The 2K digital remastering of Stalker (1979) by Mosfilm that I checked out from the library also included an insert which contains an article written by Mark Le Fanu titled “Stalker: Meaning and Making”. This article is also available on The Criterion Collection’s website here. I’m guessing this Bluray was distributed by Criterion.

After reading it, here are the things that I think are notable to me:

Stalker is Tarkovsky’s second attempt after Solaris at making a science-fiction film and is the last film that he made in the Soviet Union. It is a loose adaptation of the novel Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, Arkady and Boris.

While working on the film, Tarkovsky’s life and the production of Stalker appeared to be troubled and chaotic. He was, as was typical for him, working on many other projects at the same time and was considering adapting The Idiot (by Fyodor Dostoevsky, I assume) and The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy (these books likely influenced the making of Stalker). He was struggling to get a decent viewing for a previous autobiographical film he made called The Mirror after it was only granted a limited domestic release. He simultaneously wanted to leave the USSR for good, yet he also bought a place to live in Myasnoy. The shooting of the film seemed to never end as the first shoot broke down after three months, the cameraman was replaced twice, and when the film was damaged it had to be entirely reshot. The people working on the film also endured toxic, inhospitable conditions on set for months on end as a result of industrial waste, which likely led to many of them having their life cut short from cancer. He even considered giving up on filmmaking in order to make a career in theater — and he did indeed put on a theater production of Hamlet at Moscow’s Lenkom Theatre in 1977.