I'd like to share the following sentiment from none other than the director himself:
"The film needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts."
The problem with that is, it remains pretty boring throughout. I mean, you've got a fifteen minute scene of the three men fearfully walking through a tunnel, afraid every step of the way of what might befall them, and what happens? Pretty much nothing. They get to the end of the tunnel and someone makes another long speech about life, or happiness, or whatever.
So, yeah, I have to say. Overall it's pretty damn boring.
HARUMPH!share
Ikr, there are people talking! In a movie! Horrible!
shareIt's not the talking that is the problem. It is that the talking is a lot of pseudo-intellectual gibberish and that there is no story here.
The ending makes no sense and is unrelated to the rest of the film. This is one of those films where people impose their own ideas on what is a blank canvas.
Wow, I think you worded this perfectly.
Personally I am only 28 and obviously these movies are before "my time" so to speak.
However, from time to time I hear of a "classic" movie that I will give a try but unfortunately most of the time I find them beautifully shot but lacking any real substance.
This poses me with the question of, "what makes this movie (whichever I'm watching at the time) so great to so many people?"
I think a lot of the time these movies are so self-indulgent and nonsensical that depending on people's own thoughts and ideas they project their own meaning into the movie.
Hence you often hear the term, "some people just don't get the movie". I think it's more a matter of you interpreted the movie a different way to someone else.
I suppose if a movie is able to do that it has a certain brilliance about it but at the same time it's really just nonsensical rubbish, isn't it?.
Just my 2 cents...
Stalker is a visual poem, meant to be slowly absorbed, digested, and interpreted. It's not a linear narrative with easy answers and tons of fast fun, like most American films.
It's the difference between Lord Byron and Dr. Seuss.
"Stalker" is a long, contemplative film in which it's as important to consider the visual "language" with which Tarkovsky frames his examination of the human condition. It's not a plot driven film; not even really a character-driven film. The characters, the plot, the landscape, the dog - all are subject to interpretation. Nothing is easy, nothing is spoon-fed, and action is irrelevant.
Anybody who wants action or a fast pace should not be looking to a genius like Andrei Tarkovsky. I'm sure there's a new Michael Bay film coming out any day now.
No you don't. Nope. No sir. I am NOT the type you are implying I am. I am the very antithesis of that person. I despise action movies. I've never even SEEN a Transformers movie, nor will I. Hell, I haven't seen a superhero movie in about 10 years because I'm so damn sick of that crap.
My favorite movies include Amadeus, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and The Color Purple, for Christ's sake!
HARUMPH!share
...and yet you find Tarkovsky boring. Do you also find Kiarostami boring? Haneke? Bergman? Bahrani? All directors with "slow"-paced films that preference art, philosophy, and poetry over action. Is "The Wages of Fear" boring since 2 of its 3 hours are just trucks driving?
You complained about a lack of action. With "Stalker", that's sort of one of the points...
I found Stalker a bit boring, yes. That doesn't mean I find all Tarkovsky boring, or will find I should say because I think Stalker is the only one I've seen so far.
I happen to like Bergman very much, now that you bring him up.
Sorry, though. I haven't seen The Wages of Fear yet.
HARUMPH!share
:shrug: To each their own I suppose. I was glued to the screen when I first saw a (very beat up) print of Stalker back in the early 2000s.
Just seems strange that you're indicting the movie for lacking action and being "boring". That's pretty much every Tarkovsky offering except "Ivan's Childhood", and perhaps "Andrei Rublev" and "Solaris", depending on how much action you need and how slow an artsy/poetic/philosophical film has to be for you to consider it boring.
I consider Solaris a notch below Alexander Nevsky (Eisenstein) as two of the five best Russian films ever made, period. In fact Eisenstein's talkies are pregnant with long slow takes the ADHD cannot stand fidgeting through. But Stalker was all image, thin substance.
~ Native Angeleno
Bergman films are slow and intellectual like Tarkovsky, however the only difference is Bergman's films have a pulse while Tarkovsky films feels hallow in the inside. Tarkovsky is all about "Hey look what I can do with this camera".
shareStalker is such beautiful because of its slow pace, and it's beautiful soundtrack is almost magical.
share"It's not a linear narrative"!!!
Good contemplative beautiful juicy-slooow films are my favorite. But the philosophical discussions were 100% linear. Surface, flat, Thought A leading to Thought B and so on all the way to Thought U, with 1000 frames of unmoved and unmoving minutes in between. These discussions were very typically Russian, positing a lot of concepts taken for granted as worth hearing (unreal in a spiritual sense) from which more concepts peculiar to Russian flat surface linear philosophy ensue, like a debate interesting, if that, only to its participants. I found Stalker the worst of Tarkovsky's films, in fact his only dud. He seemed to me straining to come up with profundity that never arrived. Long slow takes do not necessarily a deep experience create.
~ Native Angeleno
i saw it about a year ago, and in retrospect none of the discussions made any impact on me, but the imagery did... i thought all the long, slow takes made for expansive beauty, if not for intellectual depth... it certainly wouldn't have worked if they had not shot at so beautiful a location, and so skillfully. i do remember the stalker's wife's monologue, though... i thought that was excellent, and think the beauty of the film would have been better complemented by more emotion and less discourse. but perhaps i will get more out of the arguments on a second viewing.
sharei saw it about a year ago, and in retrospect none of the discussions made any impact on me, but the imagery did... i thought all the long, slow takes made for expansive beauty, if not for intellectual depth... it certainly wouldn't have worked if they had not shot at so beautiful a location, and so skillfully.
I prefer the Sam Fuller approach:
"If a story doesn't give you a hard-on in the first couple of scenes, throw it in the goddamn garbage."
--- grethiwha -------- My Favourite Films:
http://www.imdb.com/list/Bw65XZIpkH8/
I actually didn't find one bit of it boring. And when the three men arrive at their location, how could you not be fascinated by their every move? So many unexpected things seemed to be waiting to happen.
I can get you a toe by 3 o'clock this afternoon. With nail polish.
I thought it was excellent at the beginning, but then it got a bit duller while inching towards the ending.
Did IQ's just drop sharply while i was away?
I think this film is a masterpiece, but let's be honest here, the action never really starts. The film is slow all the way through (not in a bad way though).
shareI'd like to share the following sentiment from none other than the director himself:
"The film needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts."
It was never boring , you were just not in the flow.
shareThe problem with "boring" as a criticism is it's bereft of insight. Similar to its antithesis "edge of my seat" hyperbole...it merely explains what the viewer was experiencing. Without explanation, by itself, it's just subjective prattle.
On a personal level I'd say I do find most of Tarkovsky's films unentertaining, which shouldn't be conflated with boring. Entertainment, however, isn't the only reason I watch movies, so I'm very willing to stick with his movies because they can be so engaging.
Well said.
shareI have found Tarkovsky's films brilliant, including his equally "slow/boring" The Mirror. Stalker? As if one of his early films before he figured out what was lacking to get the finished product beyond the superficial.
~ Native Angeleno
I'd like to share the following sentiment from none other than the director himself:
"The film needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts."