Actors of the Century Draft, Stalker (Tarkovsky #4)

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or were in twenty twenty. So here I had to think about an entire body of work, not looking ahead so much. Okay, it's this particular period, and I thought about this, thinking of speaking of sports bawling. In the NBA, you have the MVP Most Valuable Player Award, and that is a regular season award. It's announced will be announced

I think within this week during the playoffs. But really the idea is to look at what the players have done during that season, not their playoff potential or even how they've performed in the first week or so of

the playoffs. So I had to think about it similarly, is that body of work from two thousand to twenty twenty five, and then this length of time twenty five years I found for me absolutely benefited the vets, you know, those who had been doing it pretty much right from two thousand and sustained it up through the last couple of years. That narrowed things down pretty quickly for me for the actors and actresses who I needed to have on my team in this draft.

approached it this time as a mount rushmore. I needed to envision four characters' faces that would define the period, this entire twenty five year period for that performer, and then I had to consider to extent that quartette of faces might define the period itself. I get to have the first choice. We didn't do anything convoluted here. We didn't have any ping pong balls or bring in Ernst

and Young or Price Waterhouse. We just alternated. The last time we had a draft, I think it was our twenty twenty five movie preview, and You've got to go first.

But again, here's where the strategy comes into play, because I honestly think there are only two or maybe three names we both would love to have on our team, and are you going to try to snatch one of those or are you just gonna claim who you absolutely have to have? Not taken any.

really does change the game. And I guess I didn't feel like I had a really strong sense of who your top one, two three performers of the past twenty five years were, and so I stopped overthinking it and decided to go with my heart. I'm picking who is genuinely my number one choice, even though I feel like he wouldn't have been your number one choice, and from

a strategic standpoint, I'm probably misplaying it. You mention that you look back and you didn't really consider at all moving forward whether or not these performers would be in our lives, what kind of performances they might give us in the future. Sadly, that's very much the case with my number one choice. I am going with Philip Seymour

oh oh. Recently, just a day or two ago, Josh got an email from a listener, Nate Dean, who said, Adam, I can't believe you have William Miller as your profile pick on Letterboxed, but failed to put Almost Famous in your top twenty five films of the century. Almost Famous is my favorite film of all time, So I'm kind of offended. Please change your profile pick, Nate. I hear you, I feel you. I will not change my profile pick.

It has been my profile pick since profile picks existed, really in the wake of me seeing Almost Famous originally in theaters back in two thousand and one. To try to make up for it a little bit here, Philip Seymour Hoffman was my number two actor of the two thousands on that list in twenty ten. And Josh, even though this is how great Philip Seymore Hoffman is, even though we lost him in twenty fourteen, I do believe

he's still worthy of the number one choice. Here's the Mount Rushmore Lancaster Dodd the Master in twenty twenty, I suggested that that processing scene which we heard at the top of the show was maybe the scene of the decade him and jauquein in Phoenix, number two, Capodi in Capodi, for which he won the Oscar. Nate. Here it is

number three on the Mount Rushmore. A supporting turn Lester Bangs and Almost Famous, and then rounding out the mount Rushmore, I'm gonna go with Caden Coutard from Sinec to Key, New York. And if you want more lead performances, Josh, great, how about Lamette's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead? Opposite Ethan Hawk A Most Wanted Man is a really good film. I don't love this Savages or Doubt, but I have

nothing against Philip Seymore Hoffman's performances in either. And the thing about Philip Seamore Hoffman, and we talked about this back when we paid tribute to him after his passing. You can talk about those lead performances, but it's so much fun to talk about how good he is in his supporting turns like Spike Lee's twenty fifth Hour, Your Beloved, Punch, Drunk Love, mattress Man, Dean Trumpele. How memorable is he there?

How much of a memorable scoundrel is he even in something like Red Dragon as Freddie Lownds gust In Charlie Wilson's War. I mean, it's a mostly forgettable movie, but he's not forgettable. I still get served scenes from that movie occasionally on Instagram, and I watch them every time if they're a scene that Philip Seymour Hoffman is in, and then he even brings the heat to something like the Hunger Games franchise or another franchise, The Baddie in Mission Impossible three, it.

your name? It's like he just can't believe this guy has the audacity to question him to capture him, to tie him up like this, and he is sure he is going to pay him back for this. It's not the performance or the movie that will define Filtzeymour Hoffman's career or this period, but it is one I love.

really got to think about this. Ah yes, almost famous, absolutely punched drunk love, and probably oh before the devil knows your dead for sure. Those three are the ones that almost pushed him into my consideration to be on my board, but decided I had other performers I preferred. And you've now put me in a difficult but enviable position because you're first to the opportunity to take my first choice as you did, or really grab the person.

There's one person who I think we both want. Okay, I do not have this person in the first slot on my draft board.

