richast2 wrote:also, every time I watch Solaris I try to figure out why he switches between b&w the way he does and I could never figure it out. I can't help but wondering if just calling it arbitrary or disorienting is a cop-out.
Perhaps it can be both - the commentary says that as well as colour and black and white there were two types of black and white stock as well. It seems that Tarkovsky was just given the film and made up general rules to govern when it was used, but I don't think they were set in stone.
I think the reason why I like this film is
because of the roughness of some parts. From the five minute driving scene, to the switches from black and white to colour etc, but there are also moments of such beauty that I can't forget, such as the scene where Kris falls asleep and Hari first appears or the camerawork of Berton's debriefing.
I don't know if this was because of my age, and seeing Solaris before 2001 and many other big special effect films but I remember seeing the film on a late night TV showing and when during Berton's debriefing they show the film he had taken I was enthralled. Looking at it now it is obvious it is clouds and paint in water effects but I really felt as if I was seeing another world. Again that could just be due to my being 11 or 12 and it being a film of many firsts to me - first foreign film, first time I stayed up late to see a film - but I like to think it is a sequence that shows how the power of presentation can affect how an audience sees something. I don't know about others but even now I strain to see through the clouds, and I think it is something psychological - the effect of that silent, image based sequence coming after the long descriptive scene. It builds up anticipation of seeing aliens and weird landscapes that (and this goes back to the point the commentators make about the tactics Tarkovsky employs for the whole film) frustrates our desires.
I want to see an alien landscape a la Star Trek but all we get is clouds and the swirling ocean. However isn't this more interesting in the end because we have all built up a picture of the surface of Solaris from Berton's description and to see some kind of cheesy sci-fi landscape would concretise and run the risk of disappointing our imaginations. Plus this ties into the main theme of Solaris - this is our first view of the ocean and we can see what we want - what's behind that cloud bank? Everything we can imagine.
I think this sequence and then the city of the future sequence (and then Kris's travel to Solaris?) are pushing the audience into taking the information on screen that is sketched in sci-fi coding (this is a planet, this is a futuristic city) and asking the audience to make the next leap themselves, to engage with the situation so much you create this futuristic world for yourself, more than rely on the filmmaker to create the world for you.
This is contrasted with the beauty of nature, presented obviously, no trickery needed. The opening couple of shots are so beautiful, and beautifully paced that they contrast well with the frenetic building rhythm of the city of the future. I like the way that at the end of the city of the future sequence, when the film cuts back to the country house you have the change from colour to black and white and at the end of the pan you see a car zooming past on the bridge behind the house - back to the safety of the city?
All these things can be put down to lack of funding, having to make do with what is available etc, and the film can be seen as Tarkovsky 'making do', and that is a valid response from a practical point of view. Artistically, however if you are engaged in the storytelling you can make many justifications for what happens in the film. For example I would suggest that the intensity of the rhythm of the driving scene, the fakeness of Kris's journey and the sterile nature of the debriefing (with the little notational beeps when a different person starts speaking) are by way of contrast to the natural world. Those scenes are also filmed in a more unexpected way, either the way the driving scene is edited or the way the camera suddenly pans or shows people walking in the background during the debriefing scene, or the unconventional way Kris is shown flying through space in a bubble! Yes, they're there to make exposition more interesting or to pad out the running time by showing lots of street scenes, but they could also be seen in contrast to the more conventionally filmed, slower nature scenes round the dacha - the drama there is the discussion between people and the beauty of the environment while the debriefing is pure dry intellect and the city scene is an oppresive environment (imagine if Kris came from the city - would that bustling metropolis have been created on Solaris? A nightmarish vision of our world on a distant planet?).
I love those scenes because I cannot imagine any other film having scenes as unorthodox, bizarre and compelling as those found in this film. Others may find that to be a good thing!
I think the same reasoning can be applied to the use of colour and black and white. There is the practical consideration of using what you have, but then there is the artistic use of these restrictions to create startling contrasts, expectations and other feelings in the audience.
I'm trying to remember how the film was laid out but I think it opens with the nature scenes in colour, showing the beauty of nature, the leaves drifting down the stream and the floating weeds, then that beautiful shot of Kris standing in the middle of what seems to be a wilderness. I think that shot is designed to be recalled when the housekeeper has her black and white scene of standing alone in nature.
So the dacha and the environment around it is introduced in bright colour - it is daytime and as the first block of the film comes to an end so does the day with the switch to black and white for the bonfire scene.
The first black and white scene though is the debriefing - my opinions on why this was used artistically in the film was probably to show the age of the footage or to show the television is black and white (since we see the housekeeper watching another programme in black and white before Berton calls on the videophone - he is also shown in black and white and this transitions into the city of the future sequence which also begins in black and white, but I'm getting ahead of myself. It does suggest that the television transmissions are just in black and white though), and to contrast both with the dacha scenes before and after as well as the reactions of Kris, Berton and the housekeeper watching the screen (chapter forward on your remote and notice that Criterion has begun each chapter with Berton's reaction to what is going on on the screen! It is like a mini summary of dismay being played out on his face!) and the colour footage of Berton's film.
