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Part of In Front of the Room (Stalker) / Polska Sztuka Ludowa - Konteksty 2014 Special Issue
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WOJCIECH MICHERA
In Front
of the Room
(Stalker)
A
ll truth is ancient. The stimulus of novelty lies only
in variety of expression - wrote Novalis.1 True, it
appears that there exist several, perhaps more
than ten themes, which from antiquity give man no peace
and incessantly return in the form of countless tales and
successive transformations. They resemble fruit maturing
each summer, whose flavour is familiar but, nonetheless,
desirable. Just like the fruit, none of which can satiate
our hunger once and for all, these tales never end nor are
they capable of satisfying dreams or ultimately putting our
anxieties at ease. Those perennially repeated attempts at
formulating fundamental questions appear to be a state
as natural for man as eating or sleeping and in a similar
manner call for constant repetition.
One of the themes are miracles, dreams about the un
attainable - an extremely prominent symbolic figure of
’’the journey beyond the farthest horizon”.
*
Miracles are, as a rule, considered to be events trans
gressing the normal laws and potential of Nature, phe
nomena independent of natural causes and effects. A
similar definition is, however, extremely dubious just as
our knowledge of the laws of Nature is uncertain and
incomplete.2 A thus comprehended miracle incessantly
awaits to be toppled ("science is still incapable of explor
ing it, but one day...”) and loses its gravity, thus turning
into a mere outlandish trick. At the same time (due to lin
guistic intuition) we consent without any protest to using
the word “miracle” to describe phenomena surrounding
us as "enchanting” but not breaking the natural principles
ruling the world and explained by science.3
Miracles are just like inspiration, which (as the Fa
thers of the Church from the Antioch school discovered)
must be repeated in reading: Prophecies are mentioned
when someone interprets the words of a prophet, according to
the teachings of Diodore of Tarsus.4 It seems worth not
ing that the Polish word cud is related to the verb: czuć,
odczuwać (to feel, cf. the Slavonic udo) and thus also
to: czuwać, być czujnym (to be watchful).5 Dziw, dziwo
(divU) denotes something which we all podziwiamy (ad
mire) and przyglądamy (observe, divati). The same holds
true for the Latin miraculum, derived from the verb: miror
(which, in turn, originates from the Hebrew: mareh) - to
observe, to wonder, to admire.
Miracles - also evangelical ones: dunameis (Latin: vir
tues), semeia kai terata (signa et prodigia) - are not com
pelled to clash with the natural order of the world; they
struggle for man’s soul and his spiritual senses - the ability
to see and hear (He who has ears...). This was the situation
on Mt. Tabor: in accordance with the tradition of East
ern Christianity: Christ did not undergo transfiguration but
the eyes of the apostles opened for a moment. 6 St. Gregory
Palamas (Greek theologian and mystic from the four
teenth century) wrote: Christ is transfigured, not by putting
on some quality He did not possess previously, nor by changing
into something He never was before, but by revealing to His
disciples what He truly was, in the opening of their eyes and
in giving sight to those who were blind. 7 Elsewhere, the saint
declared: This light is not sensual; the apostles were deemed
worthy of seeing it with their eyes ... thanks to a special pow
er, but not the one that comes from the senses. This vision
- Palamas cited St. Maximus the Confessor - is realised
through the transformation of the impact of their senses.8
Naturally, not always did the effects of the miracles
according to the Gospel performed by Christ call for such
unusual sensitivity of the senses (after all, everyone, and
not only the chosen, could admire the regained vigour
of a person who only a moment ago was blind, crippled
or dying). Nonetheless, as a rule, the miraculous event
requires specific inner disposition, i.e. “faith” described in
the story of the centurion from Capernaum. Like many
others, the centurion asked Christ to heal a loyal servant
dear to him. In contrast to them, however, he did not
demand the Healer to come to his home: Lord, I am not
worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the
word only, and my servant shall be healed. (...) And Jesus
said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast be
lieved, so be it done unto thee. And the servant was cured (see:
Matthew 8, 5-13).
A sui generis negative of the miracle experienced by
the centurion is the story recalled upon a number of oc
casions by the protagonists of Andrei Tarkovsky’s film
Stalker.9 Although in no scene is the story amassed into
an entity and we watch only its shreds and fragments it
indubitably constitutes a profound backdrop of the film.
This is the way the director described it: ...When the char
acters in the film set out on their journey into the Zone, their
destination is a certain room in which, we are told, everybody’s
most secret wish will be granted. And while the Writer and the
Scientist, led by Stalker, are making their hazardous way over
the strange expanse of the Zone, their guide tells them at one
point either a true story, or a legend, about another Stalker,
nicknamed Diko-obraz. He had gone to the secret place to ask
for his brother who had been killed through his fault, to be
brought back to life. When Diko-obraz returned home, how
ever, he discovered that he had become fabulously wealthy.