Kate Blanchett, had to have Kate Blanchett. Again. It was the research that confirmed it. This is not black bag recency bias. Look at this track record and look at this range. This is the thing with her tour to fourth dramas that I would argue she carried on her back like she made the movie Blue Jasmine. Where do you Go, Bernadette. People probably forget that one, but she is a force in that one. And then Tar, she

is Tar, so you have that category also. I think this is how she came to be known as this arresting figure in historical dramas or period pieces. I think you could put Carol in this category. The Aviator, The Good German, speaking of Sodaberg, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I like more than most people, Nightmare Alley Falls here, and Elizabeth her breakout doesn't fit our timeframe, but Elizabeth the Golden Age does, and she is different in that film,

but equally impressive. Kate Blanchett can also do sci fi and fantasy. She can be Galadriel in Lord of the Rings. She can be the step mother in Cinderella. I love that performance. And of course Hella in Thor Ragnarok phsy fun you could put Thor Ragnarok in that category. But I'm thinking more here about Ocean's Eight, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zazou, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Sure, why not? I like that movie more than most people, and she's amusing it, she is. And

then here's the topper. Is all of that are things you can envision that is what a great actor would do performances like these, Maybe not one that'd be a lot task of one. She does that, then she gives us something that I can only call experimental her Bob Dylan, and I'm not there.

various points throughout my day. So I really don't feel like I'm being that rude if I take this person at number two instead, and I'm going to add to my reasoning that I kind of have a feeling that my number two choice may not be in your top five, So I have to go with my number two pick someone I called back in twenty twenty, the Chameleon Collaborator till the Swinton.

a Bigger Splash Suspiria. Not a huge fan, really like her in that film, the Jim Jarmish films like Limits of Control, The Dead Don't Die, only Lovers Left Alive. As I say, those three titles. I'm not totally sure. I actually have seen the limits of Control, so we can strike that. But I have seen only Lovers Left Alive and the Dead Don't Die. And they're both wonderful films. The Coen Brothers Hail Caesar, a movie we both like, You love. I like quite a bit, really appreciate her

in Burn after reading. Add to that the Bong June Hoe performances in Oakja Snow Piercer, her collaborations with Joanna Hogg in Eternal Daughter and The Souvenir Parts one and two. And then, of course, if she hasn't made enough of a mark on the last twenty five years, you have her appearing and performing quite well in various MCU installments. She's also so great. And how about these titles, Josh, I haven't even said yet. The David Fincher film The Killer.

We need to talk about Kevin the Deep End from two thousand and one, the movie she won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Michael Clayton. So I'm gonna have a little bit of a Maya culpa here. Michael Clayton didn't make Madness, didn't even make the shortlists for Madness probably should have. It's a movie that a lot of people really revere, and I do love her performance in that film. I don't think it's a matter of going against type necessarily because I don't think Tilda Swinton has

a title. You can you can look at a movie like The Deep End, where she plays a mom, an everyday mom trying to protect her son. In something like We Need to Talk About Kevin, she's a mom trying to figure out how to live with her son. She does play quote unquote normal characters in both of those cases, and I just picked two where I can recall her playing those kind of everyday characters. She is playing different forms of desperation, but there's something entirely different about her.

Karen Crowder and Michael Clayton a woman who is herself, always performing, always projecting an image of control in a corporate world that seems to demand it. And that big scene with Clooney at the end, I love the moment just before it she's putting this proposal before the board. She walks out the door and there's nothing really smug about it, but there's just kind of a little bit of self satisfaction on her face, like I geared myself up for this moment, and I did it. I delivered.

And she's walking with a precision, and she brushes kind of at her jacket, you know, kind of you pull it down behind you, just making sure you're prim and proper and everything is perfect. And then you watch her get confronted by Clooney and the way she throughout that entire exchange tries to calculate the right next move. I'd say it's like a robot short circuiting, except Swinton makes Karen all two humans.

She's in Vanilla Sky, Memoria, and Mike Mills Thumbsucker. There are others. Those are just all movies I like.

was definitely seeping in. But hey, I came here with her as an honorable mention, so I'm not gonna regret it all that much. Okay, I'm gonna grab him. I can't believe you didn't grab him. Yeah, how is how is Joaquin Phoenix here?

that period. Not only there's not only a lot of films here that show his promise, obviously much younger than I think, he has films that delivered on that promise already. To die For, I mean this is where everyone came to recognize that there was something special here Gladiator. You know,

maybe not an amusing performance. I don't know if you would put it on that rushmore you've been talking about, but I do like it as a pivot from to Die For and just you know, kind of jumping into a big blockbuster and kind of grabbing it in a way, making his scenes his own.

the best acting done in a Shamalan film. I really think he's quite strong in Walk the Line, even though that's not my favorite genre of film. You can usually get really strong performances from it. And Phoenix gave one and Walk the Line, So yeah, for me, you know, you add that to stuff like I'm Still here, the Master, Her in Her and Vice Joker and come on, come on, yeah, gotta have him glad.

Ramsey's you were never really here. I love him as Leonard and James Gray's two Lovers, which you mentioned. I know a lot of people would put Joker probably in the mix or perhaps in come On, Come On. The fact is there are a lot of good choices, maybe Josh since twenty twenty when I look at the titles, other than come On, come On, it's Joker, Joker too, Bo was afraid. Joker might have been twenty nineteen, so just before twenty twenty, but Joker to Bo is afraid.

In Napoleon, I guess didn't do a ton to raise Phoenix in my estimation, but then he really didn't need to be raised.

But I think you like to look at body of work, and quantity seems to matter to you, Josh, in addition to the quality, and I think that might rule this person out, but it's not going to rule him out.

