MOSFILM
Second Artists' Association
ALISSA FREINDLIKH
ALEXANDER KAIDANOVSKY
ANATOLY SOLONITSYN
NIKOLAI GRINKO
in
STALKER
Screenplay by Arkady STRUGATSKY and Boris STRUGATSKY
based upon the story "Roadside Picnic"
Directed by Andrei TARKOVSKY
Director of Photography Alexander KNYAZHlNSKY
Production Designer Andrei TARKOVSKY
Music by Eduard ARTEMYEV
Director L. TARKOVSKAYA
Verses by F.I. TlUTCHEV Ar.A. TARKOVSKY
Sound by V. SHARUN Conductor E. KHACHATURYAN
STALKER
" What was it? A meteorite?
A visit of inhabitants of the cosmic abyss?
One way or another, our small country
has seen the birth of a miracle - the Zone.
We immediately sent troops there.
They haven't come back.
Then we surrounded the Zone with police cordons...
Perhaps, that was the right thing to do. Though, I don't know..."
From an interview with Nobel Prize winner, Professor Wallace.
Why did you take my watch?
Where are you going, I'm asking you?
You gave me your word and I believed you.
All right, you're not thinking about yourself, but what about us?
Did you think about your child?
She's just getting used to you, and you start it again!
You've made an old woman of me. You've ruined my life.
Not so loud, you'll wake up Monkey.
I can't wait for you forever. I'm going to die!
You wanted to start working!
You've been promised a normal human work!
I'll be back soon.
You'll be back to prison!
Though this time you'll get ten years, not five!
And for ten years you will have neither your Zone, nor anything!
And I'll be dead in the meantime.
Oh God, for me it's prison everywhere!
- Let me go! - No!
Let go, I said!
Go! And may you rot there!
Be damned the day when I met you, bastard!
God himself has cursed you by giving you this child!
And me too, because of you, jerk!
My dear, our world is hopelessly boring.
Therefore, there can be no telepathy, or apparitions, or flying saucers,
nothing like that.
The world is ruled by cast-iron laws, and it's insufferably boring.
Alas, those laws are never violated.
They don't know how to be violated.
So don't even hope for a UFO, that would have been too interesting.
And how about the Bermuda Triangle? You're not going to deny...
I am. There is no Bermuda Triangle.
There's only Triangle ABC that equals Triangle A-prim, B-prim, C-prim.
Do you feel the boredom contained in this assertion?
To live in the Middle Ages was interesting.
Every home had its house-spirit, and every church had its God.
People were young! Now every fourth is an old person.
It's so boring, my angel.
But you said that the Zone
was the product of a superior civilization...
It must be boring, too, all those laws, triangles,
and no house spirits, and no God, that's for certain.
Because if God is also a triangle,
then I don't know what to think.
It's for me! Great!
Goodbye, my dear friend.
This lady was so kind as to agree to go with us to the Zone.
She's a very courageous woman. Her name is...
I beg your pardon, your name is..?
Are you really a stalker?
Wait... I'll explain everything.
Go...
What a cretin!
You did get drunk after all.
Me? What do you mean?
I had a drink, like one half of the population does.
The other half gets drunk. Including women and children.
I just had a drink though.
Damn it, what a mess here.
Go on, drink. We've got time.
How about a glass for the road?
What do you think?
Take it away.
I see. Dry law. Alcoholism is a scourge of mankind.
All right, we'll drink beer.
Is he with us?
Never mind, he'll sober up. He needs to go there, too.
Are you really a professor?
If you don't mind.
Then let me introduce myself. My name is...
Your name is Writer.
Well. And what is my name?
Yours? Professor.
I see. I'm a writer,
so, naturally, everyone calls me Writer for some reason.
- And what do you write about? - About the readers.
Obviously, there's nothing else one should write about.
One should write about nothing at all.
And what are you? A chemist?
A physicist rather.
That must be boring, too. Searching for the truth.
It's hiding and you keep searching for it.
You dig in one place - eureka! The nucleus is made of protons.
You dig in another - great!
Triangle ABC equals Triangle A-prim, B-prim, C-prim.
With me it's quite different.
While I am digging for the truth, so much happens to it
that instead of discovering the truth
I dig up a heap of, pardon... I'd better not name it.
You're lucky!
But imagine some antique pot displayed in a museum.
It was used at its time as a receptacle of food leftovers,
but now it's an object of universal admiration
for its laconic pattern and unique form.
Everyone goes oh! and ah!
And suddenly it turns out that it's not antique at all,
that some joker has palmed it off on the archeologists
just for fun.
Strange as it may seem, the admiration dies off. Those connoisseurs...
Is it what you think about all the time?
God forbid!
In fact, I don't think much. It's not good for me.
It's impossible to write, thinking all the time of success or failure.
Naturlich! But if no one is going to read me in one hundred years,
why the hell should I write at all?
Tell me, Professor, why did you let yourself be mixed up in all this?
What do you need the Zone for?
I'm a scientist in some sense.
But what do you need it for?
You're an " in" writer.
Women must be running after you in flocks.
My inspiration has been lost, Professor. I go begging for it.
Have you been used up?
What? Yes, I guess, in a way.
Do you hear it? Our train.
- Have you taken the roof off the car? - Yes, I have.
Luger, if I don't come back, call on my wife.
Damn it, I forgot to buy cigarettes.
Don't go back.
- Why? - You must not.
- You're all like this. - Like what?
Believing such nonsense.
Well, I'd better leave it for a rainy day.
Are you really a scientist?
Down!
Don't move!
Go and look, is there anyone there?
Move it, for God's sake!
There's no one there.
Go to the other exit.
Where on earth did you look, Writer?
- You didn't forget the jerry can? - No. It's full.
Everything I told you before...
is a lie. I don't give a damn about inspiration.
How would I know the right word for what I want?
How would I know that actually I don't want what I want?
Or that I actually don't want what I don't want?
They are elusive things:.
the moment we name them, their meaning disappears,
melts, dissolves like a jellyfish in the sun.
My conscience wants vegetarianism to win over the world.
And my subconscious is yearning for a piece ofjuicy meat.
But what do I want?
World domination.
Quiet!
Why a diesel locomotive in the Zone?
It services the outpost. It won't go any farther.
They don't like going there.
Take your places! Everybody here?
The guards have arrived. Tell them to turn the TV off.
Hurry!
Go look if there's a trolley on the tracks.
What trolley?
Go back, I'll do it.
The jerry can!
Give it to me!
Get rid of your knapsack, it's hampering you.
You may travel light, if you wish, as if going for a stroll.
If someone gets hit, don't shout or rush about.
If they see you, they'll kill you.
When everything settles down, crawl back to the outpost.
They'll pick you up in the morning.
Can they catch up with us?
They fear it like the plague.
Fear what?