296
Wojciech Michera • IN FRONT OF THE ROOM (S T A L K E R )
The Zone had granted what was in reality his most heartfelt
desire, and not the wish that he had wanted to imagine was
most precious to him. And Diko-obraz had hanged himself.10
A miracle thus took place. One could say: So be it
done... - but not in the way Porcupine wanted (or rather
thought he wanted) although - ...as thou hast believed,
even against his will. It is precisely faith, that particular
"sense”, that is characteristic for the space of the Room.
*
What is the Zone, the unusual space of the journey
depicted in the film, a journey “beyond the horizon”? It
cannot be described in the same categories as the rest
of the world, and it is undeniably unusualness that is its
essential feature. From the viewpoint of the rest of the
world the Zone exists exclusively in negative categories,
as a “lack”, an undifferentiated chasm devoid of charac
teristic properties. Stalker describes the Zone: It is so quiet
out here, it is the quietest place in the world, or elsewhere:
There’s no one in the Zone and there can’t be. It belongs to
the category of impossible phenomena (In the Zone, the
longer way, the less risk), but this “impossibility” cannot be
understood as banal improbability typical for the majority
of science fiction works (Tarkovsky frequently explained
that in Stalker only the initial anecdote, the pretext of the
story, is science fiction).
Impossibility, negativity becomes (as in apophatic the
ology) a special concept and category evoking that, which
in the world is unutterable and cannot be easily enclosed
in categories and conceits. It is a condition for abandon
ing literalness (or habit) while depicting the world. The
tension between the probable and the impossible, that
“miraculous” innovation introduced into familiar order,
endows the Zone with appropriate sense, rendering it a
sui generis “metaphor” showing a different vision of that
world and disclosing other, not always noticeable depend
encies occurring between its elements.11
The miracle, in the manner of a glittering beacon, is a
condition for encounter and dialogue; in a certain sense
(and in accordance with what Whitman wrote) we no
tice only that, which becomes (for us?) a miracle.
*
A rather universal conviction, or rather intuition, tells
us that apart from that, which can be easily perceived or
understood there exists something else, much more im
portant. This reflection has always been an inexhaustible
source of spiritual, intellectual and artistic efforts leading,
however, towards extremely diverse conclusions. One
of the forms of such a dream about transgressing com
monplace reality was described with great enthusiasm by
Cioran.
Let us cleanse our consciousness of all that surrounds it, all
the universes that it trails behind it, and together with it let us
purify also perception so that we would become surrounded by
whiteness, that oblivion of colours, apart from the single one,
which destroys all others. What tranquillity from the moment
when we annul all diversity, when avoiding the Golgotha of
nuances we submerge into unity! Consciousness as purified
form and subsequently the outright absence of consciousness.
In order to set ourselves free from the unbearable let us
seek another path, an escape, a region where no sensual impression pines for a name or embodiment, let us discover anew
original rest, let us abandon hideous memory and together with
it —the past, and, first and foremost, let us ignore conscious
ness, our eternal foe that destroys and exploits us. By way of
contrast, the unconscious is a nourisher that strengthens and
allows us to participate in our beginnings, our original integrity,
and we once again immerse ourselves in the blessed chaos that
precedes individuation12
This ardent call reflects profound disgust with the
concrete of the world and the concrete of oneself, a fear
of overpowering feelings, memory, and awareness - em
bodiment. While expressing the need for abandoning
the world Cioran naturally followed the path delineated
by the tradition of the Orient but also known in Europe
(predominantly thanks to Plato and his legacy); he urged
to discover that unique paradise of non-corporeal and dis
passionate indifference.
Can we compare this idealised domain of escape to
the image of the Zone created by Tarkovsky? The author
of Stalker, just as critical as Cioran of the contemporary,
desacralised world, also shows the Zone as a tempting
space of a blessed loss of one’s way (the Stalker character
says about the rest of the world: Oh God, for me it’s prison
everywhere!), which compels to renounce familiar paths,
to set oneself free from ordinary knowledge and well-test
ed habits. Is this, however, the freedom from the world
desired by Cioran? Freedom from feelings and senses?
Here, all similarity, unquestioned at the point of depar
ture, breaks down - the Zone demands from the travellers
(including Stalker) special tension and creates a state of
constant unrest.13 Although Tarkovsky remained closer
to Christian spirituality he just as readily referred to the
tradition of the East.14
If the Zone was to be merely a region of refuge, a shel
ter against the world, and free of all experiences then the
travellers would not wish to return home. Even if they did
want to stay (Stalker’s silent dream) they still come back.
