review YouTube channels (and movies). Thanks. And it's definitely up my alley, Tarkovsky is amongst my favorite directors (along with Kurosawa, Jarmusch and Lynch).
Oh, you're gonna love Sculpting Time. It is a book dense with feeling, beautiful in every page and extremely personal. You should know that Tarkovsky was extremely religious, but in a way that is very very different from what a western person would associate with the word "Christian". He was much closer to the mystical theology of someone like Meister Eckhart. He's a lot like Bergman (they admired each other's work), but Bergman comes from a Lutheran background and works his whole life to distance himself from superstitious beliefs, while Tarkovsky responded to his orthodox background by going even deeper in a mystical experience that transcends religion itself. Trust me: it is nothing like the hippie new-age image an American would draw from those references, and worth the read even if you are not a person of faith. It's more like Plato than Deepak Chopra ;)
That sounds super interesting, so I will definitely be picking it up now for sure. Thanks again! And speaking of Bergman, he is a director I have seriously neglected. To my shame, the only movie of his I have watched is The Seventh Seal. Since you seem familiar with him (moreso than I am at least), any recommendations?
Thank FSM for that! Plato is amazing but Chopra (and his fan-base) genuinely make me wonder if we truly can survive as a species. ;)
Cool! Glad you enjoyed my comment!
So Bergman was a straight-up genius, but he probably made more movies than he should, so there are some stinkers in there. I'd advise watching his movies for pure entertainment, don't try to "philosophize" or interpret them too much. Just watch, enjoy yourself. If something seems boring, maybe that's because it is. Hit stop without guilt. Yes, there are lots of philosophical content there, particularly existentialism, but, to me, what makes Bergman special is that he was probably the best actors director that ever lived. Woody Allen spent half his career successfully copying Bergman's techniques. With that in mind, I have some suggestions:
Persona: this movie has the most erotic scene in the history of film, in which every character is fully clothed.
Cries & Whispers: it's like a horror movie that makes we fear ourselves.
The Virgin Spring: a "regular" film (in terms of dialogue and structure) about a very current moral conundrum. One of the best "it's good to feel really awful movies".
The Devil's Eye: This movie is far from Bergman's best, but I love it because it 's a comedy (very rare for him!) and I think it says a lot about Bergman's background and his troubled relation with religion (he's basically a conflicted atheist who never stops talking about religion, which I find interesting).
Fanny and Alexander: this movie is 100% biographical, and it's kind of the key to understand Bergman's entire career, where his obsessions come from. There's a beautifull making-off in which you see him actually crying when the child actors reenact a scene from his childhood. It's beautiful, especially for me, because at this point in my like I feel like Bergman is part of my family... corny but true :P
Wild Strawberries: an old professor revisits the memories of his youth. Probably the best example of flashbacks used right. Only one other filmmaker comes close: Sergio Leone. If you're not one of those, it's best to avoid them :D
A good way to understand Bergman is to watch Woody Allen trying to do a Bergman film, and succeeding. I suggest you watch these:
(which, in my opinion, is a better Bergman than Bergman ever was...)
Many people draw links between Bergman, existentialist philosophy and psyhoanalisis. That is possible, but please don't do that at first. Watch the movies. Feel them. Not because there's no philosophy in Bergman, but because, as a philosopher, Bergman was quite mediocre. As a filmmaker, though, he was a fucking giant.
edit: add more films
Wow, that response was so much more than I could have hoped for (or realistically expect) Thanks a lot for taking to time to write all that and recommend so many movies for me to watch. I genuinely appreciate that and really look forward to finally diving in to Bergman.
It's weird... I remember enjoying the The Seventh Seal a great deal, and I am very aware of Bergman, the praise he receives and his impressive body of work... but for some reason never took the time to watch more of his movies. And have no worries, I typically watch a movie once just for the "feel" of it, then psychoanalyze later (or on the second watch, if I really enjoyed a film and suspect there is more to it that I missed the first time). So I suspect Bergman will be perfect for me.
p.s. Is Bergman your favorite director? You certainly seem to know a great deal about him.
One step ahead of you... Coherance was great! ;)
I definitely agree about Zemeckis and Eastwood... though unlike you I absolutely have a favorite director; Kurosawa (though Nicolas Winding Refn is gaining ground at a rapid pace) and Dreams is easily my all time favorite of Kurosawa's films. You should check it out if you haven't already seen it. It's a series of vignettes that are all absolutely gorgeously shot and incredibly emotionally evocative. The Blizzard one in particular still haunts me.
That's awesome. I always had a hard time with Kurosawa. And I think I'd have a hard time with Tarkovsky today. My attention span is lessening with my age. I don't know what is going on, isn't it supposed to go the other way around? :P