CC BY
80
Copyright © 2019 by Academic Publishing House Researcher s.r.o.
" * I
Published in the Slovak Republic Media Education (Mediaobrazovanie) Has been issued since 2005 ISSN 1994-4160 E-ISSN 1994-4195 2019, 59(4): 574-587
DOI: 10.13187/me.2019.4.574 www.ejournal53.com
Solaris: the Integrity and Expansion of Borders
Alexander Shuneyko a, Olga Chibisova a > * a Komsomolsk-na-Amure State University, Russian Federation
Abstract
This article analyzes the novel by Stanislaw Lem "Solaris" and the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Stephen Soderberg, put on it. The current existence of these adaptations clearly indicates the relevance of the issues addressed in the literary work and in the films. At that, they raise the question of the boundaries of the text and of how validly can adaptations be considered as a simple transfer of the novel's content. A comparative analysis of the content in the book and in the films was carried out. Its result was a table of semantic correspondences of three works, on the basis of which the universal characteristics of these works of art and their differentiatingpeculiarities were described. It was concluded that the integrity of Solaris is ensured by the event canvas unity. The process of adaptation simultaneously implements the expansion, duplication, modification and replacement of a number of source text elements. The films become accessible to people with various dominant types of perception, which significantly expands the scope of Solaris's impact on the collective. The themes stated and evenly presented in the original text, in accordance with the director's concepts, change the degree of their presence and the degree of significance in the film adaptations. The reduction of one of the topics results in the hypertrophy of another one.
Keywords: Solaris, Stanislaw Lem, Andrei Tarkovsky, Stephen Soderberg, media space, film adaptation, semantic similarity, text modifications.
1. Introduction
The sixty-year history of the Solaris novel existence in the world cultural and media space is so revealing and interesting that it deserves a brief description, which is significant in itself and helps to better focus on the essence of the problem under consideration. Here comes a short list of adaptations.
1961, Poland: the novel Solaris by Stanislaw Lem.
1968, the USSR: the television movie Solaris by Lydia Ishimbaeva and Boris Nirenburg.
1996, Germany: the chamber opera Solaris by Michael Obst.
1972, the USSR:the two-part wide-screen feature film Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky.
1990, the USSR: the two-act ballet Solaris by Yuri Chaika.
2002, the USA: the feature film Solaris by Stephen Soderberg.
2005, Germany: Solaris, stage play by Aron Kitzig.
2007, the Russian Federation: the performance Solaris. Inquiry by Andrei Lyubimov.
2007, the Russian Federation: the radio show Solaris by Dmitry Kreminsky.
2009, Poland: the stage production Solaris: The Report by Natalia Korczakowska.
2011, Italy: the opera Solaris by Enrico Correggia.
* Corresponding author
E-mail addresses: a-shuneyko@yandex.ru (A.A. Shuneyko), olgachibisova@yandex.ru (O.V. Chibisova)
2011, Germany: stage play Solaris by Bettina Bruinier and Katja Friedrich.
2012, England: the stage production Solaris by Dimitry Devdariani.
2012, Austria: the opera Solaris by Detlev Glanert.
2015, Japan: the opera Solaris by Dai Fujikura and SaburoTeshigawara.
2015. Germany: live radio drama Solaris by Milan Pesl
2018, the Russian Federation: the ballet performance by Yuri Smekalov.
2019, Scotland: the stage production Solaris by David Greig.
This chronology points to several important characteristics of the subject under analysis. The interest in Solaris from the media space, various artists and groups of spectators is invariably rhythmic and unremitting, which with a high degree of probability allows predicting its persistence in the future. For sixty years, Solaris has overcome many linguistic boundaries and the boundaries of various semiotic systems that collectively structure the media space. The transitions of language and semiotic boundaries are always interconnected. On the one hand, both books and films are translated into various languages. On the other hand, the translation of a verbal text into ballet generally removes the question of linguistic differences. Currently, Solaris exists as a book, television and feature film, performance and ballet. That is, the original verbal text is transmitted with the help of various types of gestures, music, sounding speech and the whole range of visual means that use fine arts.
This artistic demand and various methods of broadcasting in the media space, constantly increasing in variety, are accompanied by the invariable attention of analysts.Particularly often and in great detail, Lem's novel is compared and contrasted with the films by Andrei Tarkovsky and Stephen Soderberg. Further we will consider what exactly the researchers distinguish in these works of fiction.
2. Materials and methods
The methodology involves comparing the texts of various art forms with each other. Despite the fact that such comparisons have constantly been carried out with various successes for a long time, they are often arbitrary and subjective: the exact mechanism for their implementation has not been developed. It should be based on universal units for comparison, which are present in different types of art and at the same time are directly correlated in their formally communicative, semantic and aesthetic functions.
For the present study, there are two such units: characters and scenes. The character here is any actor (person, fantastic creature, animal) directly or indirectly taking part in the story. The scene is a segment of the action, opposed to other segments and characterized by the unity of the actors, the visual series, their location and the semantic complexes that they translate, that is, subjects of conversation or action. In a movie, the scene may coincide with the frame, or may go beyond it. In different ways, characters and scenes exist in all projections of a literary text. They may not be found in decorative or applied art, but Solaris has no such projections yet.
The analysis involves three main procedures. Firstly, it is an identification of a set of characters and themes in each of the matched texts. Secondly, it is a comparison of these common sets in terms of the facts of correspondence/inconsistency, similarity/difference, identity/contrast, location and function. Thirdly, it is an interpretation of information obtained as a result of formal comparison. The rigorous implementation of these procedures gives the findings a high degree of evidence. In some cases, the details are also compared.
3. Discussion
The first thing that most experts notice is the development of the topic of contacting another being, mind or world. It is based on the "friend or foe" dichotomy, which is a complex mental formation that reflects the ways of perceiving the surrounding reality. Currently, the problem of relations with the Other (a different psychology, culture, value system) is more relevant than ever, since it is precisely "the possibility of contact with the Other that determines where the history of mankind will go" (Kuznetsova, 2009: 143). On the other hand, M. Jordan and J. J. Haladyn argue that in the digital age, defining the boundaries of reality becomes difficult due to the fact that modern man exists simultaneously in two worlds - real and virtual, simulating the real one. At the same time, the act of simulation may contain references not to reality, but to a model that originates outside a specific reality (Jordan, Haladyn, 2010: 253). This is clearly demonstrated by the example of guests modeled by Solaris on the basis of the scientists' unconscious memory.