This recalls the dilemma of the mystics expressed, for ex
ample, by William (Guillaume) of Saint-Thierry in the
opening paragraph of his treatise De Contemplando Deo:
Come, let us climb the mountain of God, the home of the God
of Jacob, and He shall teach us His paths. Intentions, efforts,
thoughts, predilections and all that is concealed in my interior —
come, let us climb the mountain, the place where the Lord sees
or is seen. Cares, anxieties, fears, almost slave-like toil - wait
here for me with a donkey and this body, until I and the boy,
reason together with understanding, go there, pay homage, and
then return to you. We shall return rapidly. Love of the truth
commands us to leave you, but the truth of love, owing to my
brethren, does not permit me to renounce and desert you.
297
The closing scene in a bar where the travellers meet
Stalker’s wife and daughter is suffused with emotion, love
and suffering; this is one of the most important scenes
and, according to Tarkovsky, full of optimism. The Writ
er and the Professor see a woman, the director adds, who
suffered so much because of her husband, she gave birth to a
sick child through his fault, still loves him with the same limit
less generosity she felt for him in the days of her youth. Her
love, her devotion —this is exactly the miracle with which one
can counter the lack of faith, spiritual emptiness, cynicism —
that is, all which the heroes of the film have lived until now.
Elsewhere, Tarkovsky stated: Human love is this m i r a c le
which can defy all the dry theorising about hopelessness of the
world [my emphasis - W. M.].
Cioran expressed an undoubtedly intriguing thought:
let us purify also perception so that we would become
surrounded by whiteness, that oblivion of colours, apart
from the single one, which destroys all others. One of
the characteristic features of the Zone is undeniably its
unique “whiteness” that has a lot in common with pre
vailing silence, which not unlike endless variability pre
vents the temptation to idolise this extraordinary space (I
shall return to this theme). But such whiteness is not an
oblivion of colours, a destruction of all others (as Cioran
saw it). After all, it is the reality of the Zone that makes
it possible to apply coloured film tape in contrast to the
earlier black-and-white scenes.
*
An image - Tarkovsky declared - is indefinite in mean
ing. Just as life carries an endless number of meanings.
The Zone is also such an image (or more exactly: the im
age of such an image). I believe, however, that defining it
as “ambiguous” would be slightly misleading, a substitute
stemming from intuitional hostility and fear of enclosing
a complex meaning within an unambiguous conceptual
construction.15 Just like in the case of the symbol the heart
of the matter does not concern only, or not so much, a
multiplicity of meanings. A variety of meanings always
requires their coordination, since - as Aristotle correctly
wrote - not signifying one thing is signifying nothing.
A comparison of even the extremely numerous mean
ings of a certain image does not render it a symbol (nor
does it endow it with the properties of an original meta
phor). That what is at stake is quite different - the ability
to see and hear, that special sense, which opens ears and
eyes to the mystery. The countless number of meanings
of a symbol originates not from the fact that they come
into being in it (simultaneously or one after another) but
from the fact that the symbol exists in the dimension of
possibility - memory and anticipation.16
Motion towards entity stems from absence. This is why
one of the metaphors of a thus understood symbol can be
also silence. It is so quiet out here, it is the quietest place in the
world, Stalker says about the Zone. Silence (also a spe
cial form of quiet) is something more than a means of ex
pression: it is rather a word that has just been heard or is
anticipated;17 it is the language of the desert and solitude
constituting a condition for an encounter.18 It is as if a
state of readiness - a vigil - making it possible to perceive
the emergence of a miracle. Paul Celan offered a similar
explanation of the existence of poetry: the poetic word, in
its most evident expressions, appears to be a word rising from
silence, transcending that silence, and breaking away from it,
but without ceasing to move along its edges.19 The Flemish
theologian Antoine Vergote wrote: The revealed meaning
can be heard only along the edgings of silence.20 The Zone is a
place of a meeting, involving (“disturbing”) the traveller,
a concrete transformed by means of feeling, memory and
dream. It depicts a state of existence most important for
the world, albeit delicate, suspended between that, which
is and that, which could become, and one that (as Andrei
Tarkovsky wrote about the metaphor) falls apart at any
attempt of touching it.
*
Tarkovsky maintained that art (which he identified
in a certain sense with poetry) is a form of activity that
allows man to express absolute truth. A poet is someone
who can use a single image to send a universal message. A
man passes another man by, he looks at him but he cannot
see him. Another man will look at the same person and he will
smile unexpectedly. The stranger has provoked an explosion of
associations in him. It’s similar with art. A poet takes a small
fragment as a starting point and turns it into a coherent whole.
Some consider this process boring. These are people who want
to know about everything in minutest detail, like accountants
or lawyers. But show a toe sticking out of a hole in a sock to a
poet and it is enough to produce an image of the whole world
in him [my emphasis - W.M.].
