![]() The Professor admits he hopes to win a Nobel Prize for scientific analysis of the Zone. The Professor seems less anxious, although he insists on carrying along a small backpack. The Writer expresses his fear of losing his inspiration. The Writer is skeptical of any real danger, but the Professor generally follows the Stalker's advice.Īs they travel, the three men discuss their reasons for wanting to visit the Room. He refers to a previous Stalker named "Porcupine", who had led his brother to his death in the Zone, visited the Room, come into possession of a large sum of money, and shortly afterwards committed suicide. The Stalker tests for various "traps" by throwing metal nuts tied to strips of cloth ahead of them. The Stalker tells his clients they must do exactly as he says to survive the dangers which lie ahead and explains that the Zone must be respected and the straightest path is not always the shortest path. They evade the military blockade that guards the Zone by following a train inside the gate and ride into the heart of the Zone on a railway work car. In a rundown bar-café, the Stalker meets his next clients for a trip into the Zone, the Writer ( Anatoly Solonitsyn) and the Professor ( Nikolai Grinko). The area containing the Zone is shrouded in secrecy, sealed off by the government and surrounded by ominous hazards.Īt home with his wife and daughter, the Stalker's wife ( Alisa Freindlich) begs him not to go into the Zone, but he dismissively rejects her pleas. The Zone contains a place called the "Room", said to grant the wishes of anyone who steps inside. The protagonist ( Alexander Kaidanovsky) works in an unnamed location as a "Stalker" leading people through the "Zone", an area in which the normal laws of physics do not apply and remnants of seemingly extraterrestrial activity lie undisturbed among its ruins. In the film, a "stalker" is a professional guide to the Zone, someone having the ability and desire to cross the border into the dangerous and forbidden place with a specific goal. Tarkovsky also wrote "Stalker is from the word 'to stalk'-to creep." in a 1976 diary entry. Their adaptation of the English word into Russian is pronounced slightly differently as "Stullker", and it came into common usage after being "coined" by the authors. ![]() stories, of which both authors were fans. According to author Boris Strugatsky, "prospectors" and "trappers" were potential word choices before "stalker" was decided on, which was at least partially inspired by Rudyard Kipling's character "Stalky" in his Stalky & Co. In Roadside Picnic, "Stalker" was a common nickname for men engaged in the illegal enterprise of prospecting for and smuggling alien artifacts out of the "Zone". The meaning of the word "stalker" was derived from its use by the Strugatsky brothers in their novel Roadside Picnic, upon which the movie is based. The film sold over 4 million tickets, mostly in the Soviet Union, against a budget of 1 million roubles (~$12,277 USD). ![]() Upon release, the film garnered mixed reviews, but in subsequent years it has been recognized as a classic of world cinema, with the British Film Institute ranking it #29 on its list of the "100 Greatest Films of All Time". Stalker was released by Goskino in May 1979. The film was initially filmed over a year on film stock that was later discovered to be unusable, and had to be almost entirely reshot with new cinematographer Alexander Knyazhinsky. The film combines elements of science fiction with dramatic philosophical, psychological and theological themes. The film tells the story of an expedition led by a figure known as the "Stalker" ( Alexander Kaidanovsky), who guides his two clients-a melancholic writer ( Anatoly Solonitsyn) seeking inspiration, and a professor ( Nikolai Grinko) seeking scientific discovery-through a hazardous wasteland to a mysterious restricted site known simply as the "Zone", where there supposedly exists a room which grants a person's innermost desires. ![]() Stalker (Russian: Сталкер, IPA: ) is a 1979 Soviet science fiction art film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky with a screenplay written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, loosely based on their 1972 novel Roadside Picnic. ![]()
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