According to G.M. Kirillov, these phantoms are similar to modern digital holograms due to the high accuracy of the image and the possibility of making a kind of incorporeal contact with them (Kirillov, 2016: 209).
This hyper-reality of simulacra often leads to the appearance of questions related to personal identity, to which humanity has no idea how to answer. No definition of the Other (and, of course, of oneself) is possible without reference to a standard that transcends both oneself and the Other (Csicsery-Ronay, 1985: 9). Some criteria for determining individuality are indicated in the work of V. Tumanov. First of all, it is a personal or autobiographical memory, and all the memories of a person, regardless of what served as their source, are part of his true identity (Tumanov, 2016: 362). This idea is also developed by M. Navrotskaya (Nawrocka, 2010: 103), who says that memory is the essence of man, and he cannot forget his past even among the stars, far from the Earth. Tarkovsky was fascinated by the "mechanics of memory" and believed that dreams were physical processes occurring in the body(Hall, 2011: 3); in his films, memories and dreams are often presented as a whole (McFadden, 2012: 44). He attached great importance to them, so Chris saves and takes with him to Solaris videos made at a time when his wife was still alive. These films are real Chris memories that are more important to him than any other property that he burned before leaving Earth (McFadden, 2012: 49). S. Hall believes that the most exciting and introspective moment of the film is when Hari realizes that she is the physical embodiment of Chris's memory of her (Hall, 2011: 3).The next criterion for determining individuality for V. Tumanov is the stability of character, which is necessary for planning cooperation and avoiding the stress associated with constantly changing social interaction (Tumanov, 2016: 364). Next comes the ability to feel pain and suffer (Tumanov, 2016: 368), experience different emotions and, most importantly, love (Tumanov, 2016: 372). A.S. Temlyakova adds one more to these criteria: awareness of mortality, which distinguishes man from other creatures (TeM^KOBa, 2013: 221).
C.M. Grau (Wolf, Grau, 2014: 117) writes that there are situations when our criteria for identity are incomplete and fall apart. In evidence, he cites the cases of hemispherectomy. Although the surviving person can change significantly, no one considers him a completely different person. It is also generally accepted that if the brain is transplanted into another body, the person will be where his brain is, that is, the brain is more important for establishing identity than the rest of the body. But if two hemispheres of a human brain are transplanted into two different bodies, which of them will a person be then? Although we possess all the necessary information, we cannot give a definite answer to this question. Survival involves identity, and a person cannot be numerically identical to more than one subject. I. Csicsery-Ronay agrees with him, wondering if the identification of Kelvin with an alien at the end of the novel is a confirmation that it is practically impossible to establish where the person ends and the Other begins (Csicsery-Ronay, 1985: 10). Snaut'sutterance about the neutrino systems instability is equivalent to denying Hari's identity. It is understood that not only can one go without a sense of compassion for Hari'sfeelings and emotions, but her very existence is worthless: Hari can be destroyed as an unstable object (Tumanov, 2016: 365). This and other cases of cruel treatment of "guests" makes competent the concept "rights of aliens" proposed by E. Gomel which is based not on humanity, but on inhumanity of the Other (Gomel, 2012: 11).
Such a concept is a significant problem, since science is limited in the eyes of Tarkovsky, because it perceives the world as a morally neutral object, an impartial entity, awaiting human understanding in a systematic rather than existential sense (McLenachan, 2014: 14). Lem's scientists are unable to think outside the so-called human language and overcome the anthropomorphism inherent in scientific thought (McLenachan, 2014: 15). This is obvious when they try to compile an exact nomenclature for the Solaris polymorphic formations: "tree mountains", "fungoids", "extensors", "mimoids", "asymmetries", "symmetriads" sound like geomorphological terms (Iamandi, 2009: 174). Lem makes no assumption that life elsewhere in the universe will be completely understood by people: there is no reason why it should be (Iamandi, 2009: 178).
At the moment of the actual beginning of the novel, the planet almost completely defeated human science, establishing insurmountable barriers between it and itself (Csicsery-Ronay, 1991: 6). Nevertheless, it turned out that humanity met with a creature willing and able to initiate the type of modeling that can penetrate the heart of sentient beings through mutually constructed communication models (Csicsery-Ronay, 1991: 7). "We are only seeking Man," says Snaut (Lem, 1987: 72) and the ocean sends anthropomorphic phantoms to Solarians. But even the image of a
person, which has no matter or is differently material, becomes not just an epistemological puzzle but a moral problem. Demoralization begins at the point when, in a make-believe way, bloodlessly, in a void, a person murders the thought about another person. Just a thought, a phi-creature... (Balcerzan, Brodzinski, 1975: 156).
The main emanation of the planet and, therefore, the means of communication between the ocean and man is Hari. But if it is a device, then, most likely, it is a self-programming one (Csicsery-Ronay, 1991: 6). That is, Solaris was capable of a higher level of modeling (imitation of intelligent organic structures) than people. Hari gradually becomes not only "real", but also almost more real than living characters, because she retains the ability to love and express true emotions (McLenachan, 2014: 19). In addition, she is aware of ignorance of her origin and is capable of self-sacrifice (Csicsery-Ronay, 1991: 6). Hari learns to do without Chris, reason and enter into an argument, that is, behaves independently (Anokhina, 2011: 92). She seems to be developing into a self-regulatory model of a person (Csicsery-Ronay, 1991: 6).
But, as A. Majcher concludes, the more scientists move towards establishing contact, the further they get from it (Majcher, 2015: 147). Only Kelvin decides to land on the ocean, but he does it not because of scientific interests, but of the feelings flared up from a meeting with his beloved (Deltcheva, Vlasov, 1997: 533).
Nevertheless, in our opinion, the statement of G.M. Kirillov, that a scientific look at the nature of the Other leads to the destruction of his originality, as well as the integrity of himself (Kirillov, 2016: 212). Let us recall that such a scientific discipline as intercultural communication was specially designed to ensure effective communication with representatives of other cultures. P. Iamandi (Iamandi, 2009: 174) identifies three stages which Solaris researchers go through for more than a hundred years. At first, they are sure that they can establish contact with the planet and collect the necessary information about it, thereby creating a new science - solar studies (a stage of romantic optimism). Then they collect data, classify them and place them in archives (a consolidation stage). As a result, the Solarists realize that they are faced with a completely incomprehensible and alien mind, which ignores all their efforts (a stage of cynicism).
