*** Official "SOLARIS" Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Seth Paxton]

One more thing because its too good not to comment on

for the most part, this film has the characters asking the exact questions the film asks and giving nebulous (if any) answers...and there is little to no emotional impact. Nothing separate from the theme to draw you in unsuspectingly

I can definitly agree with Quentin's point here. As I mentioned, I found such restraint to not use those hooks to be refreshing. But part of the reason I respect Spielberg is because of his ability to hook you emotionally. As I've become more "film aware" I find that sometimes his efforts DO stand out and are annoyingly noticeable. For example, in CE3K I find his effort with the early "discovery of the planes" scene to be a bit awkward in that typical SS way of trying to establish the emotion of the moment (in this case awe and wonder of the discovery).
The dialog as the group pointless runs as a pack from plane to plane as if each were being seen only after coming upon the one before it just runs a tad goofy to me now. BUT, I can see what he is trying to do of course, so I can't completely fault him, and besides he has often been wonderfully successful with that approach.
But in today's post-SS cinema such approaches have become more the norm than the unique case (often in terrible knock-off attempts like Bruck/Bay, for example). So when Soderbergh is willing to go the other direction it makes me happy, even if he could have skillfully used the emotional attachment approach to even greater success. For me it is more interesting without it (I imagine - having not seen this "other" version except in my head ).

 

[Patrick Sun]

Seth, when I said "implicit" I'll just refer to what DaveF wrote in his review of Solaris in the review thread (Telling, not showing). Those are the details I'm talking about. Again, I think the film in your head was much more richer than the film I saw.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Or was the film in your head much weaker than the film I saw?

 

[Seth Paxton]

Okay, I address one of Dave's points then.

It told us that Gordon, the Solaris chief engineer I presume, would absolutely not leave her room and indicated she was extremely distressed, but showed to her to be out and about and behaving fairly normally

Yes, once the shrink arrived and started to interact with her she did come out and behave normally as someone turning the corner on dealing with the situation.

But when he arrived she had to be talked into opening the door even.


And then back to Patrick's point...when is this sort of implicit storytelling wrong? In fact I find it to be the most difficult, most interesting filmmaking. To lay out the minimal amount of scenes required to tell the story is the goal of efficient narrative filmmaking. Perhaps abstract film is about feeling and being such that redundent scenes are encouraged and extra dialog can be helpful.

But for normal narrative film, any scenes or dialog that serve only to tell the audience what they have already been told is wasted time. Again, we sometimes have abstract experience intermixed with narrative in which there is a second goal to immerse the audience in the world without actually telling any particular story. Something like Blade Runner has these moments (many films do).

What I see as Dave's major problem is NOT implicit storytelling, because great films do this ALL THE TIME. In fact, films use implicit storytelling foremost by falling back on convention. Murder happens, police arrive, but WE didn't see how they were contacted. We understand the convention, both from film and our society. Yet before you dismiss this as silly, briefly consider a society without police, or perhaps without phones, or even just without 911. A person like that might strongly question this unshown chain of events.

A criminal wipes off a gun. Why? Are we told why? No. Yet somehow we know this is to remove fingerprints. But we still have to wonder why again. Because fingerprints can lead to a criminal's arrest. How do we know this? Social convention (and I would dare say many of us understand this social convention not from actual experience, but rather from seeing it previously used in film or on TV).

No, I think Dave's problem is with implied story aspects that to him DO NOT FEEL OBVIOUS OR CORRECT. Nothing wrong with that, it's inherent that we all think differently about things. But I think it's important to criticize a film for it's true failings.

IMO, this difference of opinion on what is "correct" implicit info and what "makes no sense" and is left unexplained is probably the number one cause of difference of opinion of a film's quality, and not just Solaris. I notice that many debates start to fall back on these sorts of issues. "Well how could that happen? When did he get so smart? How would she know?" and so on.

