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Comment by thrance | Hacker News Reader

2 years prior, in 1972, Andrei Tarkovsky adapted Stanisław Lem's Solaris to the big screen in the Soviet Union, which may have contributed to Dick's paranoia. Anyway, the film's a masterpiece that I highly recommend, and since it was published before 1975 it is not subject to copyright. You can find it on YouTube [1].

[1] https://youtu.be/Z8ZhQPaw4rE

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There's also a great documentary on Stanislaw Lem. It's in Polish, but with English subtitles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wQq4aKldaw

Lem himself talks about the movie a bit there too, around the 24th minute. He didn't seem fond of Tarkowsky's religiousness and the impact it had on the movie.

Timestamped link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wQq4aKldaw&t=1434

My impression was similar — the movie seems to be a free retelling and doesn't reflect the book well.

It's interesting that Tarkowsky himself didn't like the movie either.

Authors are a bit too involved emotionally to judge movies that are based on their books though. It reveals to them that the interpretation that readers make of their books or their interest in it may not be what the author intended.

I really like Lem, but Solaris is probably my least favourite of his stories. It does have the thing I most admire in Lem's work of being about true aliens - that is, not just us again but in a Halloween costume like a Star Trek alien - but somehow Solaris doesn't "work" for me even though say, Memoirs Found In A Bathtub or Futurological Congress do.

Are you a PKD fan too? The two you mentioned are amongst Lem's most Dick-ian stories. Also note, there is a newer English language translation of Solaris. I liked it better than the one I read years ago.

I haven't read the book (yet), but Tarkovsky's movie is only a loose adaptation of the source material, which you might still enjoy.

I find it funny that i hated Lem for most of my life... because i was forced to read only his Robot stories in school.

I still despise those moralist fables.

But his other works? i love them! My favorite is The Star Diaries, despite having some robot stories in them.

I had it as optional and I read it out of my own volition and some of them still stays with me after almost thirty years. The one about writer wanted his robot to write stories, but in the end realizes that actually stories written by his robot are much better than his, want to turn the robot off but instead robot kills the writer... Makes you think about humanity, robotics, technology and what it is to be human or what is self-aware machine.

These were really light, nicely done stories but when you think about them, they introduce you to actual.problems that come with robotics and AI.

I am glad that I read those and kind of sad that I did not read more of Lem's books early in my life.

I am fascinated by the fact those stories were assigned in school. I happen to love them. I wonder if you would have disliked them as much if they were not school assignments. Many kids grow up up hating Shakespeare and Moby Dick because they were forced to read them.

I somehow got spared and was never forced to read Moby Dick.

I recently watched “In The Heart Of the Sea” which was an adaptation of a book which recounts the tragedy of the Whaleship Essex in the early 1800s, based on the written accounts of two of the surviving crew. I haven’t read the book, but the movie frames the story as an author interviewing the last remaining survivor in old age.

Having not read Moby Dick, I at first thought this was a movie version as the storyline kind of seemed similar but the events didn’t seem to match to what I knew.

Finally it clicked for me, and revealed at the end, that the interviewer was Herman Melville getting inspiration for his Moby Dick.

The movie has increased my curiosity and desire into reading Moby Didk.

Tarkovsky was making the movies he wanted, and stories were just pretext.

Both Lem (Solaris) and Strugatsky Brothers (Roadside Picnic turned into Stalker) disliked what Tarkovsky did.

The funny story is that Lem despised this adaptation and for a good reason if you manage to read his book. He called Tarkovsky an idiot and refused to cooperate with him on the script as Tarkovsky threw pretty much all of Lem ideas from the book to shoot Crime and Punishment in space.

A common Tarkovsky move if you're familiar with his body of work.

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