Wasn't this filmed on a higher budget originally?

Man, I just really wanted to see it what it originally was. This is a big loss, very interesting about the higher budget one though.

It's more of a financial loss than an artistic one, really-- from what the cast (the same actor played the stalker in both versions) remembers, the original version was a fairly conventional film/script as far as an adaptation of the novella goes... i.e. the cast knew/understood what they were doing in the original version, but was quite lost as to what they were doing in the second version (the stalker actor was quite "driven mad").

Tarkovsky was dithering on the editing/release of the original version because he was not satisfied with it (the movie was originally a "commissioned" work, hence the high budget)-- so the destruction of the original actually gave him the "opportunity" to discard any superfluous narrative framing (cos the novella still exists, for people who are more interested in the "back-story") and simply zoom in on what he wanted to say/show on the subject.

The main difference between Tarkovsky and the "Hollywood" school of film-making is that Tarkovsky considers film to be descended from paintings rather than plays-- i.e. films are suppose to work more like a walk through an art gallery/exhibition, rather than a "portable/convenient" way of showcasing stories/drama: so you should be encouraged to think about various things/themes in the process, and not expect closure to a narrative/character arc.

There is a Russian DVD release packed with interviews/features where you can glean all of the above-- saw it years (decade?) ago, so I can't remember what brand or year it was... and of course, I apologise in advance if I get any of above wrong.

But in short, the second/released version was the one with the more ORIGINAL, Tarkovsky vision.


BTW, you still get to see some of that high budget/production quality in the second version-- e.g. they bought a tank, drove it into a wasteland in the middle of nowhere, grew miles of flowers all around it, and waited for the right SEASON of the year to film it.

It's the same kind of 1970's high budget/production quality that the likes of Stanley Kubrick insisted on when filming The Shining (1980)-- by drowning the outdoor locations in TONS and TONS of salt to simulate snow... and the results were such that it never crossed my mind that the final product (with its particular tones, sharpness, etc.) would be really difficult to achieve when filming in actual snow/winter/locations.

The post 1980's generation of movie goers tend not to realize that computer visual effects first arose as a CHEAP alternative to practical effects, which were very expensive to get right-- but that was when movies were shot using film stock and you can't easily "fix things in post-production".

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