Compare the described stages with the stages of cultural shock highlighted in intercultural communication, the most famous list of which belongs to P. Adler (Adler, 1975: 16-17). The first stage (an initial contact) is marked by excitement and euphoria; a person is more inclined to similarities, since he has few psychological mechanisms for working with radically new incentives. The second stage (disintegration) is marked by a period of confusion and disorientation; more important is the growing sense of distinction, isolation, and inadequacy to new situational requirements. The reintegration phase is characterized by a categorical rejection of the second culture, because a person is hostile to what he experiences, but does not understand. This phase can become for him a point of existential choice: he can return to the surface behavior and reactions of the contact phase, get closer to resolving difficulties and disappointments, or return home. The analogy is obvious.
I. Csicsery-Ronay (Csicsery-Ronay, 1985: 10-11) believes that there is evidence in the novel that some significant and mysterious contact was established between Solaris and Kelvin. So, Hari can be considered as their joint creation, since her substance is created by the planet, and her form is created by Kelvin's unconscious memory. In addition, the Solarists, having decided that Solaris "read" the images of guests from the dreams of sleeping scientists, encode some of Kelvin's thoughts and broadcast them during the day to "inform" the planet how much suffering these guests cause. The fact that the guests do not appear again after their destruction can be regarded as confirmation that the message was "received". And finally, through the annihilation of guests, Solaris learns about mortality and for the first time experiences the pain of death: "I heard the sound of a piercing scream which came from no human throat. The shrill, protracted howling..."(Lem, 1987: 182).
Chris Kelvin's dream recreating an act of mutual creation - of himself and a woman, both familiar and alien - and their perception of each other, can be recognized as a successful contact. At the moment when they become one, everything begins to crumble, destroying their bodies and causing suffering concentrated in "the distant blacks and reds" (Lem, 1987: 180). It is easy to imagine that this woman was Solaris, a planet with a female name, and each of them somehow inexplicably perceived this process of incarnation through another (Csicsery-Ronay, 1985: 11), and therefore the experienced, "mounting of grief visible in the dazzling light of another world" (Lem,
1987: 180), was mutual. The fingers are also mentioned in a dream, the gentle touch of which created a man and a woman, and which then turn into many worms that destroy their bodies.
The maximum contact with a reasonable ocean, according to R. Deltcheva and E. Vlasov, is achieved in the last scene of the novel, when Kelvin reaches out to the wave and a flower grows out of it, the petals of which become an exact image of his fingers (Deltcheva, Vlasov, 1997: 534). A. Majcher, on the contrary, finds here a symbolic confirmation that the contact is impossible, because the wave did not touch Kelvin, leaving a thin covering of air between him and itself, and the image of the fingers was negative (Majcher, 2015: 147). Although the ocean passionately wanted to learn a new form, it was forced to abandon this idea in order not to violate some mysterious law. It can be assumed that it remembered well the dream and those consequences that entail intimacy. In addition, it soon lost interest in the man, because one of the next waves already indifferently surged from him. One way or another, but in the Tarkovsky film, Kelvin also gives upan attempt to establish interaction with the ocean, which indicates his awareness of the dangers of such efforts.
S. Hall writes that Tarkovsky and Soderberg have different concept of "returning home" after a long and painful journey, which also indicates the difference in their worldviews (Hall, 2011: 2). If in the novel by Lem, Kelvin cannot decide whether to stay on Solaris or fly to Earth, in Tarkovsk/s film he returns to his father's house, to his family. While in Soderberg's film, the family is the conventions of marriage for Kelvin, and he reunites with his wife to live with her "in domestic bliss" (Hall, 2011: 5). R. Deltcheva and E. Vlasov clarify that for Tarkovsky the house is not an object of knowledge or development, it is a place of the pristine state of mankind, where one does not need to ask questions about the essence of being, where one can just live. Leaving the house to carry out any mission means dooming oneself to the solution of many problems, that is, upsetting the usual balance and starting to hesitate between extremes, which, in general, happens toSolarists(Deltcheva, Vlasov, 1997: 549). As far as the perception of the Soderberg's film as a poem about love, although it is tempting to see there a moving story about the reunion of two loving hearts in the afterlife, it is much more plausible to conclude that the ending is something less comforting than the usual idea of paradise. This consideration is dictated by the fact that throughout the film it is repeatedly emphasized that Solaris is a completely alien intellect, and it is unreasonable to ascribe noble impulses to it, since it never showed generosity to those people with whom it had previously interacted (Wolf, Grau, 2014: 111-114).
It is noteworthy that S. Hall uses the transliteration of the Russian word dacha to nominate the house of Chris Kelvin's father. He believes that the image of the dacha is of particular importance not only for Tarkovsky, but also for the Russian audience (Hall, 2011: 4-5).
T. McLenachan also uses the same word dacha, quoting A. Tarkovsky's words that "he preferred to be 'away from the paraphernalia of modern civilization' in a more natural setting such as his dacha" (McLenachan, 2014: 13). It is necessary to clarify that the text to which T. MacLenachan appeals does not use the word dacha, but the phrase a country house (Tarkovsky, Hunter-Blair, 1989: 212). In reality, A. Tarkovsky and his second wife owned a one-story stone house in the settlement of Myasnoy, in which they could live all year round. As for the image of a dacha for most Russians, it is rather six to ten hundred square meters of land for growing vegetables and fruits with the simplest wooden structure without amenities for living in the warmer months than brick mansions on plots of land per hectare or more. R. Deltcheva and E. Vlasov also do not find any specific reality of Russian culture in the parental home of Chris Kelvin, considering it as a universal intermediary through which the outside world is perceived (Deltcheva, Vlasov, 1997: 549). They write that Tarkovsky presents the audience with an image of a typical European estate, in the center of which stands an old-fashioned wooden house surrounded by old trees with dense foliage (Deltcheva, Vlasov, 1997: 535).
