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...Soderbergh's "Solaris" remake?Solaris really impressed (to me way better than 2001), little ambiguity and right-on issues wise.
Is the original a must see?
TIA
Edits: 04/29/09Follow Ups:
I like both. The original is much better though, IMO. Haven't read the book, but I know I should. If you saw the remake and thought it was slow, wait until you see the original! I like slow engrossing films though. My wife fell asleep three times trying to watch the original. My son bought me the remake, so we've seen it several times, and my wife can barely stay awake for it.They are science fiction, IMO. It's the other films that aren't... ;-)
Rod
Edits: 05/08/09 05/08/09
Funny, the English-language version of the Stanislaw Lem book is a re-translation from a translation into French, and it still packs the power that makes Solaris the Moby Dick of science fiction writing.
The film versions contain maybe 15 per cent of the book's content (and the novel is actually not all that many pages). The ending of the book is one of the best pieces of writing you can read.
Neither film compares, though both have their good points.
While the book may be somewhat above the average pulp science fiction, it is still not something to take with you on that darn island.
One should not consider Tarkovsky' work as an extension of Lem's, for it simply borrows the rough sketch of the plot from it. The connection is that of the natural landscape to Monet painting. It is there, but how important it really is?
Which is not to suggest someone interested in that movie should not read the book - by all means he should. But Lem's work is aimed at teenager in us, not 13 yo, mind you , but still not an adult... and Tarkovsky addresses much higher level.
The 2001 is all phony, it is all about the wrapping, with no substance. So while always compared to Solaris, it is a totally different kind of a movie. Ditto for the Soderberg's work, which is just another take on the general approach of the 2001, albeit by an apprentice... like the 2001 or not, Kubrik is not your average master. Even his fluff is special.
Soderberg's film is basically a Reader's Digest version of War and Peace. The real work can be hard to dig through for some, but it is incredibly stimulating.
Lem aimed at the teen, not the adult?
I find this incomprehensible.
I read it when I was probably 15, and it worked. Tried it later and it was "Huh?".
.
Approaching Solaris with such yardstick is surely going to create uncertainty, fear and dislike.
with the exception of the less radically different "2001," that it takes a special effort to understand, to appreciate it.
It is a terrific love story, for one thing, and which I remember being lacerating after I saw it, recently having broken up with a long term lover.
I guess we all have different definitions of the sci-fi term. To me it means there should be strong "sci" element, which in Solaris simply is not there. OK, OK, it is kind of there, but how important is it? That is my view. But I am not going to argue that point - if someone sees it as the sci-fi then it is OK by me.
And I think it was the simplistic understanding of the term that caused late to laugh uncontrollably - this is the trick the terminology sometimes plays with us.
.
you missed it completely.
"The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Below are a few definitions of Sci-Fi...
I think the remake of "Solaris" is terrific. Steven Soderberg was able to explore and develop ideas in the remake- while the original was driving on the freeway.
