Cursed Films (2020): Season 2, Episode 3 - Stalker - full transcript

If I'm asked which
Tarkovsky film

I regard most highly,

I will usually answer the one
that I've seen most recently

or the one that I'm watching
right now.

Sometimes I go back and watch
"Ivan's Childhood,"

his very first film, 1962.

With "Andrei Rublev,"

"Solaris,"

"Mirror,"

"Stalker," those films
are indisputable.

"Stalker" is a haunting
Soviet-era



science fiction movie

in which stalkers are figures
who, for a price,

will escort people into
this very dangerous area

called "The Zone."

This zone is considered
to be the site,

possibly, of a UFO landing.

- Or some sort of
extraterrestrial event.

And it has been cordoned off
by the military,

because inside of The Zone,

there exists a place called
"The Room."

And The Room is a place
where you will be granted

your deepest, most cherished
desires.

- Tarkovsky's got a particular
way of making films.

I mean, "Stalker,"
it created a kind of mystery



and a suspense
without any action.

He can hold a shot

so that you start thinking,

what's happening now?

But then the shot becomes
something else.

The shot sort of evolves,

just because of the time
you're actually observing it.

Denis Villeneuve has
a similar sensibility.

Like Carl Dreyer's
"The Passion of Joan of Arc,"

Tarkovsky's camera is really
just concentrating

on the faces of the three
principal actors,

Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy,
who plays the stalker,

Nikolay Grinko,
who plays the scientist,

and Anatoliy Solonitsyn,
who plays the writer.

Stalker" does have this
reputation

being a prophetic film.

It clearly wasn't Tarkovsky's
intention to make a film

about nuclear power
or ecological disaster,

but that's kind of there
in the film.

Of course Tarkovsky
did encourage these

sorts of wild interpretations,

whether it be ecological
disaster,

or as a prediction of Chernobyl.

The myth that
surrounds the movie

becomes almost part of the movie

in some really strange way.

The film is about belief,

and there's been more myth
built up about the film

than actually is
in the actual story.

It really was,
you know, one of cinema's

most difficult shoots.

Problems with the lab
ruining the stock,

people being fired,
the earthquakes.

Since the film has been
completed,

a number of stories have
grown up around "Stalker"

to suggest that a lot
of the crew

actually became seriously ill

during the shooting
of "Stalker."

I don't think those people

that were working on "Stalker"

realized the danger
that they might be in.

Several people that I've met

experienced a central event
in their lives

while working on "Stalker."

When I moved to Chicago,

I started going up
to a used bookstore

that had old Soviet books
that I was interested in,

and I got talking
to the proprietor,

Grigory Verkhovsky.

And only after some time
did I learn

that he had actually worked
on "Stalker,"

and had all these photographs,

had all these stories to tell.

Over the years,
I think "Stalker" has become

the central film in Tarkovsky's
oeuvre for many,

the film that had the greatest
mystique about it.

One of the things
that heightens the mystery,

and the extraordinary
qualities of the movie

is that it was made
in the Soviet era,

in a society that at that time

was officially atheistic,

was ardently materialistic,

and here is a film

with extraordinary
metaphysical themes.

Tarkovsky came across
"Stalker" in 1973,

when he first read the novel,
"Roadside Picnic,"

by the Strugatsky brothers.

It was Tarkovsky's second foray
into science fiction.

He'd made "Solaris,"

based on a novel
by Stanislaw Lem in 1972.

And science fiction was seen
by the Soviet authorities

as a safe genre.

- "Stalker" was beset with
problems from the get-go.

The film was due
to start shooting

towards the end of 1976

in the Soviet Republic
of Tajikistan,

in an area called Isfara.

The first of the film's problems

happened at this point,

there was an earthquake
in that area,

rendering all of the locations
they'd selected

completely unusable.

- So Tarkovsky got his location
scouts to start looking around

in other parts of the Soviet
Union,

and they eventually
settled on Estonia.