Tarkovsky’s view about the toe sticking out from a
sock appears to harmonise with that of another poet:
To see a World in a grain of sand
And a Heaven in a wild flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.21
Both Tarkovsky and Blake sought the universal,
though opening towards it is not by any means the ob
livion of colours postulated by Cioran but the concrete,
although transfigured by the light of dazzling “whiteness”;
their objective is mystical “unity”, albeit embodied and
producing an “explosion of associations” (“colours”) cre
ated out of reminiscences and dreams. “The toe”, similarly
to the “grain of sand” can become an image of the world
thanks to the poetic ability to see, the power of symbolic
imagination (Blake’s postulate: To see...). The Zone or
the “Room” (also the one from Emmaus) is a personifica
tion of this light, a “symbol of a symbol” (understood as an
existential stand). “Freed from the world”, they become a
void, a chasm in current reality. On the other hand, they
remain “tied” to the world, i.e. perceived with the “sense
of faith” they demonstrate its potential dimension.
298
Wojciech Michera • IN FRONT OF THE ROOM (S T A L K E R )
Almost two centuries prior to William Blake another
English poet, George Herbert, also began his poem (Elixir)
with a call-prayer-plea for the miraculous gift of seeing:
Teach me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see (...).
and went on to say:
A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye;
Or it he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heav’n espy.
Can we, therefore, be surprised by Tarkovsky’s view:
The Zone is in some sense a result of Stalker’s imagination.
Our line of reasoning was as follows: it is he who invented that
place to bring people there and convince them about the truth
of his creation (...) I completely agree with the suggestion that
it was Stalker who had created the Zone’s world in order to
invent some sort of faith, a faith in that world’s existence.
Apparently, the twin scenes in a bar, opening and
closing the journey to the Zone, possess an essential con
nection with this reflection. It is from here that the pro
tagonists set out for their journey and here, at the end,
that they suddenly and without any effort find themselves
upon their return. They stand around a table just like
they did previously, and even (as Seweryn Kusmierczyk
noticed) the amount of beer in their glasses had not
changed. Perhaps they actually never went anywhere?
Such a solution would be, however, a basically incorrect
reduction of their experiences to a psychological level.
The heart of the matter is rather granting the journey the
expressive features of mystical experience.
This particular ability possessed by Stalker - the skill
of seeing, the poetic sense - cannot be rationalised as
subjective, excessively abundant fantasy severing all ties
with reality. The symbol (e.g. the Zone) is free but not
arbitrary. Stalker “kindled” a fire that had been already
burning, although in a manner that remained invisible to
the Writer and the Professor. His imagination not only
devised something (in that case it would have created
only idols22), but was also a way of touching (discovering)
the world.
Poetic sense is required not only by the person who
writes poems but also by the one who reads them. Not
only Stalker building the Zone thanks to the force of his
imagination, but also the travellers guided by him face its
message; not only the author of the film but also its spec
tators (Tarkovsky: Everything that happens here depends on
us, not on the Zone).
If poetry is experiencing the world, a special attitude to
wards reality then the Zone should be treated as a written
poem that cannot be completed. Stalker describes poetry:
The Zone is a very complicated system... of traps, and they’re
all deadly. I don’t know what’s going on here in the absence of
people, but the moment someone shows up everything comes
into motion. Old traps disappear and new ones emerge. Safe
spots become impassible. Now your path is easy, now it is hope
299
lessly involved. That’s the Zone. It may even seem capricious.
But it is what we’ve made with our condition... But everything
that’s going on here depends not on the Zone, but on us!
*
Stalker is a religious work. It is about an encounter
with the sacrum and its powerful and dangerous although
also fascinating force. It is a Christian film, full of more or
less transparent allusions to the Biblical text23 and tradi
tion (especially Russian Orthodox). The titular protago
nist is, after all, an Orthodox saint, an imitator of Christ
- yurodivy, God’s fool. This is the way he is called in the
film by the Writer, while Stalker’s wife recalls their youth:
You’ve probably noticed already that he’s not of this world. All
our neighborhood laughed at him. He was such a bungler, he
looked so pitiful. (...) But then he approached me and said:
“Come with me”. And I did, and never regretted it. I am con
vinced that the evangelical model contains not only the
formula: “Come with me” but also a circumstance basic in
the film composition, i.e. the journey - that of the Master
teaching the two disciples travelling with him. Naturally,
I have in mind pericopies describing the meeting of Jesus
and two disciples, and their joint journey from Jerusalem
to Emmaus (Luke 24).
