Reclaiming Wonder: A Hauntological Analysis of Stalker
Document Type
Panel Presentation
Start Date
23-4-2021 10:45 AM
Keywords
Stalker, Analysis, Derrida
Biography
James Hoyle earned a Master's Degree in Journalism (2019) from Marshall University. He is currently a graduate student in the Department of English.
Major
English
Advisor for this project
John Young
Abstract
The 1970s was a turbulent time for the Soviet Union. The economic prosperity promised by the October Revolution had not materialized, and people were questioning is there was any point to all the suffering of the first half of the twentieth century. These existential anxieties are what filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky addresses in his 1979 film Stalker. Analyzing the film’s composition and symbolism through the lens of Derrida’s theory of hauntology, along with the history of Russia, reveals that Stalker is one of the most subversive statements on faith to be made by a culture that actively wanted to end faith.
Reclaiming Wonder: A Hauntological Analysis of Stalker
The 1970s was a turbulent time for the Soviet Union. The economic prosperity promised by the October Revolution had not materialized, and people were questioning is there was any point to all the suffering of the first half of the twentieth century. These existential anxieties are what filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky addresses in his 1979 film Stalker. Analyzing the film’s composition and symbolism through the lens of Derrida’s theory of hauntology, along with the history of Russia, reveals that Stalker is one of the most subversive statements on faith to be made by a culture that actively wanted to end faith.