Does this make me smarter than Dave because I "get it"? Obviously no it doesn't. It means that Dave and I accept different things as "natural" or "true" and when the director plays upon ideas that I find natural but Dave doesn't, then we are going to disagree on that being good filmmaking. (Do you agree that Raiders is silly because we don't see how Indy would know to take that bag of sand with him? I would hope not. Heck, at that point we don't even know he's an archeologist, yet we accept all of this knowledge he has.)

It's not like I'm crazy for enjoying this film after all. It's reviewed fairly well and many of those positive reviews are strongly positive. But I've noticed many negative reviews as well saying the film lacks all the issues I brought up earlier.

Yet I can point to individual scenes and explicitly explain how those scenes clearly discuss these various themes, so it's safe to say that it's going to take quite a bit to make me believe that I imagined those aspects.


And finally, while I understand Dave's angle that this can also be a lazy filmmakers realm, to let so many things just be true without having to deal with them, I think that it's perfectly appropriate to skip over things that aren't tied directly into the primary thematic goal of the film. In the case of Solaris I think the actual narrative going on is not the number one goal. Instead the focus seems to be very much on the surrounding ideals, and thus the film spends more time introducing and exploring those.

 

[Bob Movies]

Question about Solaris

I saw it today and I enjoyed it. I thought it was a well-made movie.

I get home, and I look it up on box office mojo

BUDGET 47 Million!!!
MARKETING 30 Million!!!

77 million dollars for this movie? How can that possibly be?

 

[Alex Spindler]

It told us that Gordon, the Solaris chief engineer I presume, would absolutely not leave her room and indicated she was extremely distressed, but showed to her to be out and about and behaving fairly normally

Don't forget *SPOILER*

She was the only human on the station at the time. She had her own visitor, but probably had plenty of reason to be cautious of anything out of her direct control. I don't remember well enough how they figured out Snow was a visitor, but she may have been trustful only when Kelvin arrived. It would make sense that she would open up at that time.

 

[DaveF]

I think that it's perfectly appropriate to skip over things that aren't tied directly into the primary thematic goal of the film.

I wholly agree. Critical plot elements should be demonstrated and not just narrated. But I think the elements not demonstrated are tied to the themes of "Solaris".

Kelvin's travel from Earth to the station is mostly implicit, and we accept it as a convention. That's fine since it's not important. But his troubled relationship with Rheya is critical to the story and should not just be narrated as, "Our relationship is bad." Likewise, Rheya's troubled psyche is fundamental to her character and should not just be stated, "She has emotional problems." These should have been more be revealed by action, not just statement.

But showing something does necessitate a lack of nuance or subtlety. The good story teller will show the right events with the appropriate amount of detail, suggestion, and omission. I don't think "Solaris" came close.


Though I don't care for Solaris, I am glad to see such a movie get made. "Hollywood" tried to make a thoughtful, contemplative, philosophical movie that doesn't have mass appeal. Though I think it failed, Seth and others do appreciate it. And that's great. I think "A.I." is a wonderful film and provides me much of the intellectual and emotional warm-fuzzies that "Solaris" does for others -- but it too is a "failure". I wish "Solaris" had been much better, but at least they tried. I hope film-makers keep trying, even if they get panned.


P.S. Some have asked if "Solaris" is a sci-fi film. It was set in the future and had a space-station, so in a sense it was "sci-fi."
The movie is not actually interested in science, futurism, or even the fun of sci-fi ala Star Trek. The one moment of real science was just a Star-Trekkian jargon cheat; it was contrived and added nothing to the movie.

Rather, I think they chose the unidentified future setting because it provides a good construct for telling the story and exploring the issues. They needed "magic" (to create visitors). They also required a modern setting that felt close to today, to allow us to identify with the characters and to explore contemporary philosophy. "Science fiction" works very well for such things.

 

[Ted Todorov]

For anyone interested: I found (only) one truly perceptive (professional) review of Solaris Roger Ebert's...

But his troubled relationship with Rheya is critical to the story and should not just be narrated as, "Our relationship is bad." Likewise, Rheya's troubled psyche is fundamental to her character and should not just be stated, "She has emotional problems." These should have been more be revealed by action, not just statement.