So the film uses colour and black and white in blocks related to what came before and what comes after in order to create a startling contrast (Hari's first appearance is the best example), but in this block of the film you have the main characters in the present and in colour watching the past debate in black and white and within that the colour footage - a brief glimpse of a distant world. The brutal cut back to the man saying 'is that it?' plunges us back into that black and white, good and bad perjorative world of absolute truth, not flights of fancy and imagination that the audience may have watching that silent footage.
Then we have another colour scene in the nature surrounding the dacha, debate but not dry. It's passionate, people get angry and upset, have difficulty understanding one another and walk off. This contrasts with the scene of Berton on the video phone providing the last piece of information about his encounter with Solaris, the most important part that he obviously wanted to tell Kris in person but can only do in an impersonal manner, a message sent through technology, black and white - no discussion, just a fact about his experience. 'What you make of it is up to you, I'm finished!' is the implicit suggestion and then the black and white of the videophone is carried over to the city of the future.
Just as the city sequence is edited so as to become more and more intense so the shots of Berton and the boy in the car occur less frequently as the sequence goes on, and eventually they leave the film altogether as the city swallows them. During the last part of the sequence the film goes to colour - it happens as night falls and as it becomes more difficult to see the cars so the colour helps to point out the lights of the cars and the buildings. It becomes a city of light in that sense, an abstract image that would become popularised later in a film like Koyaanisqatsi.
The abruptness of the cut to the dacha is in both sound and back to black and white - it is becoming night there too but night without artificial illumination. The bonfire and the beautiful scene of the housekeeper in the landscape show how beautiful the Earth is and how Kris's last day on it has come to a close.
From the point Kris goes into space, the space station is mostly presented in colour, the ocean is always shown that way (I think this is used with the rumbling to show how the swirling ocean is sort of working its way into everyone's consiousness).
On the space station we have a similar introduction to Earth - everything is presented in colour until we reach Gibarian's message and again that television screen is presented in black and white. This actually makes an interesting contrast with the home movie footage, which is presented in colour - which suggests that the viewscreens can show colour images, although in artistic terms this is probably more because Tarkovsky wanted to show more images of Earth and nature and it was such an important sequence it needed to be in colour.
That is self explanatory but the next black and white sequence with its jarring shift to black and white as Kris's door clicks shut is the most bizarre. Is it there to suggest it is night, since Kris is about to go to sleep? It is obviously there artistically to make an amazing contrast to the huge close up of Hari, but perhaps also the black and white sequence is there to show Kris is still thinking in the black and white terms that so annoyed Berton and his father back on Earth. He has chatted to Snaut and Sartorious and seen the strange girl and probably decided they are mad and he might be going the same way - his response is logically to barricade himself in dealing with the situation as a threat rather than an opportunity at this point.
The rest of the film is in colour after Hari appears until we get to the hallucination scene which instead of going to black and white is shown in sepia tones. Perhaps this is another method of showing that in Kris's thinking everything is jumbled, so you have the mother in the dacha along with the viewscreen from the space station. Past and present (and future) can all exist in the mind, and I think this is why the sequence is presented differently from the others in the film. It is also preparing us for the way the ocean presents the dacha to Kris, with details gleaned from both his imperfect memories and perhaps his imagination of how he wants things to be with his father to create his island of memory.
The question is left open as to whether the ocean is more like some kind of experimental prison where Kris will be tested on how he reacts to and his relationship with the people in his memories, chosen because of the way he showed compassion and love for Hari, or whether the ocean is more of a facilitator, creating Hari because Kris's need for her at that time was the greatest, in which case Kris would have the power to manipulate and change his environment, create his perfect environment and companions through his own mental energy.
I think this raises all sorts of questions about how much of a role our mind has in freeing our potential or creating a prison for ourselves, how sometimes our perception of events can hurt others, prevent ourselves from fulfilling our dreams and leave us with regrets, was the real Hari's death caused by Kris's neglect or her own perception of his neglect pushing her into depression? This is suggested by the new Hari's depression despite assurances from Kris that he will stay with her, her awareness of her individuality after being so dependent on another perhaps triggering an awareness of the effect she has on others, and her need to leave Kris.
This is why I like Steven Soderbergh's remake as well. The original is so unique in its execution that it will always be my favourite, but the remake does go into the psychology in a deeper way (I don't know if this is because the remake can create characters in a more distanced way, while Tarkovsky's film is tied into relationships from his own life).
These are a few of my thoughts on this amazing, rough round the edges, but beautifully made and performed film. I'm not sure whether anyone else will find them useful or interesting though!