The event on the road near Jerusalem appears to be
just as improbable as the expedition into the recesses of
the Zone. Its pretext is the premise that the disciples were
incapable of recognizing their Master, whom they had
seen upon so many occasions: But their eyes were holden...
Stalker says about the Writer and the Professor: They
don’t believe in anything! They’ve got the organ with which
one believes atrophied for lack of use. (...) Oh God, what
people (...) Haven’t you seen them? They’ve got empty eyes
[my emphasis - W.M]. Is that the reason why they were
unable to enter the Room in which they expected to find
a miracle? Perhaps it was not the miracle that was missing
but eyes capable of noticing it?
Psychological improbability endows the evangelical
story with the dimension of an extremely lucid metaphor:
he who does not follow the Master on the way to the
Room will not learn the Truth (will not “see” it). Note
that both Kleopas and his companion end their journey in
the Chamber24 and there, during supper, the Stranger took
bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them. An
only there, in that openly sacramental and thus symbolical
situation, their eyes were opened, and they knew him.
This situation has undoubtedly much in common
with the scene of the Lord’s Transfiguration. Here too
(just as on Mt. Tabor), the Lord appears to the disciples;
more precisely, he is recognised thanks to the “transfor
mation of their senses” (Maxim the Confessor), “cured
blindness” (Gregory Palamas). That, which in reference
to Mt. Tabor is a theological interpretation here has been
already included into the text of the Gospel.
In Chauvet’s opinion the story about the disciples on
their way to Emmaus is based on a fundamental question:
Wojciech Michera • IN FRONT OF THE ROOM (S T A L K E R )
how to become a believer? How to cross from disbelief to
belief? Chauvet wrote: Jerusalem —Emmaus —Jerusalem:
this topographically round trip is for us the symbolic support
of the turn-around, the "transformation" that gradually takes
place in the disciples’ hearts during the telling of the story.
Compare these words with Tarkovsky’s commentary:
It is important for me to create something specifically human
in this film, something indecomposable which crystalizes within
the soul of each of us and determines our value. Because al
though the heroes suffer an apparent defeat, each of them gains
something incredibly important: faith, discovery within them
selves of that which is the most important. This most important
is within every human being.
*
Does Stalker also not mention the “most important”,
the “sense of faith”: You were speaking [he turns to the
Writer and the Professor] of the meaning of our life, of the
unselfishness of art...Take music, for instance. Less than any
thing else, it is connected to reality, or if connected at all, it’s
done mechanically, not by way of ideas, just by a sheer sound,
devoid of ... any associations. And yet, music, as if by some
miracle, gets through to our heart. What is it that resonates
in us in response to noise brought to harmony, making it the
source of the greatest delight!25
A similarly comprehended “impartiality” of poetry
- one could say: its musical qualities (“an empty sound
without association”) - was considered by Ricoeur: It is
in this sense that poetry is liberated from the world. But if
it is liberated in this sense, in another sense it is bound, and
it is bound precisely to the extent that it is also liberated.26
The void, “liberation from the world”, create space for
that, which cannot be reduced to a series of empiric
gestures and attributes, which transgresses topicality
and becomes the dimension of possibility (posse).27 It
awakens that inner sense, which on Mt. Tabor and
in Emmaus allowed the disciples to see the Master. A
sense that makes it possible to notice the wonderful
reality of that, which ostensibly does not exist, like the
world in the mystical apple described by D.H. Law
rence in Mystic:
So an apple becomes mystic when I taste in it
the summer and the snows, the wild welter of earth
and the insistence of the sun.
All of which things I can surely taste in a good ap
ple...
This extraordinary ability to savour the “miracle” is a
miracle in itself, although not everyone believes in such
miracles:
If I say I taste these things in an apple, I am called
mystic, which
means a liar.
The controversy concerns the criteria of reality:
The only way to eat an apple is to hog it down like a pig
and taste nothing
that is real.
300
The miracle in Emmaus did not last long; to be pre
cise, it did not “last” at all: Christ (recognised by His dis
ciples thanks to sacramental and symbolic gestures, as if
in a “clearance”) disappeared at the very same moment
(And their eyes were opened and they knew Him. And He
vanished out of their sight - Luke 24, 31). Just as “unreal”
is the flavour of the summer and snow in Lawrence’s apple.28
What does this disappearance signify? The impos
sibility of endurance in that brief moment of joy, the
impossibility of rendering it inedible, almost recalls ex
pulsion from paradise. Can it be really regarded as the
defeat of the disciples? Such defeat is just as ostensible
as the one experienced by Tarkovsky’s protagonists.
This was rather that moment, which Kierkegaard de
scribed as an atom not of time but of eternity. St. Luke
seemed to suggest that the eyes of the disciples open
on an emptiness —“he vanished from their sight" —but an
emptiness full of a presence.29 Less makes it possible to
achieve more.
