References

Books:

Albrecht, G., Sartore, G-M., Connor, L., Higginbotham, N., Freeman, S., Kelly, B., Stain, H., Tonna, A., & Pollard, G. (2007). “Solastalgia: the distress caused by environmental change”. Australasian Psychiatry 15 (1): S95-S98

Baudrillard, Jean; Guillaume, Marc. (2008 ed.) Radical alterity. Trans. By Ames Hodges. (Cambridge, Mass and London: MIT Presss)

Beaudrillard, Jean. (1983) Simulations.trans. by Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman. (Semiotext[e]: Columbia University)

Bauman, Zygmund.(1995) Life in fragments. Essays in Postmodern Morality. (Blackwell – Oxford & Cambridge USA)p. 82-83, 105

Bell, Catherine. (1992). Ritual theory. Ritual practice. (Oxford University Press – Oxford) – p.42

Bruner, Jerome. (1990). Acts of meaning. (Harvard University Press – Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England.)

Dudley, Andrew J. ed. (1976). The major film theories. An introduction. (Oxford University Press: London, Oxford, New York)

Leviton, Richard (2005) – Encyclopedia of Earth Myths. (Charlottesville, VA – Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.)

Maslow, Abraham H. (1968). Towards a Psychology of Being. 2nd edition. (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold)

Potter, Cherry. (2001) Screen Language. From film writing to film-making. (Methuen – London)

Pramaggiore, Maria; Wallis, Tom. Film. A critical introduction. 2nd ed. (Laurence Koing Publishing Ltd.- London.)

Van Leeuwen, Theo. (1999). Speech, Music, Sound. (Macmillan Press Ltd. – Hampshire and London)

Film:

‘Solaris‘ (1972) Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky

‘Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky’ (1988) Dir. Michal Leszczylowski

Internet:
prison [accessed on 20.10.2009]

Local Interstellar Cloud [accessed on 27.10.2009]

Lang, Silke Berit. “The Impact of Video Systems on Architecture”, dissertion, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 2004″ – [from: prison accessed on 20.10.2009]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Terminology [accessed on the 31.10.2009]
/ɒmˈnɪsiəns/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloid – accessed on 2.11.2009 [accessed on 2.11.2009]

image of Rembrandt’s painting ‘The return of the prodigial son’. [image attached above, sourced from: http://www.milligan.edu/bible/PKenneson/return-prodigal-son.jpg

image of the ocean on Solaris – included in the i-map: http://thinkulacrum.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/picture-4.png

image of Kris and Hari in ‘Solaris‘ sourced from: http://www.leftfieldcinema.com/files/images/solaris3.jpg

Study diary

I chose to analyse the excerpt from ‘Solaris’ because its philosophical perspective intrigued me. Also I felt that Tarkovsky’s prestige demands a closer look and in-depth investigation so I can say that it represented a challenge.

Although I only started my research in the second week, I got to rewatch the film and take notes in the first week. I was familiar with the subject but it has been about 5 years since I had seen it. There are many subjects to analyse and the fact that the entire movie provides such complex issues for debate further contributed to my enthusiasm. I started by jotting down the ideas and connections with psychological ans social aspects that the dialogue in the excerpt connoted to. By further connecting those elements to the diversity of messages that the film presents I got to feel closer to understanding Tarkovsky’s intention and see his contribution to the story. The message was transformed for me from the initial psychological field and the sci-fi implications and connections to the thirst for knowledge through to seeing the message of the film as a possible grand-scale metaphor of the experience of death (along with the idea of coming to terms with the human condition and accepting vulnerability) – transgression towards another realm, towards an Unknown that we can only experience at its own time.

I wanted to back-up my ideas but at the same time I was glad to see that, while doing the research other ideas have arised and informed my exploration.

Due to more personal circumstances I wasn’t able to devote as much as I would have wanted to the completion of the blog and ended up with yet unanswered questions, but I will make up for it with further research for the wiki.

• Audience/ Impact

1/ What Reality is the film outlining?

‘Phenomenologically the terms ‘internal’ and ‘external’ have little validity. But in this whole realm one is reduced to mere verbal expedients – words are simply the finger pointing to the moon. One of the difficulties of talking in the present day of these matters is that the very existence of inner realities is now called in question. By ‘inner’ I mean our way of seeing the external world and all those realities that have no ‘external’, ‘objective’ presence – imagination, dreams, phantasies, trances, the realities of contemplative and meditative states, realities that modern man, for the most part, has not the slightest direct awareness of. ’ Laing, R.D. (1981, 1st ed. 1967). The politics of experience and the bird of paradise. (Penguin Books – Middlesex, England).- p.115

2/ How did the general public react to the film’s message at the time of the release and what are the views on it now?

