Geoff Dyer - Zona - A Book About a Film about a Journey to a Room

‘SUBSEQUENT FILM’: Tarkovsky, Time Within Time.

‘I’M REDUCED TO’: Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time.

‘A TEST’: (‘that results in a man either withstanding or breaking. Whether a man survives or not depends on his sense of individual worth, his ability to distinguish what is important from what is transitory.’): Tarkovsky, quoted in Robert Bird, Andrei Tarkovsky.

‘AN INFINITE, IF DANK ENCLOSURE’: David Thomson, Have You Seen… ? (London: Allen Lane, 2008).

‘THE BELIEVER WILL OPEN’: Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity (New York: Pantheon, 1951).

‘IS FAITH IN HOPE’: Miguel de Unamuno, Tragic Sense of Life (New York: Dover, 1954).

‘PEOPLE WILL DO ANYTHING’: Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy (London: Roudedge & Kegan Paul, 1953).

‘THE EYE WANTS TO SLEEP’: James Tate, ‘Absences’, Selected Poems (Manchester: Carcanet, 1997).

‘MY DISCOVERY’: Ingmar Bergman, at nostalghia.com.

‘EVERY TIME IT WAS’: Safiullin, interview, bonus extra, on Stalker DVD.

‘THE GREATER THE DEGREE,’ ETC.: Nadezhda Mandelstam, Hope Against Hope: A Memoir, translated by Max Hayward (London: Harvill, 1999; first published 1971).

‘THE POINT OF ROOMS’: Don DeLillo, White Noise (London: Picador, 1985).

‘EACH ONE OF US’: John Berger and Nella Bielski, A Question of Geography (London: Faber & Faber, 1987).

‘I COMPLETELY AGREE’: Tarkovsky, from an interview with Aldo Tassone at nostalghia.com . Translated slightly differently in Andrei Tarkovsky Interviews, edited by John Gianvito; ‘THE ZONE DOESN’T’: interview with Laurence Cossé, ibid.

‘EVERYTHING, AFTER PASSING THROUGH’: Miguel de Unamuno, Tragic Sense of Life. (In the English edition — translated from the Spanish — the first use of ‘film’ is given as ‘cinematograph show’; hence the change!)

‘THE EXCELLENT ACTING OF THE DOG’: Kenzaburo Oë, A Quiet Life (London: Picador, 1998).

‘PLANTS AND ANIMALS’: Bélas Balázs, quoted in Robert Bird, Andrei Tarkovsky.

‘POSING’: Donatas Banionis, quoted in Bird, ibid..

‘FANTASTIC DOG’: Knyazhinsky, interview, bonus extra, on Stalker DVD.

‘ONLY THAT WHICH’: Tarkovsky, interview with Guerra at nostalghia.com .

‘MAKE THE OBJECTS LOOK’: Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematographer.

‘FINAL MIRACLE’: Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time.

‘TOO SELFISH’: Philip Larkin, ‘Wild Oats’, Collected Poems (London: Faber & Faber, 1988).

‘A RUSSIAN ANGEL’: Olga Surhova, quoted in Rerberg and Tarkovsky: The Reverse Side of ‘Stalker’ (film).

‘HERE YOU LIVE’: Rashit Safiullin, interview, bonus extra, on Stalker DVD.

‘THANKS TO TARKOVSKY’S’: Vladimir Sharun, interview at nostalghia.com .

‘ONE OF THE GLASSES’; Kenzaburo Oë, ‘The Guide (Stalker)’, in A Quiet Life.

I would like to thank Mark Cousins, Tom Luddy and Chris Mitchell for reading an early version of the manuscript and making helpful suggestions and corrections. I am particularly grateful to Tom for furnishing me with information about Tarkovsky’s trip to Telluride.

A few passages from this book first appeared, in very different form, in the Guardian. I am grateful to Michael Hann for commissioning and publishing that piece.