Christ - “transfigured” on Mt. Tabor and “vanishing”
in Emmaus - defends Himself against being enclosed in an
idolatric formula of identity, against undertakings reduc
ing His endless transfiguration into the historical Christ.30
By way of example, He protests when Peter, John and
James (in the manner of the Israelites creating the golden
calf under Mt. Sinai) wish to erect tents on top of the
mountain - signs of an established cult commemorating
a moment. Christ compels everyone to make an ethical
choice - either we treat Him as an idol, comprising a fait
accompli, or we perceive in Him a challenge to carry out
our transfiguration.
The disappearance of Christ in Emmaus resembles
His departure from the world. After all, He instructed his
disciples:
It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away,
the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will
send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the
world of sin ... because they believe not in me
(John 16, 7-11). Due to His very essence (if one may
use that term), i.e. permanent transfiguration, the Para
clete cannot be enclosed in a hermetic idolatric cult.
How are we, therefore, to interpret the fact that the
Writer and the Professor hesitate to cross the threshold
of the Room ?31 It seems that the two dramatis personae
- who represent different human “types” and who were
inclined to set out by different motives - jointly portray
the tragedy of disappointment and doubt in the idolatric
finity of the world.
If the Writer and the Professor wish to regain that,
which they renounced while setting off to the Zone then
they contain the sort of despair and infinite resignation that
Kierkegaard described as the last stage before faith.52 In the
Zone they renounce the certainty brought from the out
side and start to open up to emptiness full of a presence. It is
precisely their failure (and even the idea of destroying the
Wojciech Michera • IN FRONT OF THE ROOM (S T A L K E R )
Room), which testifies that during their transformation
they avoided the trap of idolatric enclosure - the one into
which Porcupine fell earlier. They resigned from an at
tempt at a realisation of that, which can exist exclusively
in the dimension of a calling: symbol - sacrament - icon.
Their situation resembles the plight of those driven from
paradise but, as Antoine Vergote correctly noted: The loss
of paradise is precisely the cipher of the symbolic world.33
The protagonists of Stalker experience a dramatic act
of doubt, which marks the onset of each true journeytransformation. They resemble the observer on an island
in the middle of the ocean in Herzog’s film Heart of Glass:
the first who “doubts” and sets off together with his com
panions in a boat far too small on an absurd journey to the
end of the world (or perhaps they bear a resemblance to
those companions?). They are like Gustav Aschenbach
from Thomas Mann’s novel - an artist whose “sense of
order” was replaced by a “sense of mystery” directing him
to the ultimate, the ecstatic. The gaze of the travellers
standing on the threshold of the Room, directed towards
the inner recesses of its impenetrable interior, recalls
Aschenbach’s last wish to follow Tadzio’s beckoning ges
ture into an immensity of richest expectation. The wish that
Aschenbach fulfilled by dying and the Writer and the
Professor by preserving life remains unfulfilled and thus
persists in the dimension of a symbol.
This situation recalls also the puzzling failure of Od
ysseus, who permitted unfavourable winds to drive him
away from the already near-by Ithaca. What steered him?
Curiosity of the world, mentioned by Dante? Or rather
despair, expressing doubt in Ithaca? Or perhaps loyalty
to its essence:
When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction. [...]
Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But don’t in the least hurry the journey. [...]
Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn’t anything else to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn’t deceived you.
So wise you have become, of such experience,
that already you’ll have understood what these Ithakas
mean.
Constantine P. Cavafy, Ithaca
Endnotes
1 Novalis, Uczniowie z Sais (proza filozoficzna —studia —frag
menty), transl. Jerzy Prokopiuk, Warszawa 1984, p. 122.
2 Walter Kasper, Jezus Chrystus, transl. B. Białecki, Warszawa
1983, p. 81. On the concept of the miracle in Christianity
see: Rev. Marian Rusecki, Cud jako znak i symbol, "Roczniki
Teologiczno-Kanoniczne”, vol. XXVIII, fasc. 2, 1981,
pp. 80-95; Les miracles de Jesus, X. Léon-Dufour (ed.), Paris
301
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
1977. Views of ancient and Early Christian authors about
miracles in: Ewa Wipszycka, Kościół w świecie późnego anty
ku, Warszawa 1994, pp. 300-317 (chapter: Cuda). See also:
Robert Wiśniewski, Cuda i świętość, "Mówią wieki”, no. 2,
1996, pp. 16-19.
Mentioned by Walt Whitman in Miracles, a poem of great
importance for the discussed question:
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of
the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night
with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer fore
noon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so
quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the
same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—
the ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
Quoted after: Gijs Bouwman, Czy możemy w dzisiejszych
czasach oprzeć nasze życie duchowe na Biblii?, ’’Concilium.
