The Polish writer has been in my thoughts for the past week, now that I’ve finally got round to reading Solaris while also having watched The Congress, Ari Folman’s adaptation of Lem’s The Futurological Congress. Reading Solaris was an interesting experience when the story is so familiar from the Tarkovsky adaptation, which I’ve watched numerous times, and the Soderbergh adaptation, which has risen in my estimation in recent years. The novel was fascinating for all the detail about the mysterious planet which the films omit, while also being somewhat old-fashioned considering it was published in 1961. Lem was apparently dismissive of Anglophone science fiction but by the 1950s the treatment of futuristic technology by British and American writers was increasingly sophisticated, even if the psychology and characterisation in their stories still lagged behind literature in general. Lem’s future timeline is like something out of the 1940s, where humanity can travel to distant star systems yet the spacecraft are the cigar-shaped rockets familiar from the covers of pulp magazines. In the station orbiting Solaris the trio of scientists have endless scientific discussions, the video screens are small and monochrome, and there’s even a mention of something being powered by valves.
Solaris may be Lem’s most popular novel but it doesn’t warrant much discussion in this Polish TV documentary after Lem has mentioned his exasperated arguments with Andrei Tarkovsky when the film was being planned. Tomasz Kaminski’s profile runs through Lem’s life mostly via its subject’s reminiscences, although there is occasional comment from Lem’s friends and colleagues in the Polish literary world. The film doesn’t offer a great deal of context either but it does provide a portrait of a prickly character who I’ve never seen speaking at length before. I found it useful to rewatch the Quay Brothers’ biographical film after this one, a shorter piece which fills in a few gaps in Lem’s history while also showing the degree to which his early life was dictated by the upheavals of the Nazi occupation and the Communist era.
There are currently two versions of Kaminski’s film at YouTube, only one of which has English subtitles, and very crude ones at that. Better subtitles may be found at Opensubs but to use those you’ll have to download the video first. 4k Video Downloader Plus is my tool of choice.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• 11 Preliminary Orbits Around Planet Lem by the Brothers Quay
• Maska: Stanisław Lem and the Brothers Quay
• Ikarie XB 1
• Golem, 2012
