The Aesthetics of Stalker

This chapter examines the elements of cinema and how Tarkovsky carefully approaches them. In turn, color, composition, meaning, silence, and sound are investigated as presented in the film and Tarkovsky’s journals. Color and sound and their intentional absences in particular, are of note in this chapter, due to Tarkovsky’s films for their deliberate precision with regard to the use of silence and black and white sequences. For him, the use of color in film feels gimmicky, and only through the absence of color, does its usage have cinematic relevance. Similarly, Tarkovsky emphasizes silence in Stalker to reintroduce sound with further emphasis, which this chapter compares to other Tarkovsky films like Solaris and The Mirror. Finally, the chapter concludes with an examination of the usage of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” in the film, and its ideological implications.