History Film / STALKER

Our three main characters meet in a bar outside The Zone. They are only named by their professions; Stalker, Writer, and Professor. Stalker is both the protagonist and also the name of a class of semi-professional guides, skilled at infiltrating the security cordon surrounding The Zone, and avoiding the many hazards within it. He regards The Zone with something close to religious awe, and treats it as a temperamental Deity to be appeased and wondered at. Writer is an urbane, fashionable, cynical author with a drink problem. He complains that he has lost his inspiration, and wishes to regain it via the power of The Room. Professor is a taciturn physicist, who appears to have no particular reason to visit The Zone, and a small backpack that he is very attached to.

-->-- A popular recap of unknown origin

''Stalker'', or ''СТАЛКЕР'' in the original Russian, is a 1979 Creator/AndreiTarkovsky ScienceFiction film shot in Estonia. It is an adaptation (albeit a very loose one) by the Creator/StrugatskyBrothers of their earlier science-fiction story ''Literature/RoadsidePicnic''.

The film takes place in and around a devastated partially-industrialised landscape called The Zone. At the centre of The Zone we are told, lies a location called The Room, which is said to grant the deepest desires of those strong enough to make it there, avoiding the numerous hazards for which the Zone enjoys a fearsome and lethal reputation.

Our three main characters meet in a bar outside the Zone. They are only named by their professions; Stalker, Writer, and Professor. Stalker is both the protagonist and also the name of a class of semi-professional guides, skilled at infiltrating the security cordon surrounding the Zone, and avoiding the many hazards within it. He regards the Zone with something close to religious awe, and treats it as a temperamental Deity to be appeased and wondered at. Writer is an urbane, fashionable, cynical author with a drink problem. He complains that he has lost his inspiration, and wishes to regain it via the power of The Room. Professor is a taciturn physicist, who appears to have no particular reason to visit the Zone, and a small backpack that he is very attached to.

* TheAlcoholic: Writer is the first to the bar, is refused spirits and so buys beer as if that doesn't count. Stalker later tips away Writer's booze stash (hidden under Writer's decidedly NotSoBadassLongcoat).

* AppliedPhlebotinum: The disruption of reality in the Zone.
* ArtShift: From sepia in the town to color in the Zone.

* TheCakeIsALie: Does the Room grant you your deepest desire? Only Porcupine would know, but even though he became rich, he killed himself because he sent his brother to his death. Nobody else is known to have gone into the Room and had their wishes granted.

* DeliberatelyMonochrome: Like other Tarkovsky films. The monochromatic[=/=]sepia town scenes contrast with the colorful Zone.

* DysfunctionJunction: Stalker has just returned from prison, presumably having been sent there for illegally going into the Zone. His daughter, Monkey, is crippled. Writer has come to the Zone because he no longer feels inspired in his writings. Professor wants to get a Nobel Prize and be respected by other academicians. Stalker's wife, despite arguing with Stalker, is the closest in the film to a happy person because she is the only person whose wishes have been granted.

* EliteMooks: Averted by The Zone security forces. They are generally more interested in television, and hosing civilian vehicles with machine gun fire

* FailedASpotCheck: One of the soldiers trying to prevent people from approaching the Zone sees Stalker's car, but does not think that Stalker is hiding under the car.

* FollowTheLeader: The critical reception of ''[[ASpaceOdyssey 2001: A Space Odyssey]]'' may have factored into the creation of ''[[Film/{{Solaris 1972}} Solaris]]'' and this film.

* GeoEffects: The shortest route between two points within the Zone is '''never''' in a straight line. Oh, and never attempt to retrace your steps.
* HaveAGayOldTime: The film's usage of "stalking" to mean "to steal past something", as it happens, is etymologically more accurate.

* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: The soldiers patrolling the Zone cannot hit Stalker's slow-moving Land Rover, but they do manage to wreck their own electrical equipment.

