The birth of Stalker. An attempt to reconstruct. Tsymbal E.V.

The feature film “Stalker” by Andrei Tarkovsky, according to the story of the Strugatsky brothers “Picnic on the sidelines”, is a key monument of late Soviet culture, which received worldwide recognition. He more than once became the subject of cinema research, inspired artists and directors, and many who were next to Tarkovsky at different stages of the difficult path from the design of the project to its implementation wrote about work on the film. The director, actor and writer Yevgeny Tsymbal worked for more than two years on the set of the film, first as an assistant in the requisite, and then the second director. In his book, he seeks to restore the chronicle of the creation of the film, reinforcing it with documents and personal evidence.

The reader has to find out how the initial plan was transformed in the course of working with the script, closer to get acquainted with the cultural and political context, to see the direct connection between the biographical circumstances of the life of Tarkovsky and its artistic solutions. Personal memories in the book are mounted with fragments of interviews that the author took from the participants of the crew.