Vintage Image of the Day: Solaris (1972)

by Jette Kernion Mar 28th 2006 // 10:02AM

Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Vintage Image of the Day, George Clooney

I don't want to turn Vintage Image of the Day into Obituary-Related Image of the Day, but the opportunity to share a photo from this particular film was too tempting. Science-fiction author Stanislaw Lem died on Monday after battling heart disease, at age 84. A number of his novels were translated into English and were quite popular ... and a few were adapted into films. The best-known movies adapted from Lem's work are probably the 1972 Russian film Solaris and Steven Soderbergh's 2002 remake.

I've never seen the original Solaris, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. In college, I fell asleep watching Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice, and decided that the Russian director's deliberately paced films were not to my taste. A few years later, I had much better luck with Andrei Rublev, so perhaps I was wrong. The variety of striking images from Solaris, such as the one above, and universally glowing reviews make me feel that I really ought to give the film a fair trial.

However, my increased interest in the material doesn't extend to Soderbergh's version of Solaris. My sister, who is no science-fiction fan, saw it simply because she'd heard the film included some, er, rather revealing shots of George Clooney. She reported that it wasn't worth suffering through such a dull movie for the scant reward of a few glimpses of her favorite film star unclothed. Obviously, she was not the target audience. Although I am a science-fiction fan who also enjoys the films of Soderbergh and the many attributes of Clooney, I think I'll start with Tarkovsky's film.

4 Comments

Tags: Andrei Tarkovsky, Cinematical, film, George Clooney, GeorgeClooney, movie, Solaris, Stanislaw Lem, StanislawLem, Steven Soderbergh, StevenSoderbergh

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

3-28-2006 @ 11:09AM

SR said...

Both are worth seeing, but you definitely need to be in a slow-paced, distraction-free mood for either of them. The Tarkovsky has a killer final shot that is worth the wait.

The Soderbergh is a delicately told love story in a science fiction setting, an unexpected genre pairing which probably didn't help it at the box office. It is absolutely heartbreaking yet beguilingly ambiguous. On balance, I prefer the Soderbergh, which has the added virtue of an astounding performance by Jeremy Davies.

I've also read the book (in translation, of course), and prefer both movies to it. In fact, the three works have a few key superficial details in common but otherwise are remarkably different artistic achievements.

For what it's worth, I prefer Tarkovsky's other SF film, STALKER, to both versions of SOLARIS.

3-28-2006 @ 12:27PM

Ron Mwangaguhunga said...

I recommend Tarkovsky's Mirror, which is incredibly beautiful, hauntingly so. It is also autobiographical and drenched in the music of Bach. Ingmar Bergman sings his praises; they are much alike, rustic intellectual artists, except Tarkovsky's soul is weighty, Nature-loving Slavic to Bergman's Swedish, God-and-childhood obsessions. The Sacrifice wasn't his best work so falling asleep isn't a cinematical felony. Please give Tarkovsky another chance.

3-28-2006 @ 1:03PM

karina said...

I agree with Ron. I'm no Tarkovsky apologist - i certainly can't blame you for nodding off, as I did the same in a class showing Solaris - but The Mirror is pretty great.

3-28-2006 @ 2:14PM

Taras Bulubas said...

I've started with Lem's novel Astronauts at my 10. Then other novels came. I love Pilot Pirx' Tales the most, my Bible. I lost the print out in my mother-tongue, so I bought and read it in English. And again the same feeling as during last 30 years arrives, ... great pleasure from reading and dreaming.