Dandrew day Lewis is probably your number one pick, right, And when you think about those four characters, it's hard to come up with more disparate but equally compelling characters

than those four. He is, as I said back when we revisited, there will be Blood, and I'm sure many others have said about him, to use a cliche, he's a force of nature on screen, and yet he is someone who can do and who does such subtle work, and he's someone who, with every expression and with every line reading, seems to be given you three or four different ways to interpret what might be going on in

his head. And I think it's such a feat Josh, to be inscrutable, to inhabit characters that in their own way are inscrutable without being alienating or distancing, and also to be that big as his characters are without being alienating or distancing. You do still have to be drawn

to these characters, and he can be distancing. My first time with There Will Be Blood, the calibration was off for me, But it has never been off with that character in that movie since it's never been off with Daniel day Lewis, since I think that is a film, and that's a performance that you can recalibrate yourself around.

And I know everyone thinks about I've abandoned my child and I drink your milkshake, But when I think about Daniel Plainview, I think about the oil rig explosion and the urgency to get his son to bring him to safety, and then not too long after that, the train scene where he does abandon his son and the anguish the silent, mostly silent anguish that we see Daniel da Lewis's character going through.

and Rose. So you do have six movies to go off of, all of which I would recommend seeing, and recommend seeing for his performances.

it's only been proven from there. So if you look at her filmography pre twenty ten, she has the prestige match point. Here's the big one, here's the one. The fact that Lost in Translation came in this period for me is probably enough to say, okay, you're still you're still ready for this top five in this draft. But yeah,

the younger performances are strong. Think about something like a film I like people have probably forgotten in Good Company, but Ghost World, which has become something of a cult film. The Cohen's the man who wasn't there. You know, she has a smaller part but is good. And you know,

here's here's what pushed her over the edge. Honestly, it's the fact that since twenty twenty, since we did those lists and we both had her on ours, she had a Asteroid City, which I think we both had is like one of the favorite performances of the year of the year, and you know what, Hey, she's a lot of fun and fly Me to the Moon, so throw

that in here as well. But I was a little surprised, honestly, Adam to see when I sat down and looked at the work outside of that twenty ten to twenty twenty period and that it resonated held up and I wanted to have her on this list too.

And I forgot the Ghost World was two thousand and one. I had to look that up. I thought I was going to catch you in another nineties blunder, but no, that's two thousand and one. And yeah, you had Asteroid City into the mix. You've got Hail Caesar in the mix. She is in those MCU turns.

of my favorites. Denzel Washington, Josh the Mount Rushmore, and if you'd go here, yeah, The Mount Rushmore is Detective Keith Frazier from Inside Man. I don't think Training Day is an incredible film. I think it's a good film. That performance, of course, is a detective Alonzo Harris is charismatic as hell. Flight is a movie I was mixed on, but I think that performance as Whip Whittaker is among

Denzel Washington's best. And then I'll go ahead and throw in a movie that is beloved by me and almost nobody else. His turn is Creasy in Man on Fire. There are much more respectable performances to throw in a Mount Rushmore for Denzel, though from this period. Ben Marco in what I think is a really good remake by Jonathan dem of the Manchurian Candidate. It is Troy Maxon in Fences, Frank Lucas an American gangster. His turn is Macbeth in the Tragedy of Macbeth. All of those are good,

great performances. But he is an actor, and I think this is the key. And those are good movies for the most part.

the Equalizer movies, which would be otherwise unwatchable. And yet something about the earnestness, the sincerity of that character and the conviction that Denzel Washington brings to those roles makes those movies something Josh, that at minimum, I can watch on an airplane, and you know what, at the very bottom of this list for an actor I already adore who's given me performances like Keith Fraser an inside man

and like Alonzo Harris. That just rounds out what I think makes him so special as an actor.

you know. Yeah, I don't think think it should be his best actor win in Training Day, but it was really these titles that had him this high for me. Manchuri Candidate, Inside Man, Flight Fences, the Tragedy of Macbeth, and maybe the poster child for you what you were talking about him elevating material Gladiator too, such fun in that one. So yeah, definitely in consideration for me. All right, So we are up to my fourth pick, which means you only have one left.

six with DiCaprio as the departed. I do think I was thinking about this too today. They kind of share equality in some of their films, not all their films. They can be dreamboat weasels when they want to be, and I love that. I mean, those are my favorite performance of DiCaprio, and I love when Leung has leaned

into that as well. Let's focus on him though now, because this is one that Yeah, had that instinct of don't forget to don't forget to look up what he's done in this period and holy smokes, so Tony Deong gets this era started with obviously the one everyone thinks of in the Mood for Love and his presence opposite Maggie Chung there in one carwise masterpiece. I mean, it should be enough to put him on this list on its own. Then in two thousand and two, he was

in Zongimo's Hero. This reunited him with Maggie Chung. They played dueling assassins. It's a martial arts drama and it's kind of the flip of in the Mood for Love where they're they're giving in to all this fiery emoting compared to the subdued nature they had to have in the earlier film. So yeah, two thousand and two Infernal Affairs that same year as I mentioned he's the undercover

cop as was Leo. Now, I wasn't as high on Wang Kar Wai's pseudo follow up to Two in the Mood for Love twenty forty six, but Leung is still mesmerizing in it. On Lee's Lust Caution, which I think has been forgotten in Lee's filmography but is an incredibly fascinating erotic spy thriller that Leung is incredible in. We

on the show, Adam reviewed him quite favorably. If I remember in another Wan Kar Wai film, The Grand Master, that was twenty thirteen, and you know what, he brought more gravitas to the MCU than it probably deserved in Shang Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings, which I insist is a very good MCU film. So those are the list of films Leong films, just the ones I've seen, And if you look at his filmography, there's clearly a lot of non English language stuff that I

need to catch up with. I feel good about this pick just because there is so much more I need to see, and I think anything I choose to watch is only going to bolster my choice. So yeah, I'm taking Tony Leong with my number four pick.

