Stalker (1979)
Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy: Stalker
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Quotes
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Stalker : May everything come true. May they believe. And may they laugh at their passions. For what they call passion is not really the energy of the soul, but merely friction between the soul and the outside world. But, above all, may they believe in themselves and become as helpless as children. For softness is great and strength is worthless. When a man is born, he is soft and pliable. When he dies, he is strong and hard. When a tree grows, it is soft and pliable. But when it's dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Flexibility and softness are the embodiment of life. That which has become hard shall not triumph.
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Stalker : Are you awake? You were talking recently about the meaning... of our... life... unselfishness of art... Let's take music... It's really least of all connected; to say the truth, if it is connected at all, then in an idealess way, mechanically, with an empty sound... Without... without associations... Nonetheless the music miraculously penetrates into the very soul! What is resonating in us in answer to the harmonized noise? And turns it for us into the source of great delight... And unites us, and shakes us? What is its purpose? And, above all, for whom? You will say: for nothing, and... and for nobody, just so. Unselfish. Though it's not so... perhaps... For everything, in the end, has its own meaning... Both the meaning and the cause...
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Stalker : There's no need to speak. You must only - concentrate and recall all your past life. When a man thinks of the past, he becomes kinder.
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Stalker : You can't be happy at the expense of other's unhappiness.
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Stalker : [the wagon stops, the scene is in color now] We are home!
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Stalker : The Zone is a very complicated system of traps, and they're all deadly. I don't know what's going on here in the absence of people, but the moment someone shows up, everything comes into motion. Old traps disappear and new ones emerge. Safe spots become impassable. Now your path is easy, now it's hopelessly involved. That's the Zone. It may even seem capricious. But it is what we've made it with our condition. It happened that people had to stop halfway and go back. Some of them even died on the very threshold of the room. But everything that's going on here depends not on the Zone, but on us!
Writer : So it lets the good ones pass and kills the bad ones?
Stalker : I don't know. I think it lets those pass who have lost all hope. Not good or bad, but wretched people. But even the most wretched will die if they don't know how to behave. You have been lucky, it just warned you.
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Stalker : The Zone wants to be respected. Otherwise it will punish.
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Stalker : It is so quiet out here, it is the quietest place in the world.
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Stalker : I'll be back soon.
Stalker's Wife : You'll be back in prison. Next time, they'll give you ten years instead of five. And you'll have nothing to show for those ten years. Not the Zone, not anything. And in ten years, I'll be dead.
Stalker : Prison? I'm imprisoned everywhere.
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Writer : Listen, Chingachgook. You've brought so many people here.
Stalker : Not as many as I would like.
Writer : It doesn't matter. Why did they come? What were they after?
Stalker : Happiness, more than anything.
Writer : Yes, but what kind of happiness?
Stalker : People don't like to reveal their innermost thoughts. Anyway, that concerns neither you nor me.
Writer : You've been lucky. All my life, I have never seen one happy person.
Stalker : Nor have I. They return from the Room and I guide them back. And we never meet again. Wishes don't come true immediately, you know.
Writer : And you've never wanted to make use of this Room?
Stalker : I'm fine as I am.
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Stalker : In the Zone, the longer way, the less risk.
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Stalker : There's no going back. Nobody goes back the same way they came.
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Stalker : There's nothing else left to people on Earth. This is the only place to come to when all hope is gone.
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Stalker : Listen to this: Now the summer is passed, it might never have been; It is warm in the sun, but it isn't enough; All that I could attain, like a five-fingered leaf, fell straight into my hand, but it isn't enough; Neither evil nor good has yet vanished in vain; It all burned and was light, but it isn't enough; Life has been like a shield and has offered protection; I have been very lucky, but it isn't enough; The leaves were not burned, the boughs were not broken; The day shines like glass, but it isn't enough.
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Stalker : We're now standing at the threshold. This is the most important moment - in your life. You must know that your most cherished desire will come true here. Your sincerest wish, the desire that has made you suffer most.
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Stalker : What are you up to, Professor?
Professor : Imagine what will happen when everyone believes in this Room and when they all come hurrying here. It's only a question of time. Not today, but tomorrow. And in the thousands. All these would-be emperors, grand inquisitors, fuhrers of all shades. The so-called saviors of mankind! And not for money or inspiration, but to remake the world.
Stalker : I'll never bring that sort here.
Professor : What do you understand? You're not the only stalker in the world. No stalker knows what ideas the people you bring here take away with them.