Międzynarodowy Przegląd Teologiczny” (selected articles, 6
October 1969), Poznań-Warszawa 1970, p. 202.
In this manner the concept of the “miracle” is also influen
ced by the symbolic potential of “feeling” as “smell”, i.e. a
sense, which permeates that, which sight does not reach
Paul Evdokimov, Prawosławie, transl. Jerzy Klinger, Warszawa
1964, p. 115. Matthew 17, 2: Et transfiguratus est coram
ipsis....
Quoted after: Georgios I. Mantzaridis, Przebóstwienie czło
wieka. Nauka świętego Grzegorza Palamasa w świetle tradycji
prawosławnej, transl. Iga Czaczkowska, Lublin 1997, p. 105.
Quoted after: Jean Meyendorff, Introduction â l’étude de
Grégoire Palamas, Paris 1959, pp. 241-242. On the
Transfiguration of the Lord see also: R. de Feraudy, Licône de
la Transfiguration, Etude suivi des Homélies d’Anastase le Synaite
et de S. Jean Damascene, transl. M. Coune and K. Rozemond,
’’Spiritualité Orientale” no. 23, 1978; Georges Habra, La
Transfiguration selon les Péres grecs, Fontainebleau 1986.
Stalker, screenplay Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky
based on motifs from the fourth chapter of the novel The
Roadside Picnic; director: Andrei Tarkovsky; director of
photography: Alexandr Kniazhinsky; main production
designer: A. Tarkovsky; composer: Eduard Artiemyev. Cast:
Alexandr Kaydanovsky - Stalker, Anatoly Solonitsyn Writer, Nikolai Grinko - Professor, Alisa Freindlikh - Wife,
Natasha Abramova - Martishka. Production: USSR Mosfilm 1979.
Wojciech Michera • IN FRONT OF THE ROOM (S T A L K E R )
10 All statements by Andrei Tarkovsky from: Kompleks Tołstoja,
Myśli o życiu sztuce i filmie, selected, prep. and transi.
Seweryn Kuśmierczyk, Warszawa 1989 and: Czas utrwalony,
transi. Seweryn Kuśmierczyk, Warszawa 1991.
11 I use the word “metaphor” (a strictly linguistic concept)
metaphorically in order to express a thought about the
surplus of meaning. In doing so, I refer to Ricoeur's reflec
tions about the metaphor, which is not an ornament of disco
urse. (...) A metaphor does not furnish any new information
about reality. The metaphorical twist (...) can be taken as the
model for the extension of meaning operative in every symbol Metafora i symbol, transl. Katarzyna Rosner, in: Język, tekst,
interpretacja, Warszawa 1989, pp. 133, 136. See also Ricoeur's
other works on the metaphor, i.a. La métaphore vive, Paris
1975.
12 E.M. Cioran, Lindélivré, in: Le vide, Expérience spirituelle en
Occident et en Orient (“Hermes” 2, Nouvelle série), Paris
1981, p. 262.
13 Cf. Gabriel Marcel on restlessness, anxiety, and anguish.
14 Nicolai Berdyaev: Toutes ces tendances vers une communion
aves l’élément cosmique sexuel entraînent le renoncement â la
lutte pour l’ tre personnel, pour les rapports personnels entre
l'homme et Dieu et entre les hommes. Et rien ne saurait poser
d’une façon plus profonde le probléme de la spiritualité chrétien
ne. - Nicolas Berdiaeff, Esprit et réalité, transl. from the
Russian, Paris 1950, p. 192.
15 Hence a different declaration made by the author of Stalker:
When I create my images I use no symbolism of any kind. I want
to create an image, not a symbol. That’s why I don’t believe in
interpretations of supposed meanings of my pictures. I’m not
interested in narrow political or social issues. I want to create
images that would touch the viewer’s soul to some degree. It has
to be explained that Tarkovsky treated the symbol as an
intellectual formula with a strictly defined meaning and
contrasted to the poetic metaphor. See: Dariusz Czaja,
Tarkowski i symbol, “Kwartalnik Filmowy” no. 9-10, 1995,
pp. 107-113.
16 Cf. Kearney, op. cit.
17 Cf. Nancy Jay Crumbine, On Silence, "Humanitas. Journal
of the Institute of Man Center for the Study of Human
Development”, vol. XI, no. 2: 1975.
18 See: Marie-Madeleine Davy, Silence et contemplation, in: La
vie Bénédictine - Les raisons du silence, no date, pp. 23-31.
19 Quoted after: Jean Greisch, Lâge herméneutique de la raison,
Paris 1985, p. 238.
