53 Apparently Tarkovsky personally dragged it with a piece of discreetly painted string.
54 Sound recordist Vladimir Sharun gives a full account of how the film came to end like this: ‘Thanks to Tarkovsky’s passion for anything out of the ordinary a man called Eduard Naumov somehow ended up within our circle…Once Naumov showed us one of his films. The film showed Ninel Sergeyevna Kulagina [who] discovered she had an ability for telekinesis — she moved objects with her sight. On the screen Kulagina, surrounded by a group of people looking like scientists, was sitting behind a table with a transparent top — to avoid any claims of forgery. On the table there was a lighter, a spoon, some other items. Kulagina’s face darkened with exertion, she fixed her unblinking stare on the lighter which followed her gaze. Tarkovsky attentively watched Naumov’s film and after it was finished he immediately exclaimed: “Well, what do you say, here is the ending for Stalker!”’
FILMS BY TARKOVSKY
The Steamroller and the Violin (1960)
Ivan’s Childhood (1962)
Andrei Rublev (1969)
Solaris (1972)
Mirror (1974)
Stalker (1979)
Tempo di Viaggio (1980)
Nostalghia (1983)
The Sacrifice (1986)
DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT— AND FILMIC HOMAGES TO — TARKOVSKY
Moscow Elegy, directed by Aleksandr Sokurov, 1987.
One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich, directed by Chris Marker, 2000. Rerberg and Tarkovsky: The Reverse Side of ‘Stalker’, directed by Igor
Maiboroda, 2008. Ajapeegel, directed by Jeremy Millar, 2008.
BOOKS BY TARKOVSKY
Sculpting in Time, translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair (London: Bodley Head, 1986).
Time Within Time: The Diaries 1970-86, translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair (London: Faber & Faber, 1994).
Collected Screenplays, translated by William Powell and Natasha Synessios (London: Faber & Faber, 1999).
Instant Light: Tarkovsky Polaroids, edited by Giovanni Chiarmonte and Andrey A. Tarkovsky (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004).
BOOKS ABOUT TARKOVSKY
Robert Bird, Andrei Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema (London: Reaktion, 2008).
Nathan Dunne (ed.), Tarkovsky (London: Black Dog, 2008).
John Gianvito (ed.), Andrei Tarkovsky Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2006).
Vida T. Johnson and Graham Petrie, The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).
Mark Le Fanu, The Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky (London: BFI, 1987).
Marina Tarkovskaya (ed.), About Andrei Tarkovsky: Memoirs and Biographies (Moscow: Progress Publishing, 1990).
WEBSITE
nostalghia.com
Notes
There are some unacknowledged quotations and misquotations in the text. Sources for these are listed here, along with the ones that were conventionally presented.
‘THE WORST OF HIS FILMS,’ etc.: interview with Maria Chugnova in Tarkovsky, Time Within Time.
‘A RING AT THE DOOR’: Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Pages from the Goncourt Journals, edited by Robert Baldick (New York: NYRB Classics, 2007).
‘IF THE REGULAR LENGTH’: quoted by Vladimir Goldstein in Nathan Dunne (ed.), Tarkovsky.
‘A LITTLE MORE DYNAMIC’: quoted by Evgeny Tsymbal in Dunne, ibid.
‘I THINK THAT’: Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time.
‘NINETY MINUTES OF SITTING’: Richard Price, Clockers (London: Bloomsbury, 2003; first published 1992).
‘THE WORLD OUTSIDE’: Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History (New York: Doubleday, 2003).
‘A WAY OF LIFE’: Tony Judt,Postwar (London: Heinemann, 2005).
‘THE SOVIET REPRESSIVE SYSTEM’: Applebaum, Gulag.
‘HE’S SUCH A’: Mick Jagger, quoted in Peter Doggett, There’s a Riot Going On (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2007.
‘TOTALLY OUT OF IT’: Vladimir Sharun, interview at nostalghia.com.
‘A MAN’S WORK’: Albert Camus, Selected Essays and Notebooks (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984).
‘MEN SWAGGERING INTO SALOONS’: Don DeLillo, Libra (New York: Viking, 1988).
‘A BOOK ABOUT NOTHING’: The Letters of Gustave Flaubert 1830–1857, edited by Francis Steegmuller (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980).
‘RIGHT IN THE EYES’: Roland Barthes, The Responsibility of Forms (New York: Hill and Wang, 1985).
‘DID NOT MAKE SOLARIS’: Stanislaw Lem, quoted in Robert Bird, Andrei Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema.
‘ON THE THRESHOLD’: Roberto Calasso, K. (New York: Knopf, 2005).
‘SOMEONE EMBARKS’: Billy Collins, Sailing Around the Room (New York: Random House, 2001).
‘BEGAN TO MAKE FILMS’: Ingmar Bergman, quoted in Rerberg and Tarkovsky: The Reverse Side of ‘Stalker’ (film).
‘USING SOME OF HIS TYPICAL’: Wim Wenders, The Act of Seeing (London: Faber & Faber, 1997).
‘TO BEGIN TWO CONSECUTIVE’: Anthony Hecht, quoted in Christopher Ricks, True Friendship (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).
‘HAPPY THE HARE’: The English Auden, edited by Edward Mendelson (London: Faber & Faber, 1977.
‘MAKE VISIBLE WHAT’: Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematographer (London: Quartet Books, 1986).
ROAD TRIP: I got the story about Tarkovsky and the road trip through Utah from Tom Luddy himself. It is broadly corroborated by Zanussi’s reminiscences in Marina Tarkovskaya (ed.), About Andrei Tarkovsky: Memoirs and Biographies.
‘THE UNHOMELY’: Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).
‘RASHIT, THE FLOWERS’: Georgi Rerberg in Rerberg and Tarkovsky: The Reverse Side of ‘Stalker’ (film).
AN AMAZING PLACE…IS NORMAL HERE: slightly adapted from Roberto Calasso, Ka (New York: Knopf, 1998).