* LegacyCharacter: Stalker. All Stalkers lead people into the Zone, and when one leaves the job, their apprentice becomes Stalker.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: It's generally left pretty ambiguous as to whether The Zone really does have all the fantastical qualities that Stalker claims [[spoiler:(primarily since all the characters opt not to enter The Room when they finally reach it)]].
** The last scene offers a perfect encapsulation of this: [[spoiler: a glass slowly slides across a table; it could be the Stalker's daughter using telekinesis, or just vibrations from passing traffic.]]
* MysteriousWaif: Stalker's daughter Monkey, apparently able to move glasses by force of will as an effect of the Zone.
* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: One of the rooms in the Zone is called the "meat mincer."
* NegativeSpaceWedgie: The Zone has mysterious properties, including the ability to kill people and wreck technology. The most dramatic example is when the trio enter the Zone and see the wreckage of dozens of army tanks.

* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname[=/=]OnlyOneName: Stalker implies it is safer for everyone in case they are arrested that no-one knows anyone else's name, although the trend encompasses almost the entire cast: Stalker, Writer, Professor, Luger, Monkey, Teacher (or Porcupine).
* OhCrap: Writer decides to go off on his own until a disembodied voice [[spoiler: actually it's The Zone]] shouts at him to "Stop right where you are!"

* PublicDomainSoundtrack: OdeToJoy and Ravel's "Bolero".

* RealIsBrown: Used as a metaphor, where the world outside the Zone is (mostly) filmed in washed-out sepia tones.

* SceneryPorn: Almost anywhere inside The Zone, the [[spoiler: exploded tanks, artillery, and incinerated corpses of the armies sent to surround the Zone]] notwithstanding

* StateSec: The stormtroopers assigned to patrol the Zone.
* TheStoic: Professor is not upset by the challenge to modern science that the Zone presents. He even lands a few rhetorical punches on Writer following his little speech about truth.

* UnknownPhenomenon: The Zone, not unlike [[Film/{{Solaris 1972}} Solaris]].

* CharacterTitle

'''''Stalker''''', or ''СТАЛКЕР'' in the original Russian, is a 1979 Creator/AndreiTarkovsky ScienceFiction film shot in Estonia. It is an adaptation (albeit a very loose one) by the Creator/StrugatskyBrothers of their earlier science-fiction story ''Literature/RoadsidePicnic''.

* [[spoiler:NukeEm]]: [[spoiler:The Professor wants to destroy the Room using his nuclear bomb to prevent it from being used ForTheEvulz. However, he [[AvertedTrope gives up the plan]] and disassembles the bomb after the Writer has a revelation about the Room]].

Our three main characters meet in a bar outside the Zone. They are only named by their professions; Stalker, Writer, and Professor. Stalker is both the protagonist and also the name of a class of semi-professional guides, skilled at infiltrating the security cordon surrounding the Zone, and avoiding the many hazards within it. He regards the Zone with something close to religious awe, and treats it as a temperamental Deity to be appeased and wondered at. Writer is an urbane, fashionable, cynical author with a drink problem. He complains that he has lost his inspiration, and wishes to regain it via the power of The Room. Professor is a taciturn physicist, who appears to have no particular reason to visit the Zone, and a small backpack [[spoiler: containing a small nuclear bomb]] that he is very attached to.

''Stalker'', or ''СТАЛКЕР'' in the original Russian, is a 1979 Creator/AndreiTarkovsky ScienceFiction film shot in Estonia. It is an adaptation (albeit a very loose one) by the Creator/StrugatskyBrothers of their earlier science-fiction story ''Literature/RoadsidePicnic''.

!!This film contains examples of the following tropes:

* DoingItForTheArt: Some beautiful scenery shots were created by painting the real landscape in desired color scheme. Yes, the film crewmembers actually were dyeing the grass and trees.

* ProductionPosse: Anatoly Solonitsyn, one of Tarkovsky's frequent collaborators, appeared as the Writer.

* TheAlcoholic: Writer is the first to the bar, is refused spirits and so buys beer as if that doesn't count. Stalker later tips away Writer's booze stash (hidden under Writer's decidedly non-BadAssLongcoat).

* LeaveTheCameraRunning: Director's trademark.

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The Meat Mincer.

