Seems like you should just watch the movie and not make a new topic about it.
See for yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rswYl7RLRNE
Many of the topics you post sound like troll threads. Banal, obvious, and repetitive.
What does it matter to you? It’s just as banal of you to comment on your disdain towards my thread. If you have nothing positive to contribute then I don’t why you should have a need to say anything.
It just seems inane of you in my opinion to focus on your disapproval of other people’s threads
Go ahead and start a thread criticizing my threads if its so important to you
I can just as easily say that, often—not always—your thread posts ‘have nothing to say’, or that they’ve been said before ad nauseum here.
I’ll go ahead and apologize and give you the benefit of the doubt. I’m sure I misspoke. But there have been several attacks on this site in the past year and, honestly, your thread titles fit the profile.
I’m not trying to be an ass just to be an ass. I have a deep, respectful love for this site.
So asking a simple question directed towards people who may have seen a film about a film I haven’t seen is an attack? Give me a break
The number of them threw up a red flag. Look—if I’m the asshole here, I apologize, but I still sat this particular question seems odd.
One piece of advice that would secure against these kinds of suspicions: use the Search box at top right for existing threads to add to, rather than create repetitive threads.
For example, there is a lengthy and fascinating thread about Stalker on this site that is worth reading. If I had just seen it and posted (without searching) a new thread about just one aspect of it, I’d be cheating readers of the thread of the context of the larger conversation.
Savvy?
@charlesdegaulle
I don’t see anything wrong with your thread or other threads that you have started. I think people here are jumpy about threads like this because they seem like bait to get people riled up. Again, my impression is that you’re not doing that, but there are people who do that here.
Btw, I can’t remember this scene, so I can’t really help. Sorry about that.
Fair enough. Sorry if I jumped the gun. All sincere voices are welcome here.
Feel free to shoot me an IM if you wan to talk about this some more.
Well, troll or no troll, this topic is kind of dumb. The DVD is widely available. It’s on youtube. Go see for yourself.
best part about the scene is the electronic music on the soundtrack.
No, no, no, no! Don’t look at the scene on youTube. This won’t give any indication of what a marvelous film this is. Bad advice. It is an interesting scene and there are guesses as to the reason for it floating around the internet. I don’t know if any of them are true, but one thing I do know is you should rent the film and see it in it’s entirety. While your at it, check out some other Tarkovsky too if you can.
Charles,
the big deal on the travel sequence is that it stands in for space travel in a contemporary time, looking forward into a future using the materials of the present—just like Godard’s use of architecture in Alphaville. Similarly, it happens immediately following an intense philosophical debate the main character is privvy to, thus creating a sort of emotional introspection following a scene of heavy dialog. It also is a surprisingly abstract and compellingly alternative way of looking at modern transit systems, in the same way that many images in the movie alienate or make numinous common materials seen in day-to-day life (like the graphic match between the weeds under water and the planet Solyaris, creating a sense of Solyaris existing on Earth long before the ending reveals the artificial construction of all Earth habitation).
All of these aspects being somewhat obvious and much easier to discuss in more detail and without the vague spoilers if you’ve seen the movie, as well as not standing on any sort of dialog if you do not also have a way of interpreting it for yourself.
And yes, whereas getting new members with a passion for cinema is always a good thing, sometimes redundant and/or repetitive threads can be frustrating and turn off conversation with people who’ve been here a while and feel they’ve already exhausted all conversation on the subject, as well as being wary of troll attacks especially recently. A good way to not attract this negative attention is to search for related forum threads, especially since as someone who has not participated in the conversation and the shared dialogs that bleed over into other threads, you may have a fresh and new idea to bring to the table in previously existing threads.
—PolarisDiB
I felt like a real douche about the way I comported myself in this thread last night. I sent an apology to Charles and I hope he returns.
I believe in calling an asshole an asshole, and last night it was me.
Sorry y’all.
J
One of my favorite things about that scene is that it somehow convinces me what I’m seeing is futuristic even though it’s just some old highway with cars from the 1970s. It’s totally bizarre, because I never think I’m watching something from this present time and world, it gets the same effect Blade Runner strove for with big sets and special effects.
Violence! Violence!
I had read that Tarkovsky had wanted the driving scene to look pretty futuristic, so he went to Tokyo, a city far more technologically advanced than anything in Russia, and went through all the Soviet bureaucracy to get the permit to film there. Apparently it was an unusually long and expensive process, and supposedly that’s why the scene is so long – Tarkovsky wanted to justify having gone through so much trouble to film it. Whether that’s true or not, it works incredibly well in the film. It does look really futuristic, and, let’s face it, if you’re okay with the other 2 hours and 35 minutes of the film you’re not gonna have too much of a problem with 10 minutes of driving.
I heard somewhere that he put the scene ther to weed out the phiistines from the movie theater- as a test to see who was smart enough to stay and who was dumn enough to leave. I’ve also heard that a lot of people waked out during that scene at Cannes. So, I guess it worked.
^For the above post, I’m going to need sources before I believe it.
No offense but I have just heard nothing about that before, and Solyaris was one of the first research essays of film I’ve ever done (fun fact! Blade Runner was the first!).
—DiB
I don’t know if this has been considered, but my first impression was this was in response to Kubrick’s scene of Bowman going through the time gate. A kind of poor-man’s version of it. Perhaps even mocking Kubrick.
Honestly, I don’t think Tarkovsky would ever do any of this stuff. Have you read his book, Sculpting in Time? He wasn’t like Godard. He didn’t believe in screwing with the audience or throwing barbs or mocking other directors in his work. He probably would have deemed it “immoral”. Seriously, this guy was dead serious about his work. It doesn’t “mean” anything or is in contrast to anything. The experience is the experience.
Charlesdegaulle
I have never seen the film, but, more than anything else, I hear about this one sequence. What’s the big deal?