* Hugo Gernsback. 1926. "By 'scientifiction' I mean the Jules Verne, H. G. Wells and Edgar Allan Poe type of story -- a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision . . . . Not only do these amazing tales make tremendously interesting reading -- they are always instructive. They supply knowledge . . . in a very palatable form . . . . New adventures pictured for us in the scientifiction of today are not at all impossible of realization tomorrow . . . . Many great science stories destined to be of historical interest are still to be written . . . . Posterity will point to them as having blazed a new trail, not only in literature and fiction, but progress as well."[3][4]
* J. O. Bailey. 1947. "A piece of scientific fiction is a narrative of an imaginary invention or discovery in the natural sciences and consequent adventures and experiences . . . . It must be a scientific discovery -- something that the author at least rationalizes as possible to science."[5][6][4]
* Robert A. Heinlein. 1947. "Let's gather up the bits and pieces and define the Simon-pure science fiction story: 1. The conditions must be, in some respect, different from here-and-now, although the difference may lie only in an invention made in the course of the story. 2. The new conditions must be an essential part of the story. 3. The problem itself -- the "plot" -- must be a human problem. 4. The human problem must be one which is created by, or indispensably affected by, the new conditions. 5. And lastly, no established fact shall be violated, and, furthermore, when the story requires that a theory contrary to present accepted theory be used, the new theory should be rendered reasonably plausible and it must include and explain established facts as satisfactorily as the one the author saw fit to junk. It may be far-fetched, it may seem fantastic, but it must not be at variance with observed facts, i.e., if you are going to assume that the human race descended from Martians, then you've got to explain our apparent close relationship to terrestrial anthropoid apes as well."[7]
* John W. Campbell. 1947. "To be science fiction, not fantasy, an honest effort at prophetic extrapolation from the known must be made."[7]
* Damon Knight. 1952. At the start of a series of book review columns, Knight stated the following as one of his assumptions: "That the term 'science fiction' is a misnomer, that trying to get two enthusiasts to agree on a definition of it leads only to bloody knuckles; that better labels have been devised (Heinlein's suggestion, 'speculative fiction', is the best, I think), but that we're stuck with this one; and that it will do us no particular harm if we remember that, like 'The Saturday Evening Post', it means what we point to when we say it." This definition is now usually seen in abbreviated form as "Science fiction is [or means] what we point to when we say it."[8]
* Basil Davenport. 1955. "Science fiction is fiction based upon some imagined development of science, or upon the extrapolation of a tendency in society."[9]
* Edmund Crispin. 1955. A science fiction story "is one that presupposes a technology, or an effect of technology, or a disturbance in the natural order, such as humanity, up to the time of writing, has not in actual fact experienced."[10][11]
* Robert A. Heinlein. 1959. "Realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method. To make this definition cover all science fiction (instead of 'almost all') it is necessary only to strike out the word 'future'.[12]
* Kingsley Amis. 1960. "Science fiction is that class of prose narrative treating of a situation that could not arise in the world we know, but which is hypothesized on the basis of some innovation in science or technology, or pseudo-science or pseudo-technology, whether human or extra-terrestrial in origin."[13]
* James Blish. 1960 or 1964. Science fantasy is "a kind of hybrid in which plausibility is specifically invoked for most of the story, but may be cast aside in patches at the author's whim and according to no visible system or principle."[14]
* Darko Suvin. 1972. Science fiction is "a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author's empirical environment."[15][4]
* Brian Aldiss. 1973. "[S]cience fiction is the search for a definition of man and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge (science) and is characteristically cast in the Gothic or post-Gothic mode".[16][6][4] Revised 1986. "... a definition of mankind..."[17]
* David Ketterer. 1974. "Philosophically oriented science fiction, extrapolating on what we know in the context of our vaster ignorance, comes up with a startling donnée, or rationale, that puts humanity in a radically new perspective."[4]
* Norman Spinrad. 1974. "Science fiction is anything published as science fiction."[6][4][18]
* Robert Scholes. 1975. Fabulation is "fiction that offers us a world clearly and radically discontinuous from the one we know, yet returns to confront that known world in some cognitive way."[19][4]