He was my number one of the two thousands. He was my number three of the twenty tens. Picking a Mount Rushmore was tough for me. Billy Costigan from The Departed is there? I think that's number one, even though for a lot of people it would probably be a different Martin Scorsese performance. It would be Jordan Belfort and the Wolf of Wall Street. Well, he'd be in my

top three or four. And then it's one of those Quentin Tarantino collaborations, Rick Dalton Once upon a Time in Hollywood, and it's very tempting to go with another Quentin Tarantino collaboration, Calvin Candy in Django. Unchained on that table top.

either of them are consciously looking for. Hugh Glass, his Oscar winning turn in the Revenant is also very good. You know, I'm not a huge fan of that movie. But you also have Don Cobb an inception. You have his performances in other Martin Scorsese movies like Shutter Island, in Gangs of New York with DiCaprio. I think the only reason maybe he's not higher for me, Josh, is when you look at his filmography. And actually I wanted to say this about Leung. I think what's hard for me?

And you alluded to this a little bit. I just haven't seen so many of his films when I look at IMDb since twenty ten, and DiCaprio just hasn't made very many movies in the last five or seven years. But the ones he has made once upon a Time in Hollywood stands out. Killers of the Flower Moon stands out as another one that I think is a great performance. It does all come back to The Departed for me. And you may recall, just maybe a month ago or so here on the show a little over a month ago,

I talked about how that's my comfort food. I was on a plane coming back from my trip to Italy and I threw in that Departed and I said, there was that one line reading that scene that I just cannot get enough of, that scene with Vera Farmega where he is confronting her as a therapist and making her very uncomfortable, basically because he just refuses to you allow her to get away with her usual bs that she probably gets away with with most cops who come into

her office. And he's very confrontational but also very incisive, and I think it's DiCaprio maybe at his best. I think it's the best scene in the film and one of DiCaprio's best scenes overall. And that line reading about what the policeman signed up for, well, let's go ahead and hear it.

There was only one realistic possibility, and once I added these up, I just could not stop myself from wanting to draft Will Ferrell.

the case. But this is a list about the performances at him. It's not necessarily a list about the movies as a whole. So even if his comedies tend to be uneven on the whole, I'm gonna list some that aren't necessarily all that great. Who has had a better run of comic characters since two thousand than these names? And I'm just picturing listeners, I hope just the smiles

growing wider and wider with each one. Mugatu in Zulander, Yeah, Frank the Tank in Old School, of course, Buddy the elf Ron Burgundy in Anchorman, Chazz Wedding Crashers, small part, but crucial, crucial to what that movie is all about. Adam Ricky, Bobby Talladega Knights. He's in the title for goodness sake. As you know, so many of these characters are we get another Chas Chas, Michael Michaels Blades of Glory, Jackie Moon semi pro. Things are a little sketchy movie

wise there, but great characters. Brennan and Stepbrothers. I love Stepbrothers. I also love the other guys where he's alongside Marley Wahlberg as Alan Gamble. You know, I mean I haven't brought this up maybe in five years at least. Adam Casa Daemi Padre Armando. I mean, I haven't forgotten that rest of the world has forgotten. I have not President Business among other parts in the Lego movie, and of course his counterpart, Lord Business's cousin mattel Ceo in Barbie.

film spottingfamily dot com. We want to thank family member Adam Graff in Portland, Maine. Adam's letterbox handle is Linus calledwell seventy five. Went to check today and yep, I am following Adam, speaking of the discord, the Film Spotting Family discord, I went through a flurry. I had been behind on people sharing their letterbox profiles. Finally some time opened up. I just went on there and went through a burst of following. So apologies if you're a family

member and I haven't followed you there yet. Hopefully I'll catch up at some point. But yeah, good to follow Adam there as well. Linus caledwell seventy five.

or movie making. This was Hollywood for Gotten Stars and Stories by Clara Valderrama, which helped teach me about some of the unknown aspects of the beginning of Hollywood and let me to watch the greatest dance sequence in all of Cinema, which is the performance by the Nicholas Brothers with Cab Callaway at the end of Stormy Weather. We thank Adam for being a part of the Film Spotting Family and for all of the years of listening. In addition to keeping us doing what we're doing. Your support

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Scott Tobias joined us for that. So next week on the show, you're going to hear that Q and A, but you are also going to hear our conversation about Before Sunset. Now, Before Sunset did not make your top twenty five of the century last week. I think I had it at number two. Should I be worried about your Sunset and a Visor too bold?

movies but just living that you could get there. So yeah, I haven't watched Before Sunset and I don't know how long and can't wait to do it. Do it for this conversation.

cow treatment. She wrote about Clueless in her book Wanna Be Fun.

one a fair amount when it came out. Will be interesting to hear them talk about it in connection with Thunderbolts. Mystery Men had Ben Stiller, Hank Azaria, William H. Macy, Greg kinnear. So pretty solid cast there, pretty fun film. New episodes of The Next Picture Show drop every Tuesday, and you can find them wherever you get your podcasts.

to choose from however they want to do it. The best actor or actress definitive actor or actress of the last twenty five years, their favorite, they can go however their heart leads them. The options are we went with three each from our lists.