* RealIsBrown: The world outside the Zone is (mostly) filmed in washed-out sepia tones

* TroubledProduction: Tarkovsky spent a year shooting the film in Estonia with cinematographer Georgy Rerberg, using an exerimental filmstock from Kodak. The two argued constantly over the script, with Rerberg constantly pressing for rewrites. It was later discovered that all the footage sent back to Moscow had been improperly processed at the laboratory, and Rerberg left the production by simly walking out of the screening room and never coming back. Tarkovsky managed to convince Mosfilm to start all over again as two-part film but with half the budget, with each part being released a month apart--the film is usually seen nowadays as a whole, with an interval. Production designer Rashit Safiullin claims the final version was very different to the original footage, but other crew members who worked on both shoots claim they were almost identical. Other problems included having to recreate the remains of the troops sent into the Zone with only five tanks when the original shoot had twelve, and the fact that some of the locations were polluted with Toxic waste; the "snow" in one scene was actually an irritant chemical spewed out of a chemical works across the river. Many of the cast and crew, including Tarkovsky himself, later contracted cancer as a result.

* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Porcupine]].

* ProductionPosse:

* AuthorAvatar: Stalker.

* OnlyOneName: Stalker implies it is safer for everyone in case they are arrested that no-one knows anyone else's name, although the trend encompasses almost the entire cast: Stalker, Writer, Professor, Luger, Monkey, Teacher (or Porcupine).

* TroubledProduction: The original print of the movie was destroyed in a fire, forcing Andrei to shoot the whole thing all over again. [[NoBudget That's the reason]] why he had to abandon a more lavish production (like the one he did with his earlier ''Film/{{Solaris|1972}}'') and retool the film into a more cerebral and looser adaptation of the novel.
** StrugatskyBrothers had to write ''thirteen'' versions of the script until they nailed the one which satisfied both them and the director.

** StrugatskyBrothers had to write ''thirteen'' versions of the script until they nailed the one which satisfied both them and the director.
* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic: According to WordOfGod, a black hound is just a black hound.

* DoindItForTheArt: Some beautiful scenery shots were created by painting the real landscape in desired color scheme. Yes, the film crewmembers actually were dyeing the grass and trees.

* StalkerWithoutACrush

[[{{Stalker}} The video game of the same name]] could be said to be loosely inspired by this film. Very loosely. It is more correct to say that they share some features in common because they draw on the same original inspiration.

[[{{Stalker}} The video game of the same name]] could be said to be loosely inspired by this film. Very loosely. It is more correct to say that they share some features in common because they draw on the same original inspiration, the Strugatski Bros. novel RoadsidePicnic.

[[{{Stalker}} The video game of the same name]] could be said to be loosely inspired by this film. Very loosely. It is more correct to say that they share some features in common because they draw on the same original inspiration.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Having dodged the security forces, our heroes treat us to five minute-long studies of the backs of each other's heads as they ride a motorized draisine into the Zone.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk1PxpZ-hfE The train sequence]] is also a CrowningMomentOfAwesome for some, accompanied by CrowningMusicOfAwesome.
*** The sound effect of the train clacking along the rails blends seamlessly into the music.
** [[LeaveTheCameraRunning Long, slow sequences]] in which nothing really happens are Tarkovsky's SignatureStyle.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome:
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl8VEzJZmNU The main theme]] by EduardArtemyev
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZPrfx9-qyc The train]]
** "Bolero" by Ravel
** "Ode to Joy" at the end.

* HarsherInHindsight: Stalker's wife describes his crippled daughter as "a gift from The Zone." The locations for the outdoor scenes were heavily polluted, and several people on the crew suffered illnesses and untimely deaths.

* TrueArtIsIncomprehensible: The utter lack of exposition makes the entire film open to a wide variety of interpretations (though it does follow the basic plot and themes of the novel fairly faithfully).

* TheWoobie: Stalker bemoans the lack of 'magic' in the modern world, gets upset when people fail to pay the Zone appropriate respect, and generally walks around halfway between panicky tears and childish stroppiness.