I tried to find information on the Internet as well as in books but I couldn’t find something saftisfactory to respond to this question, other than simply stating the fact that Solaris was:

Nominated for the Golden Scroll Best Science Fiction Film
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
Year Result: 1977

Awarded the FIPRESCI Prize: Cannes Film Festival 1972
Award Category/Recipient(s): Andrei Tarkovsky

Awarded the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes Film Festival 1972
Recipient(s): Andrei Tarkovsky

Nominated for the Golden Palm at Cannes Film Festival 1972
Recipient(s):Andrei Tarkovsky

(information sourced from:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069293/awards  – accessed on 11.11.2009)

5/ What about in the attempt to communicate with the/an alien entity?

‘Theoretically, no limits can be set to the field of consciousness, since it is capable of indefinite extension. Empirically, however, it always finds its limit when it comes up agains the unknown. This consists of everything we do not know, which, therefore, is not related to the ego as the centre of the field of consciousness. The unknown falls into two groups of objects: those which are outside and can be experienced by the senses, and those which are inside and are experienced immediately. The first group comprises the unknown in the outer world; the second the unknown in the inner world. We call this latter territory the unconscious. (Collected Works, C.G. Jung, ii, p2)
(…) Besides these we must include all more or less intentional repressions of painful thoughts and feelings. I call the sum of all these contents the ‘personal unconscious’. But, over and above that, we also find in the unconscious qualities that are not individually acquired but are inherited, e.g., instincts as impulses to carry out actions from necessity, without conscious motivation. In this ‘deeper’ stratum we also find the … archetypes… The instincts and archetypes together form the collective unconscious.’ – – by C.G. Jung – [originally published in Collected Works – p. 270 ] – quoted in Jung, C.G. (). Word and Image (1977). (ed. By Aniela Jaffe). Bollingen Series XCVII: 2. (Princeton University Press – New Jersey, USA) – p. 230

4/ What role does uncertainty play in human interaction/ communication?

Bauman, Zygmund.(1995) Life in fragments. Essays in Postmodern Morality. (Blackwell – Oxford & Cambridge USA):
page 82: “Identity is a critical projection of what is demanded and/or sought upon ‘what is, with an added proviso that it is up to the ‘what is’ to rise, by its own effort, to the ‘sought/demanded’; or, more exactly still, identity is an oblique assertion of the inadequacy or incompleteness of the ‘what is’. Identity entered modern mind and practice dressed from the start as an individual task. It was up to the individual to find an escape from uncertainty.”
page 83: “’We are pilgrims through time’ was under the pen of St.Augustine not an exhortation, but a statement of fact. We are pilgrims whatever we do, and there is little that we can do about it even if we wished. Earthly life is but a brief overture to the eternality of the soul. Ultimately, it is not where we are destined to be – and only that part of ours that is destined to be elsewhere is worth of concern and care.
Only a few would wish, and have the ability, to compose that brief earthly overture themselves, in tune with the music of the heavenly spheres – to make their fate into a consciously embraced destiny. These few would need to escape the distractions of the town. The desert is the habitat they must choose.”
page 105: “In human life, fear is no news. Humanity knew it from its inception; few would find a place close to the top in any imaginable shortlist of humanity’s most conspicuous characteristics. Each era of history had its own fears which set it apart from other epochs; or rather, each gave the fears known to all epochs names of its own creation. These names were concealed interpretations; they informed of where the roots of feared threats lay, what one could do to keep the threats away, or why one could do nothing to ward them off. After all, another of humanity’s most conspicuous traits is that cognitive and conative faculties intertwine so closely that only people called philosophers, well trained in the art of separation, can take them apart and imagine one without the other. The threats themselves seem to have been always, stubbornly, the same. Sigmund Freud classified them once for all time:
“We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations with other men.” – [Sigmund Freud, civilization and its Discontents, trans. Joan Riviere (London: Hogarth Press, 1973), p.14.]”
page 106: “The constant principle of all strategies that had been deployed through history to make life with fear liveable was that of shifting the attention from things one can do nothing about, to things one can thinker with; and to make the thinkering energy – and time-consuming enough to leave little room (better still none at all) for the worry about things no thinkering could change. A pocketful of small coins with which to buy little graces allowed the putting off of the moment of confrontation with existential insolvency. Each era minted its own coins, as each era made different graces worth seeking or imperative to seek.”

Page 106: “Fears of Panopticon – Certainty and transparency are often presented as the ‘project’ of modernity. Under closer scrutiny, though, they look more like unanticipated products of crisis-management than preconceived tenets. Modernity itself looks more like an enforced adjustment to a novel and unforeseen condition, that a contrived ‘project’. Modernity emerged as involuntary, no-choice response to the collapse of the ancient regime – a type of order which did not, need not think of itself as an ‘order’, let alone as a ‘project’. It can be narrated as a story of long and inconclusive escape from the great terror which that collapse brought its wake. The name of the terror was uncertainty, lack of understanding, not knowing how to go on.” – (author’s own (highlits?) … )
—> “The Panopticon is a type of building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the “sentiment of an invisible omniscience.” – from: Lang, Silke Berit. “The Impact of Video Systems on Architecture”, dissertion, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 2004″ – [from: prison accessed on 20.10.2009]

