Back to the House II: On the Chronotopic and Ideological Reinterpretation of Lem's Solaris in Tarkovsky's Film

Abstract

ne of the most complex issues in the transposition of the literary narrative onto the screen is to determine how restrictive the narrative itself is with respect to the chronotopic and ideological transformations it must undergo in the process of screening. Since the plot in the narrative has concretely defined spatiotemporal parameters, these parameters are necessarily disrupted whenever some kind of transformation is undertaken on the part of the director. In this article we trace the correspondence between Stanislaw Lem's novel, Solaris (1961), and Andrei Tarkovsky's film version of it (1972). We will concentrate on the degree to which the conceptual core of Lem's novel influences the construction of the artistic and ideological matrix of the film. The focus of our discussion is the mechanisms employed by Tarkovsky in the broadening of Lem's overall philosophical message by the specific construction of space and the introduction of particular intertextual planes, both of which find their spatial and ideological embodiment in the unique Tarkovskian image of the House. In undertaking a chronotopic-generic analysis of the film Solaris, set against the framework of its original literary source, we aim at reinterpreting the work-especially given the unmerited inferior evaluation it received both from critics and the director himself. We want to recontextualize the film with respect to Tarkovsky's other works by stressing its more universal humanitarian message, which is visually constructed by a peculiar subjectivized treatment of time and a highly abstract manipulation of space.