When I was a student
in Moscow Film School in 1974,

I was terribly lucky,

because I met my favorite
filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky.

When they came to prepare
the production

of the "Stalker" in Tallinn,

I asked permission
from Tarkovsky

to come to shooting ground
of "Stalker."

And actually I helped him also

to find some locations.

You see these letters.

"U.N." United Nations.

They were painted
for "Stalker" film.

And right here was entrance

into The Zone.

Get closer.

"These letters were
painted on the chimney in 1978,

while shooting Andrei
Tarkovsky's cult movie,

"Stalker."

In the scene with the busy
United Nations soldiers

at the gate of the mysterious
Zone,

the letters can barely be seen
through the smoke and steam.

The plaque was opened
on May 7th, 2008,

to commemorate the 30th
anniversary of this...

very good film."

Let's play the scene
from the "Stalker."

I am on Land Rover,

and the train,

with the two wagons, passed.

So now I... oh! Go.

On the tracks,

now the soldiers notice,

and there was the projector,
very heavy,

like fog and mist.

Land Rover turns
around the corner,

and disappears.

On the shooting ground,

it was strictly not allowed
anybody to take photographs.

So I hid in the bushes
during the rehearsals,

and my first shots were made
through the branches.

I printed the images,

and showed to Andrei.

He was surprised,
and said, "yeah!"

For example, I shot in Mosfilm
Studios,

daydreaming Tarkovsky.

And here, my favorite
cinematographer this time,

Georgy Rerberg,
also on the "Stalker."

I felt like it was second time
going to film school.

I saw how these masters
are doing everything

by their hands.

It was... muah!

Wonderful.

Andrei was very passionate
about cinematic image,

and mise en scène.

But in this case, first time,

he was arranging all
the moments of camera,

and cinematographer
has nothing to do.

- Tarkovsky is, if you like,
the quintessential auteur.

He liked to quote Tolstoy:

"Never trouble others with
what you can do yourself."

The problem with that was
it made Tarkovsky

look a bit like an egomaniac.

- Andrei is behind the camera.

Actors are working before
the camera.

But cinematographer
standing aside,

and scratching his head.

Nothing to do.

So Rerberg started drinking,

fucking around
with the young ladies,

and um,

it made Andrei Tarkovsky mad.

The relations grew worse.

- On top of that, Tarkovsky
apparently had a feeling

that there was something
wrong with the stock.

And he kept asking the lab
to "please check."

They were shooting
already six weeks,

not seeing any rushes.

- For some reason, and I don't
have a good answer why,

um, they did not check
the rushes.

They weren't checking
the rushes.

- Really?

Well, that's...

that seems pretty crazy,
doesn't it?

- Tarkovsky was using
a new batch of Kodak

that had been given to him
by a producer in West Berlin.

The first time they shot
"Stalker" it was on 5247,

which at the time
was a new Kodak stock.

- They did the whole shooting

and then returned to Moscow
to check the rushes.

Finally they were able
to watch the rushes,

and somebody described it as um,

looking at though it had been
shot through an aquarium.

- It was all dark and green.

- But how does that make sense,

when any cinematographer
in the world

would shoot some tests
with the film stock.

Also, because there's one shot
from the original version

which is of this kind of
rolling pollution on a lake,

that is in the final film.

It was certainly not
dark and green.

So they used that shot,

but they're saying
that shot was all right,

but the rest of the footage
wasn't?

So it doesn't make sense.

- So opinions differ on what
the precise problem was.

Tarkovsky professed himself
completely dissatisfied

with the-simply the quality
of the image.

But he refused to continue
working

with what had been shot.

- Hey, I wouldn't put that
past a director

who realized that,

wouldn't it be nice
to shoot it again?

Maybe it was the way
the lab printed it.

Did anybody check the negative?

Now, the negative was burned,
right, later.

So it doesn't exist anyway.

So now the myth can grow
even more, you know?

The myth is so like The Room
in the film isn't it,

you know, it just kind
of expands and takes on

its own sort of dimensions.