Stalker did come to theaters in seventy nine, but mostly in what was then the USSR. It didn't make it to the US until the early eighties and earn it's reputation thanks to art house screenings throughout the decade when cit sounded spanned its once a decade Greatest Films of All Time lists from a top ten to a top one hundred. In nineteen ninety two, Stalker made the list of forty one, one of three Tarkovski movies to make the cut. Curiously, it missed the list in two thousand

and two. Tarkovsky's Solaris made it for the first time instead, but it was back in the top fifty and twenty twelve, and it came in at number forty three on the most recent list in twenty twenty two.

your greatest desires. So adam, yeah, this was the title that I think absolutely drew you to this marathon, and I have already suggested in previous shows that, based on the movie's metaphysical sci fi premise, it's similar to the spirit of Tarkovski's nineteen seventy two Solaris a movie you

do love. I cannot wait. This has also been the moment for me of the marathon is getting to hear from someone who just watched Stalker for the first time what they made of it, because I don't think it's as dense as some of the Tarkovski films we've watched or even discussed on this show. Take take Mirror for example.

I'm a bit in its trance. Despite its slowness and often its stillness, Tarkotski's tracks pull you and his trio inexorably forward. If we ever do a top five movies that demand you get on their rhythm, Stalker is a lock because not only is it precise in its deliberation, but the sound design features the recurring sound of a train chugging along at a reasonable pace, So there's this

near constant thrum just kind of carrying you along. And I said inexorably because there is a sense of inevitability from the opening scene and of obsession, Josh. That reminded me of Close Encounters of the third time.

to go back to prison. He says, I'm imprisoned everywhere. At this point, we don't as viewers, know anything really about what the zone is or what his job is, but the implication is is that if he's not doing whatever it is he's setting out to do, if he's not there, then he's in a metaphorical prison, kind of like roy Neiri who has to chase his vision. Ironically,

of course, you mentioned the book Roadside Picnic. I learned later that that book does directly address what this film never does, which is that it was this extraterrestrial event. Supposedly it was aliens who caused this dystopian landscape to come about, and presumably the creation of the Zone. There are no aliens or as I recall, mentions of aliens

in this film. But how fortuitous, Josh, was it that our Marathon jumped from Andre Rublev thirteen years over the Mirror and Solaris movies we had both seen before to this one where Tarkovsky continues his aggrandizement of holy fools.

deem foolish. Andy's someone driven by his faith who unreservedly and unequivocally believes he has a calling to give people hope when they most need it. It's how Tarkovsky asks us to believe along with him, which I want to dig into, but I want to get your thoughts on Stalker first.

mind and it was kind of fascinating. I think the sound design, I'm glad you called that out as well. This is a very quiet movie, so it's not necessarily the thing that first comes to mind. There's almost no music, very little music, but those effects you're talking about are so instrumental. And the one thing that stood out to me is note that the first sign we get that something is different in this zone is audible. It's a queue.

They're on this rail car on those railroad tracks, and we hear those click of the tracks, right, that sort of monotonous lulling thing. But then you also get, and this is before they've gone very far, this weird metallic echoing that follows them, and it's communicating that this is a different spaces, It has its different rules, different sounds, different feelings and so yeah, the sound design is you know,

absolutely key here. And just to go back to this figure of the stalker, I also want to give a little time to something maybe we wouldn't discuss otherwise. The performances and Alexander k. Kaidanowski in this lead role, because I remembered him as this striking figure, very pale. He's got this cropped hair. He's almost like a human, not yet fully formed in some ways, and I was thinking about does this apply to his sort of seeking but

also guiding. But I was struck about you know what a charismatic is maybe too strong of a word, but an arresting figure he is in this film because he's not just this stoic guide. He's eager and almost giddy. What does he say when they first arrive in the zone home at last? This speaks to his lays down in the grass. Yes, and the way this is he's following through on what he told his wife. He's feverish to get away from them, but not because of them, but because of where he needs to be. So I

liked that quality to the performance. I liked how he gets agitated when the writer and the professor aren't showing the proper commitment.

of it then. And then she makes this interesting comment about you know how sorrow, without sorrow there cannot be hope, right.

