Temporality and the Long Take in Stalker

Abstract

This chapter concentrates on Tarkovsky’s 1979 film Stalker and in particular how his expression of temporality through his long take aesthetic impacts on narrative meaning. In his close reading, Totaro breaks down the film into three sections that comprise the narrative and character journey – pre-zone reality, the fantastical zone, and the post-zone reality – and examines how time is represented in the long take across these sections. As Stalker’s narrative progresses, the author argues, time in the long take becomes an expression of creation and invention, moving from the so called “drab-time” of the initial pre-zone city scenes, to a “creation-time” in the middle zone section, to a more ambiguous expression of time in the post-zone city scenes.