‘EVERYTHING, AFTER PASSING THROUGH’: Miguel de Unamuno, Tragic Sense of Life. (In the English edition — translated from the Spanish — the first use of ‘film’ is given as ‘cinematograph show’; hence the change!)
‘THE EXCELLENT ACTING OF THE DOG’: Kenzaburo Oë, A Quiet Life (London: Picador, 1998).
‘PLANTS AND ANIMALS’: Bélas Balázs, quoted in Robert Bird, Andrei Tarkovsky.
‘POSING’: Donatas Banionis, quoted in Bird, ibid..
‘FANTASTIC DOG’: Knyazhinsky, interview, bonus extra, on Stalker DVD.
‘ONLY THAT WHICH’: Tarkovsky, interview with Guerra at nostalghia.com.
‘MAKE THE OBJECTS LOOK’: Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematographer.
‘FINAL MIRACLE’: Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time.
‘TOO SELFISH’: Philip Larkin, ‘Wild Oats’, Collected Poems (London: Faber & Faber, 1988).
‘A RUSSIAN ANGEL’: Olga Surhova, quoted in Rerberg and Tarkovsky: The Reverse Side of ‘Stalker’ (film).
‘HERE YOU LIVE’: Rashit Safiullin, interview, bonus extra, on Stalker DVD.
‘THANKS TO TARKOVSKY’S’: Vladimir Sharun, interview at nostalghia.com.
‘ONE OF THE GLASSES’; Kenzaburo Oë, ‘The Guide (Stalker)’, in A Quiet Life.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Mark Cousins, Tom Luddy and Chris Mitchell for reading an early version of the manuscript and making helpful suggestions and corrections. I am particularly grateful to Tom for furnishing me with information about Tarkovsky’s trip to Telluride.
A few passages from this book first appeared, in very different form, in the Guardian. I am grateful to Michael Hann for commissioning and publishing that piece.