I agree with Dave's view that not enough was done in terms of character development -- foremost Kelvin's. But what you must realize is that showing Kelvin and Rheya's relationship would drag us ever further away from Stanislaw Lem's novel, which takes place ENTIRELY on Solaris -- Earth simply does not enter the picture.
Ted

 

[Patrick Sun]

I think if you saw this film, and got the central theme:
How humans can be in love with the thought of another human's essence (regardless of not really truly ever grokking them totally - which is nigh impossible). Ebert talked about this in his review (I used an internet romance as an analogy earlier to the same theme).
Then you've come out ahead of the rest who walked out muttering "WTF was that all about?"
The ironic regret of remembering someone wrong is probably as high a crime a person can commit against the memory of a loved one. It's a pitfall that can stifle a person's growth, it puts them into a stasis within their relationships with others and can paralyze them emotionally.
While I think I got those themes, I didn't enjoy the ride getting me to those themes. I think that's what put a lot people off of this film.
Perhaps my crime is remembering this film wrong (and only after 5 days).

 

[Ryan Peter]

I thought the ride was mesmorizing. The beautiful music played during the journey to the planet and then repeated at other points, the beautiful photography by Peter Andrews, excellent acting, and the futuristic setting let me sit down and relax and not worry too much about the plot, and more about deeper meanings.

 

[Ted Todorov]

the beautiful photography by Peter Andrews

Actually Solaris was photographed by Soderbergh -- Peter Andrews is a fictional character with a recurring role -- he shot Soderbergh's last three films.
I wonder why Steven Soderbergh has decided to keep his role as DP secret -- anyone know?
Ted

 

[David Rogers]

I was very disappointed in Solaris. I'm a huge James Cameron fan, and though he only produced I expected there'd be a story and a movie I could like knowing he'd liked it. I've come to rather enjoy Soderbergh's ability to work with actors, and also some of his cinematographic touches, but I feel Solaris was a film searching for a film.

I enjoy deep thought and philosophical examinations, but Solaris never really connected. I felt no sense of identification, sympathy, interest, or even pity, in the characters. I had no sense of where Clooney's character was coming from or where he might want to go; I didn't even catch his character's name, which should tell you how the movie went.

The romance flashbacks were empty and devoid of any real emotion except for the dating sequences early on. When their relationship began to fragment, I had a vague sense of some depresion from McElhone's character, but until they showed the suicide it was not really knitting together into a story of a failing relationship. Even recognizing it finally as that, I had no sense of why or how.

Which leads back to the central "plot" of the movie, McElhone coming back to revisit Clooney. He feels he wasn't there for her when she was alive; that's all I really got from their "interactions". That and that he couldn't get over the notion that she was his wife, which I don't feel she was. It was pretty obvious what was coming at the end; he was staying. But without having any sense of their relationship, of what's gone between "them" after her return, it makes for a non-moment when he decides to stay.

Just very disappointed. The movie seems extremely disjointed and vague, to be kind. The use of imagery and intent to express story was a dramatic failure, I thought.

To head off a few comments; I enjoy movies immensely, and I watch more than a bit beyond the mainstream fares. I like imagery, I like clever storytelling that forces you to make connections and take information from the movie in non-dialog form. I'm patient and definitely don't require Star Trek exposition to lay out plot or meaning. I've not read the original text or seen the 70s movie; having to have done so, or to have discussed same with folks who have, to get Solaris'02, indicates to me the director failed in his storytelling. He told me no story that I could figure out and/or appreciate.

Too bad too, because I'd been very much looking forward to enjoying it.

 

[Ted Todorov]

Quote:

Yup, Solaris is about as far from Titanic or True Lies as you can get. If you were expecting a Cameron movie, no wonder you didn't like Solaris. Perhaps Cameron should have done what Soderbergh did with the DP credit: Solaris could have been produced by Joseph Andrews
Ted

 

[Doug D]

I wonder why Steven Soderbergh has decided to keep his role as DP secret -- anyone know?

