A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.
- Awards
- 2 wins & 2 nominations
- Marta, doch Stalkera
- (as Natasha Abramova)
- Sobesednitsa Pisatelya
- (as F. Yurna)
- Patrulnyy politseyskiy
- (as R. Rendi)
- Professor
- (voice)
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDirector Andrei Tarkovsky spent about a year shooting all of the exterior scenes with cinematographer Georgi Rerberg using Kodak 5247 film. This film stock was newer to Soviet laboratories of the time, and some of the original negatives were destroyed by a processing error at the laboratory. Part of the film had to be shot again with a new cinematographer, Aleksandr Knyazhinskiy. This contributed to the film's two-part narrative structure. Allegedly, the newly shot footage strayed farther away from the source novel Roadside Picnic, and had a different look. Asked about this, director Tarkovsky said "no mother gives birth to the same child twice."
- GoofsAt about 23 minutes, when Stalker, writer and professor are driving in their car they have to hide for a motorcyclist. In the scene the motorcyclist comes from the right. From an opposite angle of view, he still comes from the right, where it should have been from the left.
- Quotes
Stalker: May everything come true. May they believe. And may they laugh at their passions. For what they call passion is not really the energy of the soul, but merely friction between the soul and the outside world. But, above all, may they believe in themselves and become as helpless as children. For softness is great and strength is worthless. When a man is born, he is soft and pliable. When he dies, he is strong and hard. When a tree grows, it is soft and pliable. But when it's dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Flexibility and softness are the embodiment of life. That which has become hard shall not triumph.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Distant (2002)
- SoundtracksLa Marseillaise
Written by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle
A teacher and a scientist wish to go to a restricted patch of nature - the mythical conscious "Zone" - to make their wishes come true. To enter the area and survive its numerous danger, they hire a man sensible to the Zone's thoughts and actions, a Stalker. What they find there turns out to be very different from what they expected, as they come to discover who they truly are.
There's only so much you can say without getting drowned in details that would appear heavy-handed on paper but flow seamlessly on screen. Quite often, Tarkovsky reduces his characters to silence, letting their movements and eyes convey their thoughts and feelings and letting the viewer bring his own thoughts and beliefs to the film. One of STALKER's many treats is that it invites you to get carried away into your own thoughts, flowing with the images as it provides new questions to ponder... In that sense, the film is very much like a philosophical poem: a very simple surface covering innumerable layers of meaning. Yet the images Tarkovsky provides - whether filming landscapes or wide-shots or simply peering into his actors' extraordinary faces - make this almost hypnotic.
STALKER is a treasure: an invitation to go on a mental ride with a poet and philosopher. A film that makes you wonder more about yourself yet without making you anxious. The few existing films like STALKER are the reason why cinema is called "art"!
- OttoVonB
- Oct 16, 2005
Details
Box office
- Budget
- RUR 1,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $292,049
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $11,537
- Sep 15, 2002
- Gross worldwide
- $395,274
- Runtime2 hours 42 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1