The whole variety of Solaris perceptions arose from the original text. It is it which is the impetus for the appearance of everything else. But not the only one. The verbal text causes the production of music, movement, play. From the point of view of the culture's existence, everything here is more or less clear. The more relevant the text is, the more it is replicated in various ways and at different times. But the translation mechanism itself is fraught with many analytical problems.
The fate of the verbal text falling into the media space may be different. If the text is in demand, it begins to be transmitted and deformed. Translation is not possible without deformation. The more relevant the text, the more semiotic systems are connected to its
deformation. So an actual poem can become a romance, a song or a smash hit, a masterpiece of painting move from a museum wall to a mug, and a living person can become an Internet meme.
Everything is much more complicated with the novel. Theoretically, its translation can also follow the path of simplification and complication. In this case, it seems that one of the main questions is the question of whether the deformation preserves the integrity of the text, whether it preserves the text itself, whether it arbitrarily replaces one text with another. In a situation where the text is saved, the next question is no less important: what exactly ensures the integrity of the text.
4. Results
In any literary text, all characters are divided into acting within the framework of the artistic whole and mentioned there. This separation of anthroponymicon is a reliable tool for analyzing deformations occurring in texts. In this case, it allows identifying the general tendency of the shifts taking place in the character sphere. This general trend is a cardinal change in the ratio between the current and mentioned characters. The number of acting characters is increasing, and the number of implied ones is decreasing. So, in Lem's Solaris there are 8 acting characters and 59 mentioned persons, mainly scientists who were engaged in the research of Solaris. In Tarkovsky's Solaris there are 17 acting characters (except Chris in childhood and extras during the conference) and 1 mentioned. Soderberg's Solaris features 12 active characters, a large crowd and 1 mentioned. Such a radical change in the ratio can be considered as a manifestation of the fact that the content is transferred from one type of art (literature) to another one (cinema). And each type of art suggests its own characteristics and dictates its own laws. In addition, the change in the ratio itself is connected with the way a new author reads the original text of Solaris. Although it is not always possible to separate one from the other, it is possible to explain the deformations of the text.In any case, for the analysis of the content, it is more important not because of what, but due to what and how the ratio changes. The increase in the acting characters occurs in two ways: the mentioned character goes into the number of active ones or there are completely new characters that are absent in the source text.
In the novel, Chris learns about the pilot Andre Berton, scientists Dr. Archibald Messenger, the chairman of the commission, the chairman of the conference and Trashier from "The Little Apocrypha", to the reading of which he was prompted by the note of Gibarian. In Tarkovsky's Solaris, they all become full-fledged characters in the frame. In Soderberg's Solaris, everyone except Berton disappears again, and he is mentioned by Snaut as the man who shot down the ship of the security forces.There appear completely new characters. In Tarkovsky's Solaris they are father, mother, Chris's aunt, Berton's son, Chris's niece. In Soderberg's Solaris they are Amanda, two escorts. The emergence of these characters is justified by local attitudes, the arbitrariness of the scriptwriters, the change of thematic accents and the desire of the directors to fill the frames as figuratively as possible, to make them more humanized and, due to this, more understandable.
The change in the ratio is superimposed by changes in the features of permanent characters, those that are present in all texts. There is not a single text with a character identical with respect to another text. Such changes are presented as fundamental and local.Fundamental changes are manifested in the fact that the character changes completely, it is replaced by another character. In Lem's Solaris, Gibarian's guest is a huge black woman, in Tarkovsky's Solaris she is a girl with a bell, in Soderberg's Solaris he is a smart little boy. In Lem's and Tarkovsky's Solaris Snaut is a human, while in Soderberg's Solaris most of the film Snaut is the guest who killed the real Snautand hid him in the refrigerator. In Lem's and Tarkovsky's Solaris Sartorius is a man and in Soderberg's Solaris his position in action is replaced by Dr. Gordon, a Negro woman.
Local changes are no less substantial, because they signal significant changes in the characteristics. In Lem's Solaris Hari primarily appears as a guest in a dress; in Tarkovsky's Solaris Hari- in the form of a portrait in the frame where Chris is burning paper, and then as a guest in a dress and shawl, which refers to Chris's mother; in Soderberg's Solaris - in Chris's dream, and then as a nudeguest. Obviously, the amount of clothing on the heroine determines her perception and constructs her place in action.
In Lem's Solaris, nothing is said about smoking; in Tarkovsky's Solaris, Snaut, Sartorius, and Hari smoke; nobody smokes Soderberg's Solaris. In Lem's and Tarkovsky's Solaris Snaut is constantly drinking, in Soderberg's Solaris, he is constantly sober. The burst of smoking characters occurred in the seventies, when an intellectual or a reflective personality could not be imagined without a cigarette in the cinema. In Lem's Solaris, Berton sees just a huge baby on the waves of
the ocean; in Tarkovsky's Solaris, Berton says that the baby is a copy of the deceased pilot Fechner's son; in Soderberg's Solaris the baby is absent.
In Lem's Solaris, Sartorius directly appears in only two scenes: at a videophone meeting and in an experiment with Chris's thoughts. In Tarkovsky's Solaris, Sartorius appears in the frame much more often than in the original text: he takes part in several new scenes, speaks out in full detail. In Soderberg's Solaris, Dr. Gordon becomes a character who really determines the course of events. So Sartorius from the secondary character becomes the lead. The opposite picture is observed with Snaut, who from the main character in Lem's Solaris becomes secondary and almost comic in Soderberg's Solaris.
In Lem's Solaris, Chris purposefully and independently analyzes Hari's blood and concludes that it consists of neutrinos. In Tarkovsky's Solaris, Sartorius arrives at this conclusion in an unknown way and offers Chris to analyze Hari's blood for confirmation. In Tarkovsky's Solaris, Chris's father, in the eighth minute of the story, tells Berton: "He reminds me of an accountant preparing an annual report," and that sets Chris's perception. And in Soderberg's Solaris, we learn about Chris's analytical abilities nominally, by the principle: if a person is invited to conduct an examination, he is smart. That is, Chris is gradually getting stupider from text to text.
In the source text, Chris is an unconditional analyst by the nature of his actions: he constantly reads books, conducts experiments, ponders and draws conclusions. In Soderberg's Solaris, he is a brutal lover hero who is not so much engaged in experiments as sex, fixated on relationships with Rhea and fully complies with the definition Sartorius gave him in Tarkovsky's Solaris (02.01.30): "You spend all day lying in bed from ideological considerations. And in this way do your duty. You have lost a sense of reality."