- Andrei decided that

Georgy Rerberg is to be blamed.

Other participants
have suggested that

Tarkovsky was using a small
problem

that perhaps was surmountable

in order to get rid
of a cinematographer

he had become dissatisfied with
for one reason or another.

- They spent already
approximately 65%

of the whole budget
of the movie,

and result was very close
to zero.

It was a scandal.

On 23rd of July,

they stopped the production
totally.

After that,
Andrei got heart attack.

Yeah, that's fine.

- He was put to hospital
for four weeks,

and no visitors allowed.

So only thing he could do,

think again why the Hell

the production went so badly.

And I would say...

that director Andrei Tarkovsky
was not ready

to make the film on 1977.

Andrei Tarkovsky had no clarity

what he wants the movie to be.

Even such a genius like
Andrei was,

he's human.
He's not sure.

He's afraid.

He has big doubts.

After heart attack,

he was like a different man.

There was a clarity
in the mind of Tarkovsky.

He reconsidered the full
structure and script,

and the image of "Stalker."

Now director Tarkovsky knew

exactly what he is doing.

Tarkovsky had to go
back on location,

and shoot the entire film again,

on half the money.

With a new cinematographer,

with a mostly new crew,
but with the same cast.

This time, they were checking
the rushes.

- Apart from the earthquake,

the lab ruining the footage,

Tarkovsky having a heart attack,

another problem that beset
the production was sickness.

Tarkovsky himself died of cancer

in 1986 at the age of 54.

This was only seven years
after completing "Stalker."

One of the rivers they
were shooting on

to the east of Tallinn,

had various industrial waste
flowing into it,

and a number of crew members
developed rashes,

and fell sick during production.

Is that a myth or not,

that these number of people died

because they spent those many,
many weeks

kind of lying in the pollution

of these old Soviet factories?

I don't know.

Would you lie in pollution

to work with Tarkovsky?

Uh, I probably would have
done back then, yes.

I probably would've done.

I mean, I do think the man
was a genius.

Maybe if I'd known
it was pollution,

and I was gonna die
30 years later, no.

But in the moment,

and being asked to shoot
a shot up to my...

Up to my waist in this
pollution,

I might well have done it.
I don't know.

Another one of the
strange prophetic aspects

of "Stalker" is that during
the dream sequence,

when the Stalker's wife
is reciting

from the Book of Revelation,
you're going over a gun,

and some medical equipment,

and the van Eyck
Ghent Altarpiece,

you also see a calendar,

a page torn off
from the calendar.

And it says December the 28th,

and it's under the water,
floating like a leaf.

December the 28th, 1986,

was Tarkovsky's last day alive.

Most of the people
who are interested

are-are true afficionados
of you know,

the-the culture of film,

and I guess it's a kind
of a secretive cult,

if you could call it that.

Yeah, cult of Tarkovsky,
or the cult of "Stalker."

People from very
different places

are coming and ask me
to take them into Zone.

During these years
I guided to The Zone,

I'm sure more than
a hundred people.

Now we really get stalking.

That's it.

So, I was interested

in kind of stories of misfits,

and other kinds of stalkers

wandering around you know,
nowadays.

- Now, get in.

- You can still visit
these landscapes,

and feel that you are
inside The Zone.

- Now, we are on the location

one of the first scenes.

Alfa Romeo, three meters.

And the car moved this way.

This is real place
where it happened.

That's it.

Good!

That's it.

- You are standing on it?

Most of the filming was
done in the center of Tallinn.

- Welcome to Stalker Street!

Stalker Kaik.

- Look at these walls.
Come on here.

- And you can still find um,

some of the locations

fairly well preserved.

Coming.

- You can actually sort of
find yourself in...

um, well, The Zone.

- Something... Now I try to get.

Is it now?

"AT," Andrei Tarkovsky.

Do you remember?

We are in the beginning of Zone.

If you remember,

all these war machines
were over there.

And in the film,

no living human creature
except Stalker

never goes there.