On TRAFFIC, the first film he shot, he wanted to add the "photographed by" credit to his "directed by" title card, but either the DGA or WGA (I think the latter) disapproved because it violated some garbage union guideline about how credit is dispensed. So, instead of giving himself two separate title cards, he used a pseudonym for the second one - his dad's first name and middle name, with an "s" thrown on the end (I assume).

 

[Seth Paxton]

But Solaris is also afflicted with the Blair Witch syndrome. Characters speak without being seen, faces are blurred, motion is distorted by jerky cameras

BW syndrome?? Hello, have you ever SEEN a Soderbergh film? I'd say Solaris is "afflicted" with the Soderbergh syndrome. Sheesh. Criticism is fine, but let's keep things in perspective here.

 

[Seth Paxton]

I felt no sense of identification, sympathy, interest, or even pity, in the characters

This is one of the bigger criticisms of the film so far, and to be honest I didn't feel those things either. I just didn't think the film was even about those ideals nor did it require me to feel them to become involved with the primary themes. Philosophical discussion is often cold and technical, even when discussing the human condition and the emotions that are connected with it. It's not like Nietzsche's writing was gushing with emotion and connection to individuals, for example.

The film is philosophically introspective, not emotionally so. It's not wrong to want the film to be something else, but I do think the lack of sympathy and pity is quite intentional, not just some oversight by Soderbergh.

 

[Seth Paxton]

For the record I have yet to see the original, read the novel, nor really ever discuss either of them with anyone. I went into this film about as cold as could be in terms of knowledge of the story.

Obviously now I'm trying to make sure I catch one of the IFC showings of the original.

 

[Seth Paxton]

It was pretty obvious what was coming at the end; he was staying

Um, you do realize he stayed because he was a replicant himself. Because to be honest, I didn't see that coming at all. Had he been human I'm certain he had reached the point where he was able to move on and leave the ship.

 

[Rich Malloy]

Ack, Seth!! Unfortunately, I did not make it to the movie last weekend, and the ending you just described is not the ending of Tarkovsky's film... thus a spoiler! :frowning:
Ok, I'm not actually terribly upset, and I probably shouldn't even be reading this thread until I see the film. But I was very interested to see how Soderbergh planned to top Tarkovsky's famous "mindbending" ending (hey, if Peter Travers can appropriate and re-use old reviews, so can I!), and whether he could achieve something as amazing in a purely visual, hence "cinematic" way. Tarkovsky's famous ending was also his own construction as I understand it, featuring a character, or simulacrum of a character not contained in Lem's book, and presumably Soderbergh's film, though I've not read Lem's book because the English version is unfortunately an abridged Polish>French>English translation that I've been warned away from by a bigtime Lem fan. And it's also my understanding from another, somewhat overly-revealing review that Soderbergh attempts a triple-whammy, pulling the rug of reality out from beneath our unsteady feet not once, as Tarkovsky does, but three times... of course, this is all hearsay to me, and I'm not exactly bowled over by what I hear you saying about Soderbergh's finale, Seth.
But do I read further at my own risk before seeing the film, or should some things remain unspoiled, even here? Let me know... but I'll probably read on anyway! :b

 

[Marc_Sulinski]

Um, you do realize he stayed because he was a replicant himself. Because to be honest, I didn't see that coming at all. Had he been human I'm certain he had reached the point where he was able to move on and leave the ship.

I am having a hard time understanding how this happened. When did he turn into a replicant of himself? What happened to the original? Did he come from one of the minds of the people on the station? How did he end up with a visitor himself if he was created by the Solaris ocean?

Maybe I wasn't paying attention as much as I should have been, but I did not get the impression that he was a replicant until reading this thread. I had just read the book and seen the Tarkovsky movie, so maybe I was not seeing the divergences as clearly as I should have.

For the record, I think the book is far superior to both movies.