From Roadside Picnic (the Strugatsky Brothers) to Stalker (Tarkovsky): a Work of Adaptation

Communications. Media. Design. 2020. Vol. 5. No. 4. P. 137–151.

Milenic Z., Lapina-Kratasyuk E.

In this  article, we  compare  the  short  novel  Roadside Picnic  (Piknik na  obochine)  bythe  Strugatsky  brothers  with  different versions of  scripts  written  by  these  novelistsfor the film Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky. We aim to explore the unique ways in which Tarkovsky’s  artistic  vision  through the  adaptation  from  literary  work  to   film  changesthe  framework  and  main  features  of  the  science  fiction  (sci-fi)    genre.  Although  theStrugatsky  brothers  were  the  authors  of  the  script,  the  film Stalker  (which  wasactually shot twice because the first version was destroyed owing to a technological failure)  was  much  different from  the  novel  Roadside Picnic  in  regard  to  plot,character names, location, and many other features; therefore, the final film versionof the script was also the work of Tarkovsky. Based on a sci-fi novel, the film extendsfar beyond the limits of this genre, and its  artistic discoveries are not fully explainedby the specificities of the parable genre, as the film was defined by critics. In Stalker,the  last  film  made by  Tarkovsky  in  the  USSR,  the  work  of  adaptation  is  mostlyreplaced  by  the  difficult and  sometimes painful  process  of  creating  an  author’s version of art cinema.

Keywords: адаптация, adaptation, Andrei Tarkovsky, Андрей Тарковский, Soviet cinematography, советский кинематограф, science fiction, научная фантастика, артхаус, Strugatsky brothers, Art cinema, братья Стругацкие