Good evening,
this is the CBS Evening News.

Dan Rather reporting.

Every indication is that
it was a serious accident.

The tightly controlled
Soviet government press

calls it a nuclear power plant
reactor accident north of Kyiv.

The Soviets only hinted
at possible casualties.

They say flat out
a reactor was damaged.

Human error stretches
the limits of technology again

when the cooling system in
the Number 4 Power Reactor

at Chernobyl fails,

heating the fuel rods to over
4,000 degrees Fahrenheit,

and causing a massive meltdown.

The buildup of gases
in the reactor

blows the roof off the building,

beginning the rapid spread
of huge clouds

of deadly radiation
into the atmosphere.

- One of the rumors surrounding
"Stalker"

is that it predicted,

or prophesied in some way,

the Chernobyl nuclear
accident in 1986.

There are uncanny parallels
with Tarkovsky's film.

The professor brings
this small bomb into The Zone

with the idea of destroying it.

- The professor in the film

gets the bomb out of
fourth bunker.

- People have pointed out
that at Chernobyl,

it was the fourth reactor
that exploded.

So they're saying,
well, here's Tarkovsky

almost pre-empting the actual
number of the reactor.

But in a way it's the radiation

in the film that is really
the atomic element there,

and that has caused people to
relate the film to Chernobyl,

which happened a few years
later.

When the reactor melted
down in 1986,

the town of Pripyat
was sealed off,

and they created a zone

very much like the zone
in "Stalker."

- I don't know who found
this word,

"stalker," "stalking,"

but now it's extremely popular.

So-called stalkers
are making money

bringing people to zone
of Chernobyl.

And uh,

believe that they will not get
radiation.

They believe.

It's strange.

My name is Oksana.

I'm working as a tour guide
for two years.

Before, officially,
it was a kind of um,

studying trips.

We were like teachers.

This building is the Hotel
Polica,

and this one is right behind it.

It was the city council.

We teach you about radiation.

We teach you about the history
of the place.

But now, officially,

due to the government of
Ukraine, it became a tourism.

- In the early beginning,

there were a lot of people

who were just passionate
because of the film.

And later, of course,

they started to use the words
from the film,

the phrases from the film.

- I am absolutely sure

everybody who goes
to the zone there,

they have seen film "Stalker"
at least five times.

Some of them know it
from the heart, you know?

- So now we are close
to the heart of The Zone.

The Magic Chamber is over there.

Make up your wishes.

All of the rooms of this
power plant

were recreated in Mosfilm
Studios.

What is exactly the same

are these concrete
covered by moss.

It was for me like a pilgrimage.

Because I knew the people,
I knew Andrei.

And many of them already
passed away.

I had very close feeling,

like, years later I went
to Jerusalem,

and visited places where...

Jesus Christ was...

born, buried.

Yeah, pilgrimage.

You see these two windows.

Behind those windows,

this Magic Chamber

where your human dreams
or wishes

will be fulfilled.

This was there.

If you could enter the room,

what would you wish for?

- I was 29 years old,

uh, just graduated film school.

I-I didn't enter the room.

But if I would,

my wish maybe could be
that someday,

I would like to do
really good films

like Andrei Tarkovsky,

on the same level.

Everybody can make up
their own minds

about what The Zone is.

I think this uncertainty
is what captures

people's imagination.

It's a bit like a Japanese
garden or something.

You see the stones around you,

and it's some kind of
a healing experience.

It's-it's a good place
to go to, yeah.

Do you think there's
a magic to the real locations

as there was in The Zone
in the film?

I believe there is something,
yeah.

One young lady asked me,

Arvo, please bring me
to The Zone,

and show me where the Stalker
was laying down.

Her twin sister died
three weeks ago.

I left her there for 20 minutes.

And when we meet after that,

she was totally changed.

She was calm and balanced.

I don't know what happened,

but it is a fact
that she was changed.

That what I saw
with my own eyes.

I have no explanation.