Baudrillard, Jean; Guillaume, Marc. (2008 ed.) Radical alterity. Trans. By Ames Hodges. (Cambridge, Mass and London: MIT Presss)
Page 112: — making a reference to Sartre’s Being and nothingness: “—Intelligence of the world, the self and the Other is an open, borderless intelligence. Here the Other is understood to be partially irreducible to the self, eternally incomprehensible (Segalen), both radically different and similar, or supposed to be. The Other is the source of the incomprehention that, instead of blocking thought, keeps it moving indefinitely, eliminating any hope of absolute knowledge. This intelligence of the Other should be understood as it is in the expression “intelligence with the enemy”. It is a limitless intelligence because it always leaves something behind: incomprehension.” – Marc Guillaume

Omniscience (or Omniscient Point-of-View in writing) is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known
about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc. In monotheism, this ability is typically attributed to God. The God of the Bible is often referred to as “The Great I Am,” among other similar names, which also incorporates His omnipresence and omnipotence. This concept is included in the Qur’an, where God is called “Al-‘aleem” on multiple occasions. This is the infinite form of the verb “alema” which means to know. In Hinduism, God is referred to as sarv-gyaata (omniscient), sarv-samarth (omnipotent) and sarv-vyapt (omnipresent) gyaata (knowing).
From: /ɒmˈnɪsiəns/)

“…everything we know about Solaris has come to resemble a mountain of disointed, incoherent facts that strain credulity”

We get to imagine the experience of the astronaut, realize the addition of doubt and question what we can give an account of with certainty – after Berton’s testimony, when a scientist concludes that Berton’s statements “appear to be the result of a hallucinatory compley brought on by the planet’s atmosphere, as well as symptoms of depression exacerbated by (the) inflammation of the associative zone of the cerebral cortex. This report is in almost no way corresponding with Reality.”

There is a strong political inuendo, along with the mentioning of the ‘interrogation’ of Berton.

“Orbital and Nuclear – The nuclear is the apotheosis of simulation. Yet the balance of terror is nothing more than the spectacular slope of a system of deterrance at the heart of the media, of the inconsequential violence that reigns throughout the world, of the aleatory contrivance of every choice which is made for us. The slightest details of our behaviour are ruled by neutralised, indifferent, equivalent signs, by zero-sum signs like those which regulate “game strategy” (but the genuine equation is elsewhere, and the unknown is precisely that variable of simulation which makes the atomic arsenal itself a hyperreal form, a simulacrum which dominates us all and reduces all “groundlevel” events to mere ephemereal scenarios, transforming the only life left to us into survival, into a wager without takers – not even into a death policy: but into a policy devaluated in advance.)” Beaudrillard, Jean. (1983) Simulations.trans. by Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman. (Semiotext[e]: Columbia University) p. 58
“The nuclear system is both the culminating point of available energy and the maximisation of systems controlling all energy. Lockdown and control grow as fast as (and undoubtely even faster than) liberating potentialities. This was already the aporia of modern revolutions. It is still the absolute paradox of the nuclear system. Energies freeze by their own fire power, they deter themselves. One can’t really see what project, what power, what strategy, what subject could possibly be behind this enclosure, this vast saturation of a system by its own hereafter neutralized, unusable, unintelligible, non-explosive forces – except the possibility of an explosion towards the centre, or an implosion where all these energies are abolished in a catastrophic process (in the literal sense, that is to say in the sense of a reversion of a whole cycle towards a minimal point, of a reversion of energies towards minimal threshold.)” Beaudrillard, Jean. (1983) Simulations.trans. by Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman. (Semiotext[e]: Columbia University) p. 74

3/ Why did he say that love was ‘unattainable’ to mankind until today?

If we regard ‘today’ as the moment of a person’s death, then     the answer appears clear: to Kris the only moment when we     can have a realistic perspective, and when we can relate       ourselves to the souls that we are connected to we understand Love. It is first from the perspective of his family, then of romantic love, then of the country and of the earth altogether… so that in the end it becomes the realisation that to show your emotion, recognition and respectfullness in front of Love you need to cross the boundaries of the individual… towards loving the collective.. and going beyond those differences mentioned in the prior post. It is at this point that the soul is in need of beeing redeemed; therefore we get to see the new life appearing; the new plant by the window… starting to grow, we get to hear the words ‘it’s time for you to go back on Earth’… and we see the ending image of Kris embracing his father at his feet, similar to the Rembrandt’s painting ‘The return of the prodigial son’. [image attached above, sourced from: http://www.milligan.edu/bible/PKenneson/return-prodigal-son.jpg ]

2/ To whom is Kris addressing his question/statement : ‘See, I love you!’ ?