All formal and substantive transformations - Chris from an analyst to a playboy with the intellect of a weightlifter, Sartorius from a secondary character to the main figure and active resonator, Snaut from the main character to a secondary detail - are directly related to the deformations of the scenes and have a single explanation with them.In order to restore, clarify and clearly show the transformation of the content in Tarkovsky's and Soderberg's Solaris regarding Lem's novel, we present a complete table of correspondences and mismatches of events or scenes in three texts.
Lem's Solaris Tarkovsky's Solaris Soderberg's Solaris
Chris on Earth in the country; enjoys nature and says goodbye to it before flying Chris on Earth in the city: sits, walks, in a group, calls, rides, cooks
Berton and his son arrive
Berton's son meets Chris's niece
Chris and Burton's father speak about Solaris and the house
Rain Rain
Scientific conference, Berton's interrogation
Information about Solaris: Chris is reading Apocrypha Information about Solaris: Chris's aunt is watching a show
Chris and his father
Chris's aunt, Berton's son and a horse
Chris and Berton
Berton calls and informs that the baby on Solaris is a copy of Fechner's son
Roads, Bridges and Tunnels of Tokyo
Chris burns paper, his father and aunt say goodbye to him
Invitation to Chris from Gibarian to fly to Solaris and deal with the situation
Chris's flight and arrival at Solaris, which is in complete disarray and no one greets him Chris's flight and arrival at Solaris, which is in complete disarray and no one greets him Chris's flight and arrival at Solaris, which is in complete disarray and no one greets him
A guest in the corridor
1st conversation with Snaut 1st conversation with Snaut 1st conversation with Snaut
Chris is alone in the room, takes a shower, reads about Solaris Chris is alone in the room, leaves his things
Chris in Gibarian's room Chris in Gibarian's room
A guest is trying to come in A guest is trying to come in
A letter from Gibarian to Kelvin A video message from Gibarian
Meeting with a black woman
Meals and a long 2nd conversation with Snauton the radio station
Return to Gibarian's room, reading about Shannahan's expedition
Baby steps in the laboratory of Sartorius, a conversation with Sartorius on the doorstep Silence in the Sartorius's laboratory, a conversation with Sartorius on the doorstep, adwarf runs out Silence in Dr. Gordon's laboratory, a conversation with her
In the corridor There is a girl with a bell in the corridor There is a boy in the corridor
3rd conversation with Snaut 2nd conversation with Snaut
Warehouses, refrigerators, the corpse of Gibarian and a black woman Warehouses, refrigerators, the corpse of Gibarian and a girl The corpse of Gibarian and someone else in the refrigerator
2nd conversation with Snaut, a girl
In the cabin: reflections and experiment with a calculator In the cabin: continued recording with Gibarian and the girl In the cabin: continued recording with Gibarian
A dream, the appearance of Hari in the dress. A dream (sees his mother), the appearance of Hari in a dress and shawl A dream (sees Rheya), the appearance of naked Rheya
An attempt to send Hari into space An attempt to send Hari into space An attempt to send Rheya into space
4th conversation with Snaut about guests in the cabin 3rd conversation with Snaut about guests in the cabin 3rd conversation with Snaut about guests in the cabin
Memories of Rheya
Hari returns Hari returns Rheya returns
Hari and the door Hari and the door
Hari's blood test in the operating room
Videophone Meeting: Kelvin, Sartorius, Snaut Snaut, Sartorius, Kelvin and Hari in the laboratory, Hari's blood test
Chris and Hari watch and discuss Chris's childhood film
Night talk with Hari
Chris reads about Solarisin the library
5th conversation with Snaut in the library 4th conversation with Snout in the cabin - Sartorius's project
A conversation with Gibarian in a dream A conversation with Gibarian in a dream
Conversation between Chris and Hari after lunch: she realizes her essence Conversation between Chris and Rheya, Rheya's memories, conversation between Chris and Snaut. Rheya realizes her essence.
Hari made something to herself
Night talk with Hari: she realizes her essence
In the library, Chris, Hari, Sartorius, Snaut talk about a man Chris, Rheya, Snaut, Gordon talk about destroying guests
5th conversation with Snaut in the corridor
Hari and Chris in the library with paintings, memories and the ocean
Hari poisoned herself with liquid oxygen Hari poisoned herself with liquid oxygen Rhey apoisoned herself with liquid oxygen
Gordon offers a way to destroy guests
6th conversation with Snauton a radio station 6th conversation with Snautin the corridor
Explanation with Hari Explanation with Rheya
Snautisrunning
Lab experiment: Chris's thoughts are conveyed to the ocean
Conversation between Rheya and Gordon
Chris and Hari read Gravinsky's handbook in the library
Repeated experiments, no events, dreams - nightmares without detail
Ocean's excitement
Chris has fever and hallucinations: a big scene with his mother Chris has fever and hallucinations: Rheya in different versions
Drunk Snaut in a suit
MissingHariatnight
Hari gives Chris sleeping pills in juice
The disappearance of Hari as a fact The disappearance of Hari as a fact, told by Snaut The disappearance of Rheya as a fact, told by her
7th conversation with Snaut 7th conversation with Snaut Conversation between Chris and Gordon
Detection of Snout's corpse
Conversation among Chris, Gordon and Snaut; he threatens
Chris and Gordon are about to fly away
Chris sees a storm in the ocean and realizes that he has no home Chris sees a storm in the ocean
8th conversation with Snaut about god
Chris with Snaut on the old mimoid plays with a wave
Chris stayed on Solaris Chris ponders whether to stay or return to Earth Chris imagined a return to Earth, but stayed on Solaris
The scene "Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son" The scene "The Creation of Adam" by Michelangelo
Chris gets Rheya
This table can serve as a basis for a mass of interpretations related to the features of the transmission of aesthetically significant information. For this study, the transformation of the source text content is relevant.
