official Covenant Forum

Quoted

Originally posted by Evolutz
Is there anybody out there who has seen this feature?

"Stalker" by Andrej Tarkovskij (1979, Russia).

It's deeply philosophical and I think it has inspired "covenant",
even though the songtext of "stalker" deals with a stalker itself
and not with the content of the film.

Hm, from what I've read about the film so far (and I'm trying to remain spoiler-free until I view it), it seems like there are some parallels between the film and the song. Of course I could be reading too deep into things- which god knows has been known to happen- so I'll have to actually *see* it before I can tell if my notionss are substantiated!

I'm really getting tempted to just purchase it sight unseen. I keep hearing about how great it is...

Hehe - a friend and me planned to watch the video on friday.
I don't know the film yet, but think i heard it is based on a novel. I have no idea, if or in which way it inspired Covenant, but Colony 5's "The Zone" has its sources there very obviously.

At the time of writing "Stalker" we hadn't seen the film. We knew about it and we were Tarkovsky fans since "Solaris" and "The Sacrifice".

The title of our song is indeed derived from the idea of Tarkovsky's Stalker: a person who passes freely through boundaries, someone who can see things we can't see, who can navigate the forbidden Zone and use what's there, who knows the terrible secrets we carry inside. And one who knows what it means to mess with the delicate balance that keeps us sane.

The second inspiration came from applying William S. Burroughs-style cut&paste techniques to poetry. I stumbled on a couple of anthologies of Black American poetry from the 40's, 50's and 60's and they blew my mind. There was such a range of emotions. Rage, despair, hope, lust, love, hatred...

So I made notes of every line that told me something. That made me react. Feel something. Then I cut all the notes up and rearranged them randomly. Then I cheated and picked the ones that could be applied to the overall theme. After all I'm not a Black American. I was a spoilt white boy from middle-class Sweden with the luxury problem of Weltschmertz.

So it became a semi-random poem about seeing things through one eye in a muddy microscope and one eye in a wide-angle telescope, not knowing which view to trust.

And incidentally that's how I interpret the excellent film "Stalker" as well.

BTW: My Russian friend Sergey recently told me about the book upon which the film is based: "Roadside Picnic " by the Strugatsky brothers. See the wonderful Wikipedia for further knowledge:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic

> I stumbled on a couple of anthologies of Black American poetry from the 40's, 50's and > 60's...

This only confirms what I've suspected for years: Langston Hughes has been covertly ghostwriting for Covenant.