"Stalker" Part of the Sarkis Film Series

In conjunction with the exhibition, Sarkis: Alive and After, SFAI will host a series of free public film screenings in the Lecture Hall. The films, selected by Sarkis as those that have influenced his practice, include Wang Bing's rarely screened 10-hour film Tie Xi Qu: West of Tracks. The film screening dates are as follows, all screenings take place at 7:30pm unless otherwise noted: The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet (October 3); The Color of Pomegranates, Sergei Paradjanov (October 10); Ice, Robert Kramer (October 17); Stalker, Andreï Tarkovski (October 24); 1+1 (Sympathy for the Devil), Jean-Luc Godard (October 31); Tie Xi Qu: West of Tracks (Saturday & Sunday, November 4 & 5, 11am-2pm, 2:30pm-5:30pm, 7pm-10pm); The Seasons, Artavazd Pelechian (TBA).

“Stalker”
1979
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
USSR, 1979, color, 161 min.
With Aleksandr Kaidanovsky, Anatoly Solonitsyn
Russian with English subtitles

Conceived in an epic form, Tarkovsky’s film represents the peak of the Russian director’s cinematic career, exemplifying what he called a “poetic, philosophical, and spiritual cinema.” Two disenchanted intellectuals wish to explore the Zone, a mysterious region at the center of which a room, said to offer knowledge of one’s most secret desires, is located. The men hire a stalker for their guide, whose obsession with the Zone takes on religious and mystical overtones.

Film Notes Courtesy of Harvard Film Archive