Acquired Taste
“It was not a case of love at first sight: the first time I saw Stalker I was slightly bored and unmoved. I wasn’t overwhelmed (to put it slightly stupidly, I had no idea that, thirty years later, I would end up writing an entire book about it), but it was an experience I couldn’t shake off. Something about it stayed with me.” Geoff Dyer, Zonatzal.org
The World Shown
It’s not—as Stalker claimed—that all the world’s a prison; it’s just that a lot of what’s being shown on the world’s screens—televisions, cinemas, computers—is fit only for morons. Which is another reason why, in the long years since I first saw Stalker, I am as badly in need of the Zone and its wonders as any of the three men on the trolley as they sit there and the blurry landscape clangs past. The Zone is a place of uncompromised and unblemished value. It is one of the few territories left—possibly the only one—where the rights to Top Gear have not been sold: a place of refuge and sanctuary. A sanctuary, also, from cliché. That’s another of Tarkovsky’s virtues: an absolute freedom from cliché in a medium where clichés are not only tolerated but, in the form of unquestioning adherence to convention, expected. Geoff Dyer, ZONA.
YouTube
Stalker montage
Some breath-taking visions from the film of Andrei Tarkovsky. I took the music and sounds from the film too.
YouTube
Stalker trailer for the 2017 restoration
First time I watched Stalker was on VHS (a double tape feature) in a 14 tube TV. So I guess it was a bit blurry.
tzal.org
Writting and Money
“I sometimes think writers’ love of money is purer than that of hedgefund managers or bankers; only serious writers really appreciate the delicious, improbable perfection of getting paid.” Geoff Dyer, Zona