be on its rhythm. But for me and why I would recommend it as a entry point, possibly also with Solaris for someone new to Tarkovski, is because it does have this propulsive narrative framework of this fascinating place you want to explore, a goal to get to, and then the aftermath of once you're there, and so that really does carry you through what is a nearly three hour movie with long conversations, an incredibly patient camera, and to

me it was more gripping than I had expected. It's been a long time since i'd seen it, and I was settling in for something that was more meditative, perhaps, and I found it. Yeah, just incredibly gripping and yeah, one more thing to throw out there at you before we can go wherever you want to go. But I was struck as well by this. The camera work made

me think of this. It is a relatively still camera even for Tarkovski, because production design seems to be at the forefront here it is in so many of his movies, and he's working. Tarkovsky got a production design credit along with Alexander Boim. The interior of these rooms, especially outside of the zone, looking charred. Inside the zone, these spaces are you know, waters everywhere. Of course there's decay, but

balanced with growth. And these static shots of the characters in these spaces, it's almost like they're moving through art installations. And this was stage like in some ways made me think of something like you know, Becket's Waiting for Good Oh in sort of the material, but also the staging and the recreation of these spaces. I had forgotten that as well, that it's a very still movie even in terms of the camera work, but not dull for me at all.

otherwise we don't really see the room. It's withheld from our site. Even when they can turn and look at it. The camera doesn't show us until the very end, of course, when the camera finally goes into the room. But the entire movie, Josh, how do we know? How do we know that the room can actually perform the miracles that Stalker claims it does. We don't know. We can't know.

And I mention close encounters. I imagine when Alex Garland's Annihilation came out in twenty eighteen, or when the book it was adapted from came out in twenty fourteen, everyone who had seen Stalker thought, hmm, there's some similarities here. That's neither here nor there for me, except in one regard. It's been a while since I've seen Annihilation. But as I recall, when they go into the Shimmer, as it's

called there, a lot of crazy stuff goes down. All of the things that Stalker says about the zone, how it's impossible to navigate because it's constantly shifting. He says, the moment someone shows up, everything comes into motion. Old traps dis and new ones emerge. Safe spots become impassable. Now your path is easy. Now it's hopelessly involved. That's the zone. It may even seem capricious, but it is

what we've made it with our condition. He makes it sound like it's a video game, as if the land is literally shape shifting in front of us. That's more applicable to a movie like Annihilation. We don't see any

of that happen in this film. There are no bizarre or really supernatural occurring save for possibly two moments right, which is when the writer moves forward even though he's told not to, and he hears a voice, and we're left to wonder is that a voice inside his head or is that actually the zone, the zone talking to him. And then later there's a telephone call. There's a telephone call in a place where I'm guessing no one, no one's actually set up a telephone. But other than that, Joss,

there's really no special effects. There's no sense of anything within the landscape that's actually alive or shifting. We're just left to believe what Stalker tells us, even when our own eyes, the camera and other characters eyes say that, look, where we're going is right there, it's straight ahead, but Stalker's telling us, no, you can't go that way. You have to take a different much more convoluted round, so

I think that's a big part of it. But also it's how Tarkovsky brings us into the world of the zone. And you reference this with the sound design, but it's that hypnotic ride in the railcar and the close ups of the faces, that long ride on the railcar, the closeups of the faces, the sound along the tracks. Then we get mixed in Edward Artemyev's ambient electronic music clanking

around as well. He also did Mirror and Solaris and everything up to this point has been that black and white cinematography that's like a saturated yeah, CPIA tone, it's like a decaying CPIA tone. And suddenly, but still subtly, with one cut, we're in full color, lush greens, the blue sky flowers. It's it's just in that shot, all of a sudden, we believe that the Zone is this enchanted,

otherworldly place that stalker claims that it is. And I think it's also Josh in one last thing, how he uses the camera almost like a spectral presence, like when the camera does pull back into the room otherwise unmotivated, when it lurks around corners, like lurks around trees, with the corners of that tunnel, like it's another presence is observing all of this. How about the shot and I think I referenced this before when the writer starts walking

and oh, actually this is the professor. Later when the professor's in the lead. It's the shot where we're sure that we're seeing the professor's point of view as he walks along, because in the previous shot he has just started walking along the path. And then we cut to a shot where clearly the camera is moving, it's handheld as it looks like a set of eyes is moving along this path, and then all of a sudden, all three characters are ahead of the camera in the shot.

It's the shot that occurs through that burned out car, I think, with some bodies inside of it. Right, So we think it's the professor's point of view, but then the Professor's in front of the camera. It's as if this entire space somehow is alive.

There is a counter. If someone wanted to argue that this is a film about having faith, you know, an argument about having faith of some sort, you could counter that and say, you know, based on largely what we see, as you've been saying, this could all be mythology built

around let's say, a devastating nuclear accident. And worth noting as we're placing this in timeframe, Chernobyl wasn't till eighty six, so this is something that maybe, you know, whether it was the novelists or Tarkowsky, are thinking about possibilities in the Soviet Union. It's not like this had happened. But yeah, you could counter and say this is all mythology. This space suffered a devastating nuclear accident, and now to kind of like in the years after this myth has built

up around it. Think about one thing. The writer also says, all of this is someone's idiotic invention, and it's the writer. I thought this was interesting who calls out the soccer for enjoying the power that selling this mystery gives him when they really start going at each other near the end. That's exactly how some people see clergy, see the church right as just manipulating religious belief for power. So that's definitely there's enough of that there in this film to

