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Forum in English / Re: Films on Lem's books

« dnia: Lipca 20, 2004, 02:17:34 am »

Maybe at filmoteka@filmoteka.pl can tell you how to find the polish films and at your nearer cineclub organize a "Lem week".
"Marianengraben", dir. Achim Bornhak: you can write mail@abovetheline.de, agents of Bornhak; maybe he can send you a copy (it was a student work, Oscar nominated).
"First spaceship to Venus" (Der Schweigende Stern, upon Astronauts), dir. Kurt Maetzig, is available in DVD (look the web!).
French, czech and dutch films are hard to find, due to american film distributors blocking policies.

Good luck!

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Forum in English / Films on Lem's books

« dnia: Lipca 17, 2004, 03:04:54 am »

Cinemateca Uruguaya has provided me the following information (sorry if certain titles of Lem's books are por translations of my spanish versions):

-Der Schweigende Stern [1959], german film upon "The astronauts"
- Proffesor Zazul [1962], polish TV film; episode from Tichy's voyages.
- Przekladaniek [1968], Wajda film for polish TV (can anybody identify the source Lem's text?)
- Ikaria-XBI [1968-71], czech film partially based upon Nebula Magallanica.
- Solaris [1971], the well known Tarkowsky masterpiece.
- Test Pilota Pirxa [1979], russian-polish production from Pirx adventures, directed by Marek Piestrak.
- Szpital przemienienia [1979], Edward Zebrowski film based upon Hospital de la transfiguración.
- Un si joli village [1978], frencho film, directed by Etienne Perier, upon The Investigation.
-Victim of brain (sorry about crude translation), dutch film, 1988, dir. Piet Hoenderos, aparently based upon Peace on earth.
- Marianengraben [1994], german film, dir. Achim Bornhak, screenplay by Lem & Mathias Dinter.


Best regards,

Carlos

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Forum in English / Re: metaphysics and sci-fi

« dnia: Lipca 16, 2004, 11:15:10 pm »

Flexi, your meta dialog is not only beautiful, but also true.
Is not such questions-answers we always do, in the belief of going further?
Also, if you draw a line through the spaces between the "w" and the "h" in your dialog, you'll find a zig-zag path, kind of labyrinth, an image of god.

I think science-fiction is over, especially after Lem: why classify art as if it were socks? There are only good and bad books (Dante's Commedia would be, if in such way classifiable, "fantasy-and-horror-comedy").

Regards,

Carlos

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Forum in English / Re: technicalities

« dnia: Lipca 16, 2004, 10:51:42 pm »

I did like Tarkowsky's Solaris, though it's not really an adaptation of the book (an impossible challenge, I believe), but another brilliant and personal masterpiece of the great russian director. When I saw the american version cassette in the video club, I took it, hoping at least a few special effects on the phisical transformations of the planet. I was thinking, perhaps, in the star trip of Bowman, though I know Soderbergh is not Kubrick.
But the american film seems to have been made out of Tarkowsky's rather than from the Lem's book. And that's all: an average american perception of a russian genius metaphysics -nothing at all, but boring.
The films don't deserve the book, but least they are ways to make the world speak about Lem, a great master of two centuries.