‘… emphasis began shifting from “meaning” to “information”, from the construction of meaning to the processing of information. These are profoundly different matters. The key factor in the shift was the introduction of computation as the ruling metaphor and of computability as a necessary criterion of a good theoretical model. Information is indifferent with respect to meaning. In computational terms, information comprises an already precoded message in the system. Meaning is preasigned to messages. It is not an outcome of computation nor is it relevant to computation save in the arbitrary sense of assignment. Information processing inscribes messages at or fetches them from an address in memory on instructions from a central control unit, or it holds them temporarily in a buffer store, and then manipulates them in prescribed ways: it lists, orders, combines, compares precoded information.’ Bruner, Jerome. (1990). Acts of meaning. (Harvard University Press – Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England.) p. 4

‘With mind equated to program, what should the status of mental states be – old-fashioned mental states identifiable not by their programmatic characteristics in a computational system but by their subjective marking? There could be no place for “mind” in such a system-“mind” in the sense of intentional states like believing, desiring, intending, grasping a meaning.’ Bruner, Jerome. (1990). Acts of meaning. (Harvard University Press – Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England.) p. 8

 

Kris is gazing through the window at the ovean – if we consider the mirror metaphor then we can say that he is looking into his own soul. He is waiting for a confirmation after his afirmation, although it is rethorical. He is actually stating that he loves Life, he loves being human… he has tried to Love mankind but it’s as if it didn’t matter in the ‘eyes of mankind’. By comparing himself to Tolstoy he presents his attempt to approach a different view.

His conclusion though is that in the end Tolstoy’s affirmation is confirmed, that it’s difficult to embrace mankind as a whole because of all the differences. In the Library scene Hari is at one point stating that they ‘are all human but in different ways...’ this sums up Kris’s puzzlement, and presents the fact that the intrinsic quality of being human spans and is shaped individually. They each understand Lifde from a different persoective, have different goals, emotions, backgrounds, fears. While Solaris has the ability of metamorphosing ‘itself’ into all the various ‘alien characters’; Visitors – a human being can find trouble understanding the person close to him, even the person that he loves the most. The subtlety is very deep here, but manages to create the contour of Solaris when compared to Kris – the man.

 

 

 

 

1/ Why does Kris feel the need to reassure himself that ‘what is indispensable to life’ cannot also be harmful to it?

Psychological data and human values: “Full humanness can be defined not only in terms of the degree to which the definition of the concept ‘human’ is fullfilled, i.e., the species norm. It also has a descriptive, cataloguing, measurable, psychological definition. We now have from a few research beginnings and from contless clinical experiences some notion of the characteristics both of the fully evolved human being and of the well-growing human being. These characteristics are not only neutrally describable; they are also subjectively rewarding, pleasurable and reinforcing. Among the objectively describable and measurable characteristics of the human specimen are –
1. Clearer, more efficient perception of reality.
2. More openness to experience
3. Increased integration, wholeness and unity of the person.
4. Increased spontaneity, expressiveness; full functioning; aliveness.
5. A real self; a firm identity; autonomy, uniqueness.
6. Increased objectivity, detachement, transcendence of self.
7. Recovery of creativeness.
8. Ability to fuse concreteness and abstractness.
9. Democratic character structure.
10. Ability to love, etc.”
Maslow, Abraham H. (1968). Towards a Psychology of Being. 2nd edition. (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold) p. 156

By presenting a ‘dismal’ and ‘suspect’ perspective of Life, Kris is defining his anguish. His observation regards the experience of Love, and its implications regarding abandon and loneliness. The human qualities of fragility are not only physical, they are also psychological. We cannot point a finger on the source of suffering when we experience sentimental ‘pain’, yet it is a unique quality that man can experience.

What are the metaphors of the film and what archetypes do they relate to?

Metaphors and Archetypes:

“As with dreams, memories and fantasies, metaphors and archetypes are also part of the continuous, complex and diffuse nature of our everyday experience. They are concepts which are fundamental to all art forms. Many film-makers find that the very first idea or inspiration for a new project often comes into their mind in the form of an image that is also a metaphor. The metaphor grounds the idea in visual form and frequently acts as guiding light throughout the writing and fim-making process. (…) A metaphor is a compressed similarity. In film it is an image or sound which has both a literal meaning and at the same time suggests another meaning through resemblance, implication or association with something else. The power of the metaphor derives from the relevance and compression of the comparison. (…) It is through metaphor that we experience depth, complexity, insight and most importantly, unity – the way all things interpenetrate. This process of recognition and identification clarifies and affirms what we feel our experience to be and connects us to the larger whole. This connection with something much larger than ourselves and the specifics of our unique experience, through the microcosm reflecting the macrocosm, can feel like the point where art and transcendental or spiritual experience meet; they are both addressing similar needs, concerning wholeness and unity.
An archetype is an image which is both a metaphor and a microcosm of a myth (a myth, by definition, is an archetypal story) which has recurred although in many guises, throughout history and has a universal meaning. Jung, whose understanding of the human psyche was largely based on the concept of archetypes, described them as ‘the instinct’s perception of itself or as the self-portrait of the instinct’*
Freud, who referred to archetype as ‘archaic remnants’, also recognised their significance when he placed the Oedipus myth, which embodies some of our most familiar archetypes, at the heart of his psychoanalytic theory. (…) The hero is one of the most common archetypes and is the focus of numerous myths, ancient and modern, irrespective of culture. The hero myths tend to have a universal pattern: a miraculous but humble birth, his early proof of superhuman strength, his rapid rise to prominence or power, his triumphant struggle with the forces of evil, his fallibility to the sin of pride, and his fall through betrayal or heroic sacrifice that ends in his death’**”
*quoted by Jolande Jacobi, Complex Archetype Symbols in the Psychology of C.G.Jung, trans. Ralph Manheim (Princeton UP, 1995) p.36
**Carl Jung ed. Man and his symbols (p.110) from: Potter, Cherry. (2001) Screen Language. From film writing to film-making. (Methuen – London) – p. 48-50