allow for that sort of reading. I think that's the part where the writer might also call him one of God's fools, and in his use of it, it's literal fool. It's like you are unintelligent and you know, and in

this case also taking advantage of us. All that being said, just based on you know, the other Tarkowski films and especially something like Andrea rubelev I, this strikes me when it comes to the faith question as this apocalyptically eerie argument that there's something, there's just something more than the

material world, and we do get hints of this. I think that incredible shot when they're in that room with the piles of dust, the mounds of dust, a bird comes flying through, and that edit where the bird just disappears mid flight. In the next shot the bird comes back and then we see it land. I think that's never explained what the heck is going on there, but it's something unnatural, to be sure. But for me, it's

a through line more that's going across this movie. When we meet the writer for the first time, he's talking to this woman, he's waiting to meet the Stalker and lamenting the lack of the metaphysical in the modern world. I think he references ghosts. I think he might even say flying saucers. Doesn't he say something about the Middle Ages life was more interesting because you know, there was the potential for the metaphysical. And of course we could

get into the ending here if we want. This is the fire final shot where we're back outside of the zone where I believe in the stalkers home with his daughter, who's been called Monkey and has been described as you know, being a mutant, a zone mutant, something like that that lends towards the nuclear disaster theory. But here, and this is in color, even though we're in the CPIA world. Here, this is in color. This is where she's been reading

a book. We hear the poem read by a woman's voice, but then she just turns and looks at the table and there's a glass and dark liquid there. She stares at it and it begins moving, and you get this. It's hard to describe because what's happening is so simple, But at the end of this film, to have this happen, I think it's because it's the revealing of what the film believes reality to be, is that there is something metaphysical and unexplainable. This is the mystery that Tarkowsky's movies

are always trying to solve. I feel like is that she somehow is moving these these glasses. She does it three times, one falls off the table, and the music, the rare music we hear faintly in the background is Beethoven's Owed to Joy. So all of that adds up to me to be this argument that there is something going on here in this room. That's the question I want to ask you, how did you read what's in the room, if anything, because there's a counter that there's nothing there.

this film leaves people with are. What some of the larger philosophical questions are that people have really been wrestling with. But I imagine, Josh that one of those provocations goes back to something the writer says when he decides ultimately that he's not going to go in. He says that the room doesn't grant your wish. What the room does is it reveals to you your true nature and what you truly wish for, essentially revealing who you really are.

But what strikes me about that, Josh, is even that is potentially just the writer's interpretation. And he is a writer after all, So that's his interpretation, That is his invention in the moment now that is based on what he knows about what Stalker has told him about his

former mentor, a man known as Porcupine. So he's reading into that and determining that this man ultimately killed himself because he went into the room and he learned something about himself that he didn't want to learn, but that's still his interpretation. At the end of the day, Tarkovsky offers no concrete evidence that that room grants any wishes, your true nature, bags of money, whatever it may be. We have no sense of that one way.

And what that led me to think about is those are people who are willing to surrender, to realize they can't save themselves. They're helpless, and part of that surrender is admitting who you are. So if the rumor reveals who you are, your deepest desire is part of that. It's maybe not the entire thing, but it's definitely part of it. That is kind of submitting to the divine is to humbling yourself, exposing yourself, and in that somehow

finding hope. I think that's what his wife is talking about when she says, without sorrow, there is no hope. That you have to admit that. There's maybe an element of confession at play here. Stalker says something else like this is the only place to come when all hope is gone. So that's kind of a release and a surrender idea as well. And yeah, I think there are

some other sort of details that support this. There's that whole weird sequence where the three of them are falling asleep just before they get to the room, and the movie it's maybe lags a bit because you're like, we want to see what happens and they get drowsy. It's like they're in the field of Poppies and the Wizard of Oz. But we hear a woman quote during that passage from Revelation six, which is this apocalyptic passage about

falling before the face of God. Stalker later quotes the story the New Testament story of the disciples encountering the risen Jesus on the road to Amais and they don't recognize him. And I think he says right around that time to the professor and the writer something like do you see or something like that, Like basically, this idea of being open to the divine in some way and the fear and trembling that comes with that is what's

in the room. It's not like, you know, I want pizza every day for the rest of my life for free. That's not what the room is giving. It may give freedom, but it's what's going to come first is some sort of honesty, humility, confession, submission, and that's what's terrifying. So yeah, and all that is to say is I don't think this is a tract in any way, but just piecing together, I think that's what the Stalker is suggesting without explicitly

explaining to them. And then you throw in you know, so what does it mean that the professor is essentially there to blow the room up? You know, that's a whole nother threat. We could talk about as well, that he sees this as I think his excuse is that this is too powerful for anyone to have, right, so he wants to destroy it. Now, how does that apply to what I've been talking about. I don't know. I still have plenty more questions. But as that was how I sort of started to wrap my mind around.

is a shot of a glass of water shaking as that train goes by. It's almost as if it's going to tremble enough that it might fall off the edge, and it never does. And then we come around to the end. It feels like a callback to that moment, not a direct callback, but a close enough callback. What I thought of Josh more specifically, more pointedly, is what the writer says earlier in the film. What you're referencing.