Of the 72 positions fixing the total number of different scenes in the three texts, 14 (19.5 %) certainly coincide, that is, though with deformations, they appear in all texts. Probably, without such an amount of unity, the text would break up into independent texts. At the same time, isolated scenes found in only one text amount to 40 (55.5 %), that is, almost three times more. Consequently, centrifugal forces prevail over centripetal ones. The correlation between common and single scenes, one to three, clearly demonstrates the general tendency not to preserve the source text, but to revise it, deform, change, and use it as an impulse to create an independent work of art. This formal trend is reinforced by what is happening with the content of the source text.
The table clearly shows that the direct translation of the text from one source to another is a rarity. Translation is not a simple change of information carrier when it is saved, but significant deformation of the original information itself. These deformations manifest themselves through the general coordination of topics. In each case, coordination is associated with the behavior of the scenes.There are four main types of this behavior: the scenes are saved, disappear, appear and change their places relative to other scenes. At the same time, there are also particular modifications for each of the types. The originated scenes can change their internal characteristics: volume, implementation environment, number of participants, development details, and position in the general sequence of actions. The scenes that have arisen can develop any real mention in the source text, for example, Hari's conversation with Snaut is not described in the novel, but it is mentioned there. Or these scenes may be an arbitrary addition, for example, all the events on the Earth in Tarkovsky's Solaris.
Taken together, the types of scene behavior and their modifications are carried out randomly. But there are many explanations for their parts. Let us consider these motivations.
The narrative time in Lem's Solaris is nonlinear: a series of previous events is described much later than their accomplishments. Tarkovsky and Soderberg are constantly striving to straighten out the narrative time, turn it into a clear linear sequence with carefully shown causal relationships between individual segments. This creates new scenes and modifications to existing ones.For example, Lem does not mention Gibarian and Hari at the time of Chris's flight and the
fact of their acquaintance generally becomes known towards the end. Besides, there is no detailed information about Solaris and the Solaris station. Tarkovsky's film begins with the information about Solaris, which, according to Lem's idea, Kelvin is to read much later in various books. InSoderberg's film, Chris is invited to fly to the planet by Gibarian, who says that something is wrong, and the first thing Chris finds out on the station is the death of Gibarian. So the authors strive to make the sequence more obvious and understandable.
Significant details change their location and character. To start with, the first contacts with guests are recorded in various ways. In Lem's Solaris, a guest tries to enter Gibarian's room and pulls a doorknob. In Tarkovsky's Solaris, the first guest flashes before Chris's talking to Snaut, the second is in Snaut's room, and the third tries to enter Gibarian's room, but simply opens the door with a fixed handle. In Soderberg's Solaris, Chris sees a boy in the corridor after a conversation with Gordon. Secondly, in Lem's novel, Kelvin takes a gas gun in his room, in Tarkovsky's one he takes a gun in Gibarian's room, and there is no weapon in Soderberg's version. Thirdly, the readers of the bookare told aboutsome steps in Sartorius's laboratory, there is silence there in Tarkovsky's and Soderberg's adaptations, but a dwarf runs out of it in Tarkovsky's Solaris.The next thing that needs to be said is that in the source novel Chris finds a note in Gibarian's room: "Supplement Dir. Solar. Vol.1.:Vot. Separat. Messenger ds aff. F.; Ravintzer: The Little Apocrypha" (Lem, 1987: 29) and a pocket tape-recorder. Tarkovsky's and Soderberg's Solaris features a video message. The note, which in Lem's Solaris refers to Berton's interview and clarifies the situation, turns out to be superfluous in the remaining texts: in Tarkovsky's Solaris, Berton told everything to Chris before Gibarian, in Soderberg's Solaris there is no such line.The note that constructs nonlinearity in Lem's Solaris is not needed in linear texts. It will only slow down the dynamics of the narrative, which all directors so desperately strive for, constantly increasing it by reducing the length of the frames. Soderberg's Solaris has the highest dynamics, so even a gun is extra there. Other details, such as the Hari's shawl in Tarkovsky's Solaris, are related to local visual tasks. Finally, the ideological clichés of the time can also be attributed to details. A very revealing picture is observed here: the Polish novel and American film have no ideological cliches. But Tarkovsky's Solaris, filmed in the USSR, represent some of them; even science fiction was forced there to serve the cause of socialism.Although, according to D. Salynskii, in the course of work, the film was freed from ideology, and the distribution option is cleaner from it than the working version and script (Salynsky, 2012). In the film, on 02.29.21, during Chris's hallucinations, there is a detail: in his native house, on a chair there is a medical cuvette with soil, sprout and coins, one of which is a jubilee ruble with Lenin's profile. The logic of events suggests that it as a dear object comparable in value to a handful of native earth, visited space together with Chris.
All the above-mentioned transformations of the content in one way or another manifest or reflect translations of the main topics. Let us consider it on the example of science and earth topics that are most contrastingly implemented in the three texts.
The topic of science is extremely unequally represented in these works of art. In Lem's Solaris, it occupies at least 50 % of the total volume of the story: Chris gets information about Solaris from numerous books that he constantly reads; most of the conversations among the characters and their actions are directly related to science. As I. Grodz put it, for Lem, perhaps the most important thing in evaluating science fiction is to estimate how seriously and responsibly it takes the first part of its genre name (Grodz, 2015: 162). In Tarkovsky's Solaris, a direct connection with science is presented in separate scenes and two general conversations.Though Tarkovsky states that much of Sartorious's work is connected with isolating the regenerative properties in neutrino life-forms, he deliberately refuses to show how this work is being done. Besides, the director basically excludes the viewer from any of the station's more explicit scientific activity. This exclusion can largely be explained by his aversion for the mechanized gadgetry which subjugated science fiction.In contrast to Lem, Tarkovsky put an emphasis on the second part of science fiction's genre name. He did not like science but he was interested in problems he could extract from fiction (fantasy): man, his world and his anxieties. In Soderberg's Solaris, the topic of science has been reduced to zero, essentially representing only two of Dr. Gordon's actions; the characters here do not find out and do not analyze anything, they simply strive to adapt to the situation.Following the tradition, S. Soderbergh used the sci-fi premise of Solaris to tell a supernatural romance with a conventional and happy Hollywood ending. There is no need for a consumer of mass culture to bother with the problem of the unicellular protoplasmic sentient Ocean, capable of extracting emotions from the most hidden corners of a person's consciousness.