* ―. 1975. In structural fabulation, "the tradition of speculative fiction is modified by an awareness of the universe as a system of systems, a structure of structures, and the insights of the past century of science are accepted as fictional points of departure. Yet structural fabulation is neither scientific in its methods nor a substitute for actual science. It is a fictional exploration of human situations made perceptible by the implications of recent science. Its favourite themes involve the impact of developments or revelations derived from the human or physical sciences upon the people who must live with those revelations or developments."[19][4]
* Darko Suvin. 1979. "SF is distinguished by the narrative dominance or hegemony of a fictional "novum" (novelty, innovation) validated by cognitive logic."[20]
* Patrick Parrinder. 1980. "'Hard' SF is related to 'hard facts' and also to the 'hard' or engineering sciences. It does not necessarily entail realistic speculation about a future world, though its bias is undoubtedly realistic. Rather, this is the sort of SF that most appeals to scientists themselves -- and is often written by them. The typical 'hard' SF writer looks for new and unfamiliar scientific theories and discoveries which could provide the occasion for a story, and, at its more didactic extreme, the story is only a framework for introducing the scientific concept to the reader."[21]
* ―. 1980. "In 'space opera' (the analogy is with the Western 'horse opera' rather than the 'soap opera') the reverse [Parrinder is referring to his definition of "hard sf"] is true; a melodramatic adventure-fantasy involving stock themes and settings is evolved on the flimsiest scientific basis."[21]
* David Pringle. 1985. "Science fiction is a form of fantastic fiction which exploits the imaginative perspectives of modern science".[22]
* Kim Stanley Robinson. 1987. Sf is "an historical literature . . . . In every sf narrative, there is an explicit or implicit fictional history that connects the period depicted to our present moment, or to some moment in our past."[23][4]
* Christopher Evans. 1988. "Perhaps the crispest definition is that science fiction is a literature of 'what if?' What if we could travel in time? What if we were living on other planets? What if we made contact with alien races? And so on. The starting point is that the writer supposes things are different from how we know them to be."[24]
* Isaac Asimov. 1990. "'[H]ard science fiction' [is] stories that feature authentic scientific knowledge and depend upon it for plot development and plot resolution."[25]
* Jeff Prucher. 2006. Science fiction is "a genre (of literature, film, etc.) in which the setting differs from our own world (e.g. by the invention of new technology, through contact with aliens, by having a different history, etc.), and in which the difference is based on extrapolations made from one or more changes or suppositions; hence, such a genre in which the difference is explained (explicitly or implicitly) in scientific or rational, as opposed to supernatural, terms."[26]
I think it sums it up nicely! :)
"art" directors.
Earlier than Ivan... has very recognizable elements that we got to love in his art later. Small, but interesting film.
d
.
Yes.
Now there's an idea, read the thing for more content - might be easier to find than the film. Thanks!
I think Tarkovsky's is better than Soderbergh's, but then I first saw the Tarkovsky version in the 70's and I've seen it quite a few times since. I regard it as one of the great SF films. I think, however, that there's a fair bit of ambiguity, or at least uncertainty, in Tarkovsky compared to the Soderbergh, and the Tarkovsky is longer and much more slow moving. Not everyone's cup of whatever. I can understand some people preferring the Soderbergh.
David Aiken
.
It is a beautifuly shot and quiet movie, thoughtful. I also like his 1979 Stalker which is also beautiful, full of images and imagination.
thanks
Phil
.
a fine, fine wine. The more you know about the category, the more you'll appreciate it.
His films bear limitless viewing, affording pleasures unseen in previous viewings each time. If you develop a passion for his work, you'd appreciate Bela Tarr, the great Hungarian director who's still working.
Stalker is the only Tarkovsky film my wife likes, and it was the only one that left me a little cold. I need to see it again, because it was probably just the mood I was in that day.
Rod
I wrote before that I don't like Stalker, and it might be worth repeating that like many other directors Tark was capable of overplaying his deck.
He is an undeniable master of imagery - but usually not just for imagery sake (like Greenaway), but as tool allowing him to delve into workings of human mind. In Stalker that connection was lost, I think. We have tons of imagery, but no associations. You can say that too much is left to imagination... so much that it quickly becomes clear there is no message.
It is fine by me, but imagery alone is not enough to elevate the film to the truly magnificent status.
So when I think Tarkovsky I think The Mirror, Solaris, Andrey Rublev, but not Stalker.
I found Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev too ponderous for my feeble attention span at present, though it is a work full of amazing images and ideas.
(Though I'm on the cusp of age when fine wine becomes a pleasure to be savored - the ability to relax with enough time and an unfatigued open mind so often required of Art, seems fleeting.)
Thanks for the heads up on Bela Tarr.
d
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