From the opening scene through the end we can identify key ‘details’ that connect images with broad ideas. The observations can be made regarding the idea navigation; air; the balloon that the child is holding, proceeding to the zeppelin gravures; making a reference to both human inventions, progress of technology and the concept of ‘treasuring’ an image/ a memory of the past…
Connecting the journey with another key element is the exact name of the invention that is used for travel in space: the hydroplane. Water (a ubiquitous chemical substance that is composed of hydrogen and oxygen and is essential for all known forms of life) is a recurrent element in the movie, with its emphasis as nurturing life and the evolution of life. It is manifested in the rain on Earth, moment when we can compare it to the emotion of sadness and its drops with tears – the regret experienced when saying good-bye [the the father, to the childhood house, to the planet and its diversity].. and in the vastness of the ocean on Solaris. Despite the name and its solar implications, this aura addresses the ‘enlightenment’ role of the experience, while its true surface – liquid stands for the flexibility of manifestation [water manifests in three phases].

Tarkovsky is making use of every scene on a complex level, all is calculated to add to the general atmosphere and message of the film. An example would be the visual image of rain dripping on a nature morte along with the auditive sensation of the monotonous tap of the drops… shaping a cinematic metaphor on life, degradation of the material state, time, water and flow, unity, balance, contrast between the constructed/artificial state of matter (the porcelain) and the natural, perishable nature of material life. True to Tarkovsky’s wish that the audience experience the film sensitively we are ourselves ‘bathing’ in that rain, by empathizing with the character on the screen.

Kris is portrayed on a field of flowers [image above right: http://jamesbrownontheroad.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/solaris_1.jpg%5D. We are experiencing this setting in order to compare it with the desolation of Solaris, in order to understand the yearning for Earth’s rich ambiance. Shortly after this scene we get to hear Berton’s comment: “It’s so pleasant in here!”, this underlines the joy that man can experience in his habitat. The beauty of calling Earth ‘home’.

Earth also stands for the experience, the brief passing, and if seen as a ‘mountain’ and a ‘journey’ we can link it to the ‘challenge’ that experiencing Life bears.

From Berton’s account we hear of a garden, on Solaris, where everything was made of the same substance… and the initial reaction is that this image has to be artificial. This is because with human eyes we can differentiate the added qualities; the shades of the plants, the shapes, the scent of the flowers, the light reflected on the plants, etc… while on Solaris we cannot help but envisage a paper-cut garden, something with no flavour, a failed attempt to copy the Real; to copy Earth. Although all this is an understandable reaction, let us not forget that Tarkovsky is using this image to raise a question, maybe that question is: do we project our experience, some previous knowledge before we even get to experience it directly? Also, if we were to look at this from a physical point, we would come to realize that even here on Earth, ‘everything is made of the same substance’ but we do not realize that we are limiting our perception by looking at the core of material manifestation.

“(Gaia) – the ultimate landscape angel and protector spirit for the planet who oversees all organic life, conscious-being evolution, the interconnected web of visionary geography and earth’s role and position in the solar system. … The nature of Gaia has confused western thinking for centuries because the ancient Greeks used the name to refer to different things. Gaia, as part of the original duality of Heaven and Earth (Ge), referred to the totality of cosmic matter, everything that was outside the Pleroma (the fullness of being). Earth, in this sense, encompasses galaxies and innumerable solar systems and planets. (…) Landscape angels, or egregors, maintain the geomantic integrity of a given landmass, from a small scale, such as a garden or valley, to larger, such as a mountain, state, or nation.” According to the Okanaga perception, Gaia was once a woman who became a planet” Leviton, Richard (2005) – Encyclopedia of Earth Myths. (Charlottesville, VA – Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.) p.91-92

The idea of analyzing and sorting out the past is yet another key theme, appropriated in the situations and actions that Kris, but also the other characters, are facing. [ex. burning old documents and photos.. ]

We should also mention the presence of the dog, making his appearance in key moments/ scenes of the film, connecting mythology with the domestic setting.
The mother is wearing a white shawl and gazes into the horizon [image above left: http://www.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheNews/crit1.jpg%5D … She is  clearly recognizing the distance between her and her son, and the fact that she will not get to see him again. We may feel that it is either a metaphor for Kris’s ‘real’ death, or an image of the mother’s feelings of loss; puzzlement which renders this scene so beautifully enigmatic.