He's bemoaning. And this is ironic in a way because he's not the scientist, he's not the professor, he's the writer. And I know ultimately he's wishing that there was more metaphysical aspects to the universe and that there was something more profound that we could all experience. But what he's saying is something a scientist would say. The world is absolute, we're governed by laws. Yeah, it's ironclad and law. That's

ultimately what he's upset about. And that moment seems like, and I think this supports exactly what you were saying and you're reading, but it's a direct rebuke of that. At the end of this movie, it's Tarkovsky's way of saying, not so fast. We don't live in a world that is as immutable in terms of its laws as you think it is.

that here with which connect to what you're saying. You know, there are hints of those moving glasses to come. This is again when they first enter the zone and they're on a hill overlooking it. The track, the road track is still there. They're kind of in darkness, it's foggy, and then the sun pierces through the fog and seems to anoint them. There's even a flare on the lens, and then the fog returns and it fades away. Like they couldn't have planned for that. They could not have

planned for that. Yeah, Like the camera was just there and it's exquisite. There's a shot when they're closer to the room this well and the camera is looking down on it and there's these ripples of dark water sort of undulating in mesmerizing ways. And how about that shot. I wonder if you caught this, or maybe I was

just you know, getting dizzy at this point. There's a shot of a dry river about at one point in the zone, and I could have sworn the lower half of the frame of the dirt was almost undulating in a weird way. And then at the end of this shot again had to be unplanned. This little dust devil just forms and blows around and then disappears. These are like the conjuring sorcerer moments that Tarkovsky seems to somehow either find or create. But I think their hints of

what you're talking about. They're just saying, yeah, you know, we know laws of science, and we follow them and believe them. But what's this? What is going What is going on here?

that they are not reduced to just allegorical figures. They have their own frailties and insecurities, and they are individuals, and I don't think they just represent sort of the fields that they come from. But nevertheless, there is very clearly a major allegorical element at play with this. STU Sure as we're talking about what does the room represent? Right,

what does the zone represent? And at one point I think it is the stalker who says, or it's actually in a voiceover, it's him and a voice over where he says, for softness is great and strength is worthless. That which has become hard shall not triumph. And maybe I'm taking it too literally. This is a film that

you do that at your own risk. But I go back to a film, another allegorical film like The Steamroller and the Violin, a movie that's very much about saying, yes, we live in a world where we need we need people doing tough jobs like running this steamroller, and there are battles to be fought and soldiers that have to fight them, and it's a brutal, tough experience for all of us. But that's why we need beauty, and we

need kids who play the violin. And and this seems to be one of those things that is constantly warring in Tarkovski as well, this recognition of the brutality of the world, but also that need as we've discussed with other films, that need for beauty. And it's almost like with his voice over Josh, it's it's as if Tarkovski is trying to usher it into reality. He wants to make it a reality that everyone understands that we need

to embrace softness. We need to abandon the notion that being hard, that strength, that might is the only thing that we should aspire to.

a position of softness. And I think that's yeah, a thesis statement for the film, and also an argument for the professor and the writer, like you're going, if you really want to go and do this, this is the posture you need to it adopt. Not go in there and ask to be the strongest man in the world, but to become the weakest essentially.

the zone anymore. People won't be seeking out the room, right because no one will have the faith to go there. They'll need more proof, they'll need more evidence, whatever the case may be. But in that conversation Josh where he talks about the unhappy and why people go there, my thought is, forget faith. As long as there are people who are unhappy, won't there always be a need to go to the room. And won't there always be unhappy people?

conduit between the divine and regular people. And for him, everything else probably is extraneous. Everything else in the world is extraneous. This is his purpose, this is why he's been put on this earth. He and you know, in terms of modernity, yeah, I think that part you're talking about. He says something like their capacity for faith has atrophied, and I think that's you know, that's what concerns him is not so much that whether or not he has a job, but that these are lost people.

a way that can actually bring hope and comfort. And so what he's bemoaning there is that he believes he has a way to address it, and by negating that, denying that it's even a possibility, that's the tragedy. That's the tragedy for him. Maybe I don't know. So wait now I'm gonna throw you a quick question, what's with

the dog with that? And well, maybe a listener will help us, because a listener was kind enough to help us with the horses at the end of Andre Rubelev Yeah, I forget their name, but had a very thoughtful, reasonable explanation that, you know, these peaceful horses that are the last shot are a counter to the horses in physical strikeing we saw throughout the film, which I think made a lot of sense. But there's this dog that appears in the zone, and I guess the Stalker takes home, yeah,

with him, but he also seems to appear. The dog also seems to appear in visions. Right, I don't know. I got nothing on it.

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out wide. Final Destination Bloodlines the sixth in the series, but the first since twenty eleven's The Not So Final Destination. I added the Not So Josh Hurry Up Tomorrow The Weekend is a musician plagued by insomnia, pulled into an odyssey with a stranger played by Jenna Ortega who begins to unravel the very core of his existence. Sounds like Tarkowski Very Kogan stars. It's directed by Trey Edward Schultz, who made Soavognesha and Waves and It Comes at Night.

In limited release, this one seems to be getting some good buzz. Friendship, starring Tim Robinson as a suburban dad who falls hard for his charismatic new neighbor played by Paul Rudd.

You'll probably get a lot out of this if you're going to it for a lighthearted Paul Rudd buddy Rop not so much.