20 A. Vergote, op. cit., p. 8. On “silence” see also: Bernard
Dauenhauer, Silence The Phenomenon and its Ontological
Significance, 1980 (this study was discussed by Bogdan
Baran, Fenomenologia amerykańska, Studium z pogranicza,
Kraków 1990, pp. 115-120). On silence as a spiritual disci
pline see: Bernard Morel, Méthode et religion. Essai sur la
methodologje ouvert et l’expérience de la transcendance,
Laussanne, passim, especially p. 250 sqq.
21 Beginning of the poem: Auguries of Innocence by William
Blake.
22 Cf. Jean-Luc Marion, Bóg bez bycia, transl. M. Frankiewicz,
Kraków 1996, p. 31: the idol with its visibility fills the intention
of the gaze, which wants nothing other than to see; p. 40: The
icon, on the contrary, attempts to render visible the invisible as
such, hence to allow that the visible not cease to refer to another
than itself, without, however, that other ever being reproduced in
the visible.
23 Just a single example: in one of the scenes the protagonists
climb flooded stairs leading down and then up, and become
submerged in water up to their necks. Obviously, this image
302
b rin gs to m in d sac ram e n ta l im m ersio n in a C h ristian b a p ti
stery. In th e su ccessiv e scen e th ey h a lt in a larg e in terior
filled w ith sa n d (or a sim ilar su b stan ce ) d e sig n e d to re se m
b le d u n e s c h a ra c te ristic fo r th e la n d sc a p e o f a d esert. T h e
“ b ap tistery ” fro m th e prev io u s scen e sh o u ld b e th u s in ter
p re te d as an im ag e o f th e R e d S e a , trad itio n ally tre a te d as a
p refigu ration o f b aptism .
24
T h is c irc u m stan c e is a c c e n tu a te d by L o u is-M arie C h a u v e t:
It is not outside, on the road, but inside, around the table, that
the two disciples have the decisive experience of their encounter
- Symbole et sacrement. Une relecture sacramentelle de l'exi
stence chrétienne, Paris 1987, p. 175.
25
A t this I p o in t I w ou ld like to q u o te , by w ay o f ex am p le, th e
lyrics o f Czajnik (K ettle), a so n g by W o jciech W aglew ski:
Not only in me. In you too
Lurks the note, the sound,
Which, God once whispered,
Would enable us to hear
O u r Psalm ...
26 Metafora i symbol, op. cit., p. 142.
27 Sim ilarly, th e c o n c e p t o f th e “ w orld o f te x t” p ro p o se d by
R ic o e u r c o n ta in s th e sort o f d ista n ce in tro d u c e d b y literary
fictio n th a t e lim in ates w ith in th e te x t th e d irect (osten sible)
referen ce to reality, its referen tial d im en sio n . P. R icoeur,
Hermeneutyczna funkcja dystansu, transl. P iotr G raff, in:
Języ k ., ed. cit., pp. 224 -2 4 5 .
28
T h is m o m e n t o f illu m in ation , in stan tly c h a n g in g in to p a r
ting, w as d e p ic te d b y R em b ran d t. A p e n e tratin g c o m m e n t
o n th e c an v a s: Pilgrims at Emmaus (The Supper at Emmaus)
b y M ic h e l P rieur in: Visage et personne. Contribution â l'éta
blissement du statut ontologique de la représentation, “ R e v u e de
M é tap h y siq u e e t d e M o rale ” n o . 3: 1982, p. 3 2 1 .
29
C h a u v e t, op. cit. T h e b rillian t F ren ch th eo lo g ian -h erm en e u tist ad d ed : They open on the emptiness of the invisibility of
the Lord each time the Church breaks bread in memory of him;
but this emptiness is penetrated by his symbolic presence (...).
Jesus the Christ is absent as "the same’”; he is no longer present
except as ’’the Other”. From now on, it is impossible to touch his
real body; we can touch it only as the body symbolized ( ... ).
30 S e e : R ic h a rd K earney, Poétique du possible. Phénoménologie
herméneutique de la figuration, Paris 1984, p. 168.
31 A c c o r d in g to S ta lk e r th e y la c k e d faith . M e an w h ile,
T ark ovsky said: Because although the heroes suffer an apparent
defeat, each of them gains something incredibly important:
faith...
32 For the act of resignation faith is not required, but it is needed
when it is the case of acquiring the very least thing more than my
eternal consciousness, for this is the paradoxical. (...) In resigna
tion I make renunciation of everything, this movement I make by
myself. - S ô r e n K ierk eg aard , Bojaźń i drżenie, in: Bojaźń i
drżenie. Choroba na śmierć, tran sl. J. Iw aszkiew icz, W arszaw a
1982, p. 49.
33 . A n to in e V ergote, Interprétation du langage religieux, Paris
1974, p. 68.