The Film That Killed Everyone Who Made It

Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker is routinely called one of the greatest films ever made. What almost nobody talks about is that the novel it was based on told a completely different story... ...and that making the film killed most of the people involved. In 1977, a Soviet crew spent months working in and around a poisoned river in Estonia. A chemical plant was discharging untreated waste upstream. As a result, Andrei Tarkovsky died of lung cancer. So did his wife. And did his lead actor. As well as his cinematographer. This was not just bad Soviet cigarettes. They were adapting Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, a working class horror story about labour, contamination, and the bodies that pay the price for other people's profit. Tarkovsky stripped out the politics and replaced them with a meditation on faith. What he made is extraordinary. But I'm just as interested in the film he chose NOT to make. LINK TO MUSIC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPL1BmZ_EIw&list=PL9f6qJIfz9kfL3zVpik42J3A90X-yI-eN #Stalker #Tarkovsky #Chernobyl #VideoEssay #FilmAnalysis #SovietCinema #RoadsidePicnic #Strugatsky #CultFilm #ArthouseCinema #FilmEssay #Moviedrome #ColdWarCinema #RussianCinema #FilmCriticism