It is much easier to follow the love line than to delve into the scientific and philosophical pathos, that is, the emotional element decisively began to dominate the intellectual. All the huge analytics about Solaris, brilliant in its power of fantastic insights, which can be considered one of Lem's main artistic discoveries, is gradually reduced to o and remains behind the scenes in Tarkovsky's and Soderberg's Solaris.
The topic of the Earth is also extremely unequally represented in the three texts and has the opposite dynamics of development. Lem's Solaris has virtually no Earth theme: it is implied as obvious and, in fact, updated only twice. The first time, it is touched upon in Chris's conversations with Hari: "We talked about <...> our life on Earth on the outskirts of some great city <...> among green trees and under a blue sky <...> and argued over details like the location of a hedge or a bench" (Lem, 1987: 186). The last time, it is mentioned when Chris decides whether to stay on Solaris. Besides, there are some narrative interjections, which emanate from the inhabitants of the station as afterthoughts.In Tarkovsky's film, this topic becomes one of the prevailing. The first forty minutes of action unfold on the Earth. Sartorius dismissively says that Gibarian "wanted to go to the ground, to the worms." During a physical crisis, Chris raves about the Earth. In the finale there is the Earth. This caused Lem's legitimate disagreement. In Soderberg's film, action also begins on the Earth, and it is constantly present in Chris's thoughts. In Tarkovsky's Solaris, the Earth is the home, paradise, cradle and last refuge, it is a coveted goal, and space is the hostile cold place of hard work. In Soderberg's Solaris, the Earth is the place of sin, and space is the price of it. In Lem's Solaris there is neither the first nor the second contrast, there space is the place of a person's existence, another facet of his life and being, the opportunity to feel like a man, to develop a person in himself, to find a person.
Expanding the Earth's theme from o in Lem's Solaris to 50 % in the Tarkovsky's Solaris is symptomatic because it is the result of several ideological attitudes.For socialist art, the obligatory setting was "we have the best": in the USSR everything is better than in other countries; on the Earth, the projection of the USSR, everything is better than in the rest of space. Socialist art cannot exist without struggle. Space and the Earth, like capitalism and socialism, fight for the souls of people.The mass-oriented socialist art, for a greater degree of clarity, built everything on contrasts; the Solaris Ocean needed the Earth as an antipode. Socialist art in any of its manifestations was oriented toward realism. It was the Earth that became this element of realism. Let's not forget that the film was created in a period of time called by A. Fedorov "A quiet movie whirlpool" (Fedorov, 2018: 85). The Thaw came to an end in August 1968, and the Kremlin film reaction became very tough. Despite this, A. Tarkovsky tried to broadcast ideas inconvenient for official propaganda. For example, among a number of space explorers' photographs one can see American astronauts John Glenn and Neil Armstrongalong with Soviet cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and German Titov. During the struggle between the USSR and the USA for supremacy in space, such a demonstration can be perceived as strikingly odd (Duffy, 2003)
It is precisely two deformations of the themes: science from 50 % to 0 % and Earth from 0 % to 50 % that determined all the changes in the characters and scenes in Tarkovsky's and Soderberg's Solaris.
On the whole, the above factors produce the problem of text interpretations plurality, within which the true / false categories are associated with the background knowledge of a person who is interpreting the text. It makes a viewer approach the explanation of certain facts with greater measure of evidence (Shuneyko, Chibisova, 2019: 127). Next, we consider the main substantive assessments with which the researchers of the three Solaris accompany their observations.
M. Nawrocka believes that the novel Solaris speaks of the helplessness and loneliness of man in space, the impossibility, despite the desire, to make contact with an alien creature, the powerlessness of science and, finally, human memory (Nawrocka, 2010: 102-103). N. Sfetcu agrees that Lem's book is a philosophical novel dedicated to the nature of human memory, experience and inaction in communication between a person and other creatures. Moreover, he points out that instead, Tarkovsky's and Soderberg's films focus on human relationships (Sfetcu, 2019). E. Sinkovics, in principle, supports N. Sfetcu's judgment, but adds that Lem examined the impossibility of transcoding different cultures and forms of thinking, and Tarkovsky's human relations are meditative, while Soderberg's ones are incomplete and unhealthy ones (Sinkovics, 2013). Yu.O. Anokhina also thinks that the problem of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence is at the center of Lem's novel, but she objects to the fact that in Tarkovsky's film there are highlighted love affairs, since the story of Hari's humanization is much more important (Anokhina, 2011: 92).
Her position is similar to that of E. Gomel, who is convinced that the emotional center of the text is not a connection between a man and a woman, but a relationship between a human and alien (Gomel, 2012: 15). That is why she asks herself and her interlocutors the question: "Do posthuman subjects have human rights?" (Gomel, 2012: 11). This theme is developed by M. Jordan and J.J. Haladyn, who insist that both films demonstrate the effects of blurring the boundaries between people and modeled beings, between reality and its simulation (Jordan, Haladyn, 2010: 253). S. Hall suggests an idea that Tarkovsky's creepy and lonely film immerses viewers in search of adventure and arouses the desire to return home, while Soderberg's film is a poem about lost and dangerously returned love (Hall, 2011).
5. Conclusion
In the media space from a single demanded text always arise many other ones. This creates an external contradiction. The new text requires other means, but the semantics of all these means are inherent in the original version. In Lem's novel, all the events, actions, collisions of characters are just a framework to hang a brain game on — a set of analytic insights. But at the same time, his Solaris is a universal text where everyone finds his own aspect and it is this one aspect that he designs to the detriment of the others. Each subsequent text is focused not only on the original, but also on intermediate incarnations. So Tarkovsky's Solaris cannot avoid the embodiment of ideological cliches that were not to be found in Lem's novel, and Soderberg's Solaris cannot do without rain in the beginning, which was not in Lem's novel. Moreover, the source text is expanded, duplicated and replaced. Priorities are chosen by the artist in his interaction with society. The text adapts to different types of perception. It is made available to people with various dominant types of perception. Due to this, it expands the boundaries of the impact. Media space makes the text context more primitive, as it is aimed at its decoding and popularization. Different types of broadcasts support and renew interest in each other. Spectators read the novel, readers watch movies. The original text is always simplified and never complicated. In each subsequent text, the number of dominant topics decreases. At that, in the cultural space, all these texts act simultaneously. As a result, it turns out that all the topics of the source text are somehow duplicated, developed, and more firmly rooted. As a result of the law of substitution, the reduction of one of the topics in the subsequent text immediately responds to the hypertrophy of another topic. If the source text is thematically reduced, it is immediately supplemented by other topics. The integrity of the text is provided by the event canvas.