The role of having to experience the death of one’s parents before one’s one death is to help one accept his condition, his inevitable end. The sadness that death, the irreversible action – brings in the human heart is the only inevitable experience in life. We experience it differently according to the attachment we have to the person that has ‘passed away’, but that doesn’t mean that there actually is a difference. That difference is subjective. Tarkovsky does not portray the parents in distress, he lets the action flow naturally, what he does include is silence in the ambiance of sunset – and the change of colour; a play between colour film and black and white.

(Underworld:) “in myths throughout the world, consistent mention is made of an underworld, an infernal, grim realm of the dead usually accessed through a cave, rock, lake or some kind of portal, and lying inside the Earth.”
“The Underworld in classical Greek and Roman culture was the place to which the culture hero such as odysseus or Aeneas journeyed to consult with the dead.”
“in Hindu astronomy, Shiva (in his earlier form Rudra) is associated with the star Sirius, our galaxy’s brightest star in thje throat of Canis Major, The Greater Dog. Rudra’s task is to guard the Dwelling of the stars-the entire galaxy. He is called Vastospati (Guardian of the Vastu) and the Hound of Heaven. Sirius is often called the Dog Star, standing for the entire Dog constellation. Hades has a dog called Cerberus, and it has three heads, is fierce and guards the Underworld. Osiris in Egyptian myth has his jackal-headed dog, Anubis. The essential equation is that the Underworld lord equals his Dog. They are equivalent, interchangeable figures just as shiva is the galaxy’s Dog-Star guardian.” Leviton, Richard (2005) – Encyclopedia of Earth Myths. (Charlottesville, VA – Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.) p. 276

(Wasteland): A condition of spiritual impoverishment in which all of matter, including body, Nature, and planet, suffers due to humanity’s cumulative pain and existential amnesia about its own soul origins, purpose and history. Also known as Desert, Isfet, Koyaanisqatsi, Logres. The term was popularized in the early twentieth century in T.S. Eliot’s famous poem The Waste Land (1922), in which he characterized modern culture as a heap of broken images, a land of stony rubbish, a dead tree that provides no shelter, dry stones, a beating sun, and no trace of water – a desert. But Eliot got the term from medieval Grail sagas in which the Wasteland resulted from the misuse of a divine sword by the Fisher King.” Leviton, Richard (2005) – Encyclopedia of Earth Myths. (Charlottesville, VA – Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.) p.287

How did Tarkovsky regard cinema as a medium and what role did Time play in his movies?

[image credits: http://www.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/ThePhotos/SolarisPressPhotos/Tarkovsky-directs-Solaris.jpg  – accessed on 26.10.2009]

“Some critics argue that horror is defined not by its conventions, but by the emotional response it elicits from the audience. As its name implies, the horror film is designed to make the audience feel fear, revulsion and disgust. This is why most viewers would definitively label Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky 1972; Steven Soderbergh 2002) a science fiction film, even though it shares the same basic premise as Alien (Ridley Scott). Both alien and solaris feature astronauts threatened by an alien presence while they are holed up in a remote outpost. But Alien provokes shock and surprise, whereas both versions of Solaris are slowly paced, philosophical meditations on the nature of memory, life and death. (Even this distinction can be murky as audiences’ propensity for shock have evolved since the earliest days of the genre. Whereas viewers in 1931 may have been frightened by Frankenstein’s monster, contemporary audiences probably respond more to the pathos Boris Karloff’s performance than to the monster’s grotesqueness.)” Pramaggiore, Maria; Wallis, Tom. Film. A critical introduction. 2nd ed. (Laurence Koing Publishing Ltd.- London.) – p. 378

By elaborating on the initial plot (presented in Lem’s novel) Tarkovsky is creating a new setting, a new experience to be shared to the audience. The director is bringing new connotations with each detail insered into the image and he is painting a new atmosphere. The story presents the viewer with key questions about humanity, the purpose of Life, the boundaries of human knowledge, experience (love) and certainty regarding the knowledge aquired. Such questions link the psychological message with the philosophical perspective. There are also questions of morality and positive values while we can still recognise elements that belong to politics and social interaction. Tarkovsky wanted to use the tools of classical arts in the newly discovered/explored medium of film.

(The purpose of film) – „Recent [i.e., Gestalt] psychological thinking encourages us to call vision a creative activity of the human mind. Perceiving achieves, at the sensory level, what in the realm of reasoning is known as understanding. Every man’s eyesight also anticipates in a modest way the admired capacity of the artist to produce patterns that validly interpret experiences by means of organized form” – published in Arnheim, Rudolf. Art and Visual perception. (Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 1969), p.viii – quoted from: Dudley, Andrew J. ed. (1976). The major film theories. An introduction. (Oxford University Press: London, Oxford, New York) p.35

“No matter how much interplay Arnheim calls for between man and nature in the creation of art, his is finally a mentalist theory of art. He looks for those moments when an equilibrium of forces, yoked by an artist’s mind from the stimuli of the world, succeeds in expressing aspects of both the artist and the world which we had never been fully aware of before. Inspiration, in the scientific and artistic spheres, is achieved when the material before one suddenly recognizes itself into a new and satisfying structure. Both artist and scientist create the “figure in the carpet”, the pattern in the Rorschach patch we call reality, a pattern which reality is already predisposed to receive. Thanks to such scientific and artistic restructurings, we can see more deeply, live more fully. As a photographic medium film provides us with more material to pattern. As an artistic medium it can help us pattern that material and show us the ways in which our minds are jointed to the physical universe we live in.” Dudley, Andrew J. ed. (1976). The major film theories. An introduction. (Oxford University Press: London, Oxford, New York) p.40

