The Cinephiliac Moment: Stalker

           The Cinephiliac Moment is a weekly series in which I choose a moment in a film where cinema reaches transcendence. This moment may be inspired by anything – the composition of the frame, the score, the edit, the narrative – but it is a moment in which cinema becomes something more than entertainment and possibly more than art. Read about the original inspiration for the project here.

 The Leap to Faith - Stalker (1979)

          As someone who grew up with nine years of Catholic school, but no faith whatsoever at the moment, Tarkovsky is the single filmmaker who makes me want to believe in God. His films are about faith and often the test of faith. Can Kelvin believe that something he knows is not his wife is actually his wife? Do we believe the bell maker’s son will actually succeed in creating the tower? Kierkegard wrote about the “leap to faith” that was required of Christianity, and Tarkovsky's Stalker, the filmmaker's greatest, most profound work, not only asks that of us his three wandering travelers, but us viewers. As the three travel by trolley to the Zone, Tarkovsky allows us as spectators to experience the ride into this foreign, truly alien land. The shots focus on the sides of the faces of these men, who simply take in what they see, as we listen to the constant rhythm of the trolley, crossing the tracks. And then, the sounds begin to change. We hear the foreign, alien sounds battle and clash against the Earthly, consistent sounds. There’s no way to describe the sounds – they aren’t mechanical, they just feel not of this world. There’s no rhythm to what we will hear, as the sounds slowly drown out the trolley. The trolley sounds never disappear – these men haven’t given into the Zone yet – but they dissipate, and we give into the sound of space. The Zone may be a land of absurdity, full of rules and logic that are never explained, but must be obeyed. And Stalker asks us to believe. It’s a film about giving into the impossible, even if we can’t see it. But we can hear it as the Zone pulls us in. We can feel its transcendent power; one we cannot see, but one we wish to. We begin to make the leap to faith. 

Watch the clip here.

Screening Log: All Russian All The Time Edition

          No real notes of interest before this week’s screening log, but I’m very glad I sort of on a whim decided to attend Film Society’s Aleksei Guerman retrospective, whose films are completely unavailable on DVD (even though My Friend Ivan Lapshin was a dud after the first half hour and never really improved). Also of note, I was able to see Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia on 35mm at Film Society, and it is shocking how even not a particularly nice print can be better than any DVD (as in comparison to the embarrassing DVD of Stalker I saw last week). But before this becomes my latest rant against digital projection, let’s get to the films:

-Nostalghia, 1983. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. 35mm Projection at Film Society of Lincoln Center.

-Khrustalyov, My Car!, 1998. Directed by Aleksei Guerman. 35mm Projection at Film Society of Lincoln Center.

-Trial on the Road, 1971. Directed by Aleksei Guerman. 35mm Projection at Film Society of Lincoln Center.

-My Friend Ivan Lapshin, 1984. Directed by Aleksei Guerman. 35mm Projection at Film Society of Lincoln Center.

             It’s really interesting to write about Guerman’s Khrustalyov, My Car!, a whirlwind trip through all 9 layers of hell during the end of Stalin in the USSR, because it’s the type of film in which I’m not sure its viewers should have all the context or none whatsoever. What I mean is Khrustalyov, My Car! doesn’t particularly play perfectly for those who aren’t extremely familiar with the history of Russian culture. However, not knowing any of these details still made the film a vivid and inspiring masterpiece in my eyes, perhaps the best film I’ve seen in at least a month (and I’ve seen some real classics).

Screening Log: Ima Let You Finish Tarkovsky Edition

                This week’s screening log is not only late, but also shorter than ever. It’s been one of those weeks. I was all set to write it yesterday and then I couldn’t get into the headspace cause of some non-film things. I’m not really in the headspace now, but perhaps I can take that as a challenge. Of note, the three repertory films (and two current films) marks the first week in which everything was screening in digital. This is sad. If you haven’t, read my piece on the troubling aspects of the North By Northwest DCP.

-2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968: Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Digital 2K Projection at Film Forum.

-North By Northwest, 1959. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Digital 2K Projection at the Museum of the Moving Image.

-Stalker, 1979. Directed By Andrei Tarkovsky. Projected DVD at the New School.

                This was the third time I had seen Stalker, which was part of an event called Tarkovsky Interrupts, in which the film was intermittently paused for discussion by a series of six panelists, organized around Geoff Dyer, who just wrote a book on the film called Zona. I won’t give a full overview—someone more astute than me already did that much better than I can—but here are a few of the notes I took and my own thoughts on this film, which remains my favorite Tarkovsky. I was actually expecting them to stop the movie a couple more times or at least speak longer, but the screening went over length anyways (four hours were allotted).

Screening Log: Laughing at the Apocalypse Edition

            One note before the screening log; for those of you who don’t follow every word about Russian art house cinema, you may not know that Geoff Dyer has published a book on Tarkovsky’s Stalker called Zona. I look forward to reading it soon, especially after J. Hoberman’s review this week. I am particularly excited that next week the New York Institute for the Humanities will be holding a special 4-hour event on Stalker. The film will be played in its entirety, but stopped every half hour for discussion. The panel not only includes Dyer, but the great film critic and essayist Phillip Lopate (a former professor of mine), and Walter Murch, one of the best film editors in the business (best known for his work with Francis Ford Coppola on he Godfather films and Apocalypse Now). There are some others as well, so it should be a unique and interesting event (despite the Twitter ramblings of Glenn Kenny on the inclusion of Dana Stevens). Onto the show:

-The Iron Curtain, 1948: Directed by William Wellman. 35mm Screening at Film Forum.

-The President Vanishes, 1934. Directed by William Wellman. 35mm Screening at Film Forum.

-Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 1964. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Digital 2K Projection at Film Forum.

-Some Like it Hot, 1959. Directed by Billy Wilder. Viewed in HD on Turner Classic Movies.

See Time Come to a Halt...For Free!

Director Andrei Tarkovsky looms over the cinematic canon like death, just always shy of some of the greatest lists, but wholly present there. The Russian director is truly one of the most imaginative of the medium, and watching his films is like watching time slowly collapse on itself, ceding to a world of abstraction. Last year, I reviewed four films by Andrei Tarkovsky when the Film Society at Lincoln Center did a retrospective of his work. I unfortunately did not have time to see the final two films in Tarkovsky’s short, but extremely memorable, career: Nostalghia and The Sacrifice. 

However, now both you and I have a chance to watch all of the Russian director’s works. Thanks to Film Annex, you can watch all seven of Tarkovksy’s feature films. From the wild spirit of Ivan’s Childhood, to the exploration of faith in Andrei Rublev. To the madness of The Mirror, to the complex beauty of Stalker. And of course, Tarkovsky’s most famous film remains his science fiction mystery Solyaris (remade by Steven Soderbergh, which is also one of his best films).

Watching Tarkovsky is to become lost within cinema. He loses you in his narratives with questions you are afraid to answers, shots that seem to bring time to a halt, and performances that can move your soul. His films are by no means easy—they are among some of the toughest films I’ve had to sit through due to the slow nature and difficult dialogue—but they are easily some of the most rewarding films you will ever see.

Ivan’s Childhood

Andrei Rublev (Part 2)

Solaris (Part 2)
The Mirror
Stalker (Part 2)
Nostalghia
The Sacrifice
Voyage in Time

PS: One of Andrei Tarkovsky’s first films was film school was an adaptation of The Killers by Ernest Hemingway, which was made into a truly great movie by Richard Siodmack with Burt Lancaster in 1946. Tarkovsky’s short is brutally dark, and gives a great sense of the potential of this director. You can see it here and here on Youtube.