References
Adler, 1975 - Adler, P. S. (1975). The transitional experience: an alternative view of culture shock. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 15 (4): 13-23.
Anokhina, 2011 - Anokhina, Yu.O. (2011). Solaris: before and after Tarkovsky. Kinovedcheskie zapiski, 98: 85-100.
Balcerzan, Brodzinski, 1975 - Balcerzan, E., Brodzinski, K. (1975). Seeking Only Man: Language and Ethics in "Solaris". Science Fiction Studies, 2 (2): 152-156.
Csicsery-Ronay, 1985 - Csicsery-Ronay, I. (1985). The Book Is the Alien: On Certain and Uncertain Readings of Lem's "Solaris". Science Fiction Studies, 12 (1): 6-21.
Csicsery-Ronay, 1991 - Csicsery-Ronay, I. (1991). Modeling the Chaosphere: Stanislaw Lem's Alien Communications. In Hayles, N.K. (Ed.). Chaos and Order.Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press: 244-262.
Deltcheva, Vlasov, 1997 - Deltcheva, R., Vlasov, E. (1997). Back to the House II: On the Chronotopic and Ideological Reinterpretation of Lem's Solaris in Tarkovsky's Film. The Russian Review, 56 (4): 532-549.
Duffy, 2003 - Duffy, R. (2003). Sculpted in time: Heterotopic space in Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris [Electronic resource]. URL: https://mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca/bitstream/handle/1993/19847/ Duffy_Sculpted_in.pdf?sequence=1
Fedorov, 2018 - Fedorov, A. (2018). Russian cinema: a very short story. Zhurnal Ministerstva narodnogo prosveshcheniya, 5 (2): 82-97. DOI: 10.13187/zhmnp.2018.2.82
Gomel, 2012 - Gomel, E. (2012). Posthuman Rights: The Ethics of Alien Encounter. In Matos Alves, A. (Ed.). Unveiling the Posthuman. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press: 11-19.
Grodz, 2015 - Grodz, I. (2015). Hollywoodzka adaptacja Solaris Stanislawa Lema. Kilka uwagna marginesie filmu Stevena Soderbergha z 2002 roku. Quart, 3-4: 158-168.
Hall, 2011 - Hall, S. (2011). Light Years to Home: The Restoration of Domesticity in Solaris [Electronic resource]. URL: https://www.academia.edu/674682/Light_Years_to_Home_ The_Restoration_of_Domesticity_in_Solaris
Iamandi, 2009 - Iamandi, P. (2009). On Solaris: Exile the SF Way. The Proceedings of the Ovid, Myth and (Literary) Exile Conference, Constanta, 173-179.
Jordan, Haladyn, 2010 - Jordan, M., Haladyn, J.J. (2010). Simulation, Simulacra and Solaris. Film-Philosophy, 14.1; 253-273.
Kirillov, 2016 - Kirillov, G.M. (2016). Fantastic world of Solaris: the search for a true self and another. Tver State University Vestnik. Series: Philosophy, 3: 208-214.
Kuznetsova, 2009 - Kuznetsova, E. (2009). Three "Solaris": from Lem to Soderberg. Science Fiction and Technology (in memory of Stanislaw Lem): Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference. Samara, 139-146.
Lem, 1987 - Lem, S. (1987). Solaris. New York: Harvest, 204 p.
Majcher, 2015 - Majcher, A. (2015). Does the quality of interlingual translation influence the quality of the intersemiotic translation? On the English language film adaptations of S. Lem's The Futurological Congress and Solaris in the light of their translations into English. Journal of Language and Cultural Education, 3(3): 144-151.
McFadden, 2012 - McFadden, D. (2012). Memory and Being: The Uncanny in the Films of Andrei Tarkovsky. Verges: Germanic & Slavic Studies in Review, 1 (1): 43-54.
McLenachan, 2014 - McLenachan, T. (2014). Truth is Stranger than Science Fiction: The Quest for Knowledge in Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris and Stalker. Slovo, 26 (2): 8-29.
Nawrocka, 2010 - Nawrocka, M. (2010). Frazeologiczne innowacje wy mieniaj^ce w powiesciach Solaris i Dzienniki gwiazdowe Stanislawa Lema. Poznanskie Studia Polonistyczne. Seria jqzykoznawcza, 17 (37): 101-112.
Salynsky, 2012 - Salynsky, D. (20i2).The film by Andrei Tarkovsky "Solaris". Materials and documents [Electronic resource]. URL: https://www.e-reading.club/bookreader.php/1033011/ Salynskiy_-_Film_Andreya_Tarkovskogo_Colyaris.html
Sfetcu, 2019 - Sfetcu, N.N. (2019). Stanislaw Lem vs. Andrei Tarkovsky [Electronic resource]. URL: https://www.setthings.com/en/stanislaw-lem-vs-andreitarkovsky/
Sinkovics, 2013 - Sinkovics, E. (2013). Az improvizacio es a remake szerves összefonodasa mualkotas letrehozasaban [Electronic resource]. URL: http://doktori.mke.hu/sites/default/files/ attachment/EDE-ertekezes-KORR%20%281%29-atimod01-3wordoptimized-minimum.pdf
Shuneyko, Chibisova, 2019 - Shuneyko A., Chibisova O. (2019). The Mechanism of Contextual Confirmation of the Symbol in the Cinema Language. Media Education, 1: 123-134.
Tarkovsky, Hunter-Blair, 1989 - Tarkovsky, A., Hunter-Blair, K. Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema. University of Texas Press, 254 p.
Temlyakova, 2013 - Temlyakova, A.S. (2013). "Solaris": a novel and a film. Dialogue space. Ural's Culture Studies Gerald, 2: 215-226.
Tumanov, 2016 - Tumanov, V. (2016). Philosophy of Mind and Body in Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris. Film-Philosophy, 20: 357-375. DOI: 10.3366/film.2016.0020.
Wolf, Grau, 2014 - Wolf, S., Grau C. (2014). Understanding Love: Philosophy, Film, and Fiction. Oxford University Press, 397 p.