(The final purpose of film) – „Each montage piece exists no longer as something unrelated but as a given particular representation of the general theme that in equal measure penetrates all the shot-pieces. The juxtaposition of these partial details in a given montage construction calls to life and forces into the light that general quality in which each detail has participated and which binds together all the details into a whole, namely, into that generalized image wherein the creator, followed by the spectator, experiences the theme. “ – published in Sergei Eisenstein. The Film Sense. p.11 – quoted from: Dudley, Andrew J. ed. (1976). The major film theories. An introduction. (Oxford University Press: London, Oxford, New York) p. 73

We regard time as a central focus of our lives. All our activities are based around the division of the day. When we decide to spend a certain amount of time immersed in a cinematic experience, we are expecting to be either distracted from the routine of daily life –> entertained or –>informed, that is when we gain a new understanding on a certain issue or going deeper, if we consider the artistic side of the medium, we expect it (the message) to stirr puzzlement and to excite our exploration (of a certain issue, of our lives) and in the end leave an impact on our perception of life/ perspective/ mentality.

‘The clock was pioneered in Benedictine monasteries. In the seventh century Pope Sabinianus had decreed that Benedictine monks should pray seven times every twenty-four hours (the ‘canonical hours’). Some means of keeping time became necessary. The water-clock, already known to ancient Roma, was reintroduced. Around 1345 the division of the hour into minutes and seconds became common. In 1370 the first mechanical clock was built. In Lewis Mumford’s words (1934: 13): ‘Benedictine rule have human enterprise the regular collective beat and rhythm of the machine; for the clock is not merely a means of keeping track of hours, but of synchronising the actions of men.’
Outside the monastery, clocks were initially an object of cultural fascination. There were elaborate clocks in the churches and on the market squares of the towns, showing not only time but also the movements of the moon and the planets. And there were clocks in the houses of the new merchant class, often decorated with manikins performing stiff, robotic movements in perfect synchrony with mechanical time. In the Industrial Revolution the clock became a major tool for the control, first of labour, then also of other human activities. In industries such as weaving, the guilds that have traditionally controlled labour had had to increasingly rely on merchants, as they alone could supply the capital and raw materials needed, or provide insight into what the market demanded. The merchants resented the guild’s control over labour and started to ‘farm out’ work, which they could do because the guild’s rule did not extend to the country. But that was unsatisfactory too, as the rural workers worked more or less when they pleased and were difficult to discipline. Thus the factory was conceived, where workers could be under the watchful eye of an overseer, and where constant attendance and punctuality could be enforced. Soon the discipline of the clock would extend to other major social institutions, the school, the hospital, the prison and so on and punctuality would become a key virtue of bourgeois society. As Mumford put if (1934: 14): ‘Time-keeping passed into time-serving and time-accounting and time rationing. As this took place, Eternity ceased gradually to serve as the measure and focus of human actions.’ Van Leeuwen, Theo. (1999). Speech, Music, Sound. (Macmillan Press Ltd. – Hampshire and London) p.Page 36-37

“Measured time divides the flow of time into measures which are of equal duration and which are marked off by a regularly occurring explicit pulse (‘accent’, ‘stress’, ‘beat’) which comes on the first syllable or note or other sound of each measure and is made more prominent than the surrounding sounds by means of increased loudness, pitch or duration, or some combination of some or all of these.” Van Leeuwen, Theo. (1999). Speech, Music, Sound. (Macmillan Press Ltd. – Hampshire and London) p.39

The first sound that we become familiar with in our human existence is the sound of the mother’s heartbeat. This is the first language we get to experience. Its rhythm sets the tone of a ‘hum’ that becomes comforting throughout the first 9 months, when ‘another entity’ is communicating with us although we do not have the means to understand or explain what is going on. This ‘time’ is willingly invested in our growth, we are connected to a natural bioryhthm, a natural pace and rule.

The opening scene of Solaris describes the pace of life, its constant fluid flow… we are observing an autumn leaf run along a stream. Surrounding it is the abundance of the algae, still that one leaf carries her journey forward. Comparable to this image, the main character of the film, Kris Kelvin is trying to alter his journey, trying to control it, he is not surrendering to the natural flow.. he is exploring other ways of understanding the flow itself.

‘Our time has been distinguished, more than by anything else, by a drive to control the external world, and by an almost total forgetfulness of the internal world. If one estimates human evolution from the point of view of knowledge of the external world, then we are in many respects progressing. If our estimate is from the point of view of the internal world, and of oneness of internal and external, then the judgement must be very different.’ Laing, R.D. (1981, 1st ed. 1967). The politics of experience and the bird of paradise. (Penguin Books – Middlesex, England).

