Notes from the Costume Designer of “Solaris”
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It is more about humans and what it means to be human than about aliens or special effects.
To summarize the idea of the movie, this quote from Dr. Snaut probably is probably appropriate:
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I must tell you that we really have no desire to conquer any cosmos. We want to extend the Earth up to its borders. We don't know what to do with other worlds. We don't need other worlds. We need a mirror. We struggle to make contact, but we'll never achieve it. We are in a ridiculous predicament of man pursuing a goal that he fears and that he really does not need. Man needs man!
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It is also interesting that Stanisław Lem never quite liked this version. It was mostly Tarkovsky's own re-interpretation, which I think is great, but it was not true to the book.
There must be a more clear way to express what you're saying here. I don't think anyone would sensibly claim that 2001: A Space Odyssey was about aliens or special effects; it clearly had a lot more to say about humans and how they relate to technology and the unknown.
But I don't doubt that Solaris is very different, and if I had to guess (as someone who hasn't seen Solaris and who isn't particularly cultured) I'd guess I'd describe it uncharitably as "artsy" or "touchy-feely". Can someone try to say something more charitable, while still making clear what distinguishes it? Maybe a focus on person-to-person emotional relationships rather than single-person emotions and person-to-person plot conflicts?
I've never seen either movie version, but Lem's book (and much of Lem's writing) tends to focus not on the boundless possibilities of space, but the fact that even in space, we are still bound as humans to our human experiences.
Solaris is not a space adventure. It's not even an exploration about the future of humanity (2001). As best I can explain it, Solaris is about how massively unprepared we are to experience other forms of life when we are so desperately bad at even understanding any other human but ourselves.
In the novel, endless volumes of books and papers are written about the planet Solaris, but the literature has produced not a single scientific insight that goes beyond merely anthropomorphizing; the protagonist himself satirically describes the many, futile attempts at analyzing Solaris, deciding that all the theories are incorrect, then, ironically, proceeds to formulate another anthropomorphic theory himself, which he decides is the correct one.
The movies (Tarkovsky's and Soderbergh's) both retain the basic plot, but go for a somewhat literal, romantic interpretation that Lem never intended. For example, the subplot in the book about the "ghosts" that Solaris manifests is comparatively unimportant in the novel, but takes up most of the screen time in both movies.
Lem touches on this theme in many of his books, especially His Master's Voice, which is also about scientists trying to understand an alien intelligence.
Facinating story and movies. It was cool to see behind the scenes of making the Russian version.
Esp. the differences of the two remakes, compared to Lem's work. And that Tarkovsky's set design and choice of conventional horror scenes is not really that interesting.