“If we understand and feel that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change… In our relationship to other men, too, the crucial question is whether an element of boundlessness is expressed in the relationship… The feeling for the infinite, however, can be attained only if we are bounded to the utmost. In knowing ourselves to be unique in our personal combination – that is, ultimately limited – we possess also the capacity for becoming conscious of the infinite. But only then!” – C.G. Jung – published in Memories, Dreams, Reflections 325/300 recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffe (Pantheon Books, New York; copyright 1961, 1962, 1963 by Random House, Inc.; Collins and Routledge & Kegan Paul) translated by Richard and Clara Winston – quoted in Jung, C.G. (). Word and Image (1977). (ed. By Aniela Jaffe). Bollingen Series XCVII: 2. (Princeton University Press – New Jersey, USA) – p. 214

By looking at the primal resources; the Film and Tarkovsky’s interviews, his intention of addressing a message at a deep philosophical level becomes clear. He wishes to liberate the audience from the constructed limits and the imposed boundaries of the social, religious and political nature. His images develop realistic qualities, become palpable. He is bringing his contribution, his vision but he allows the human feelings to be identified and relieved along with the characters, all to form an organic work that comes to life along with the experience of it on film.

Gianvito, John. ed (2006). Andrei Tarkovsky Interviews. (University Press of Mississippi/ Jackson)
-page 82: ‘Q: How are your films received there (in the Soviet Union)?
T: The official viewpoint is that they are difficult to understand. Sergei Bondarchuck expressed this idea in Italy during a press conference. Nervertheless, young people especially view my films with enormous interest. I would even say that there’s a contradiction between that which Bondarchuck declares and the truth.’
(…)
– page 85: ‘Q: You would preffer to defend spirituality as opposed to emotion?
T: Emotion is the enemy of spirituality. Herman Hesse said a good thing about this with regard to passion. In the Glass-Bead Game, he wrote that passion is a friction between the outer world and the inner world, the soul. It seems to me that Hesse properly considered emotions as the encounter of man with material reality. Emotionality has nothing to do with true spirituality.’
Q: Would your films prove that you’re attracted to metaphor?
T: Our life is a metaphor, from the beginning until the end. Everything that surrounds us is a metaphor.’
(…)
-page 86: ‘Q: But in your films, what part of the real, what part of the unreal, and what part of yourself do you place there?
T: It’s impossible to create something unreal. Everything is real and unfortunately we aren’t able to abandon reality. We can express ourselves toward the world that exists in a poetic way or purely descriptive manner. Personally, I prefer to express myself in a metaphoric way. I insist on saying metaphoric and not symbolic. The symbol intrinsically comprises a specific meaning, an intellectual formula, while the metaphor is the image itself. It’s an image that possesses the same characteristics as the world represents. Contrary to the symbol, its meaning is undefined. We aren’t able to speak about a world that is truly boundless utilizing means which themselves are definite and restricted. We can analyze a formula, that is to say, a symbol, but a metaphor is an entity unto itself, a monomial. If one tries to describe it, immediately it falls to pieces.’
(…)
– page 87: ‘Q: When you speak of the soul, do you mean it as a kind of sculpture which a man should secretly accomplish during his life?
T: Man doesn’t have to construct it, but rather liberate it. It is already constructed.’
…..
– page 93-94: ‘Only one kind of journey is possible: the one we undertake to our inside world. From running about on the surface of the planet, we don’t learn much. Nor do I believe that one travels in order to return. Man can never return to his point of departure, because he himself, in the meantime, changes. And, of course, you can’t escape from yourself; what you are, you carry with you. We carry the house of our souls like the tortoise its shell. To travel the countries of the world is only symbolically a journey. Wherever you get to, you are still seeking your own soul.
I see the only meaning of human existence in the effort to overcome yourself spiritually, to become different from what you are at birth, in growing. If in that span, between the poles of birth and death, we manage to achieve this – even if it is hard and the advance is small – we will have served humanity. (…) It appears to me that mankind has stopped believing in itself. That is, not “mankind” – such a thing does not exist – but each person for himself. When I think of today’s man, I see him like a singer in a choir opening and closing his mouth in rhythm with the singing, but producing no tone. Afetr all, the others are all singing! He just pretends to sing along, since he is convinced that the voices of the others suffice. He behaves this way because he no longer believes in the importance of his own, personal actions – a man without faith, totally without hope of influencing through his own behaviour the society in which he lives.
I am convinced that ‘time’ is no objective category, since time cannot exist without man. Certain scientific discoveries tend to reach the same conclusion. We do not live in the “now”. The now is so short, so close to zero without being zero, that we have no way of perceiving it. The moment which we call “now” immediately becomes past. The only possible present is our fall into the abyss which exists between future and present. That’s why “nostalgia” is not regret for the past but sadness for the lost span during which we did not manage to count our forces, to marshal them, and to do our duty.’ – Andrei Tarkovsky in interviews with Gideon Bachmann from American Film, November 1983, 14, 75-79.