Monday, April 03, 2006

The Many Faces of Solaris

Stanislaw Lem's most well known novel is Solaris (1961) because it has been the basis of several movies, not because a lot of people have read it.

There are of course the 'Solaris" movies one made in Russia in 1972 by Andre
Tarkovsky and the recent American remake in 2002. Lem has been critical of both. While Tarkovsky can be faulted by Lem he himself has been subjected to the Soviet Censors as Lem has.

Tarkovky's
earliest film Ivan Rublev has been yet to be released in its full form having suffered the worst excesses of American cut and paste editing as well as Soviet censorship. It is a tale not unlike that of the Wickerman.


But before these two versions of Solaris there were two B Grade movies that were based on Solaris or the theme of Solaris.

The first is
Journey to the Seventh Planet. Which was originally made in 1962 not 1959 as mistakenly listed here;

Journey To The Seventh Planet

Journey To The Seventh Planet

The Company Line

The United Nations sends a team to explore Uranus and they find a "small Danish village filled with voluptuous women!" Behind this set up though is a force that is using the memories of the crew against them so it can take over their ship and fly back to Earth.

1959, 77 minutes, Widescreen DVD



It is an Italian/American/Danish movie that I saw many times in my youth, usually on late night TV Sci Fi film fests. And I must admit a fondness for it.

It clearly was influenced by Lem's novel Solaris, and that maybe since the Writers and Producers are from Italy and Lems work was available in Europe before it was translated into English for UK and US distribution.

It starred B Actor John Agar. It also has a rather unique sound track. Very bubbly and hip sixties type music ahead of its time. You know that futuristic sound.....with crooning.

This cheapie came from low-budget producers/directors Ib Melchior and Sidney Pink who were between them responsible for films like The Angry Red Planet (1959), Reptilicus (1962), The Time Travelers (1964) and Death Race 2000 (1975). Pink and Melchior shot the film on the cheap in Sweden. And it certainly is cheap - the stop-motion animation for the one-eyed monster is atrocious, the actors don't even appear in the same shot as the giant creatures and the raygun beams have just been scratched onto the frame rather than animated.

But despite itself the film succeeds in transcending its limitations by creating an air of intriguing mystery. Some of the images at the opening of the film are quite striking - the apple which has rotted in one astronaut's hand after only a few minutes; the landscape that miraculously appears beyond the spaceship just before the astronauts look out; the great scene when commander Ottosen reminisces about his childhood while in the background behind him first the tree he talks about, then a windmill comes into being; the landscape that proves to be wholly surface in depth with trees that are found to have no roots. It does remind of the Ray Bradbury short story Mars is Heaven - and in turn looks forward to Solaris (1972) - but Pink does create a unique atmosphere of mystery and unease.

Directed by
Sidney W. Pink

Writing credits
Ib Melchior (screenplay)
Sidney W. Pink (story)


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Another Lem novelization that made it to film was First Space Ship on Venus a B Grade Sci-Fi movie from 1959. See Trailer here.

The trailer shows phenomenal special effects for the time. Interesting is that this movie has a Japanese cast while being a Polish East German Production.

Eight curious scientists in the far-future year 1985 try to find the source and meaning of a message disc from the planet Venus. Based on "The Astronauts" by the great Stanislaw Lem (SOLARIS), this SF curio also boasts a multinational cast, as well as beautiful photography and production design. Though Lem disowned the film, it stands on its own rather well and is probably one of the best SF films from the fifties.

I suspect that IB Melchior and Pink ,if they hadn't read Lem yet discovered him after they discovered this little gem. And you can download it for Free here.

And as usual Lem is critical of the Film version of his writing.

Still, the film is too ponderous and un-involving to stimulate the viewer's interest for long. Even the writer, Stainsaw Lem, author of such droll stuff as Solaris, has disowned it.

The image “http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00004W19F.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.First Spaceship on Venus (1959) (Der Schweigende Stern/Milczaca ...

East Germany/Poland. 1959.
Director - Kurt Maetzig, Screenplay - Maetzig, J. Barkhauer, Jan Fethke, Wolfgang Kohlhaase, Stanislaw Lem, Gunther Reisch, Gunther Rucker & Alexander Stenbock-Fermor, Based on the Novel The Astronauts by Lem, US Version Produced by Edmund Goldman, Photography - Joachim Hasler, Music - Andrzej Markowski, Music (US Version) - Gordon Zahler, Special Effects - Helmut Grewald, Ernst & Vera Kuntsmann, Jan Olejarczak & Martin Sonnabend, Production Design - Alfred Hirschmeier & Anatol Radzinowicz. Production Company - Defa/Illuzjon Film Unit.
Cast:
Oldrich Lukas (Professor Harringway), Yoko Tani (Dr Sumiko Ogimura), Tang Hua-Ta (Dr Tchen Yu), Gunther Simon (Robert Brinkman), Michail N. Postnikow (Professor Durand), Kurt Rachelmann (Dr Sikarna), Ignacy Machowski (Professor Orloff), Julius Ogewe (Talua)

Plot: Scientists uncover a magnetic spool at the site of the Tunga explosion in Siberia. This is believed to have come from an exploding alien spacecraft. As all effort is made to decode the spool, it is discovered to have originated from Venus. The planned Mars rocket Cosmostrater 1 is hastily redirected towards Venus, along with a crew of top scientists. But once on Venus the Cosmostrater crew discover a world that has been devastated by atomic war and realize that the Venusians were planning to invade the Earth.


This East German-Polish co-production is a fascinating entry in the frenzy of movie making that greeted the Space Age. Amid the horde of American entries on the subject, this is an effort that quite intriguingly hails from the Communist Bloc



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LEM RIP


Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006)

Ukrainian Science Fiction writer Stanislaw Lem has passed on to the great Solaris. That world of hallucinatory existence which we create with our imaginations.

Now most bios will refer to him as Polish,
Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem, author of 'Solaris ...which is untrue since he was born in 1921 in Lviv — then part of Poland but now in Ukraine which was, is and always has been part of the Ukraine. It was a much disputed territory between the Polish Imperialists, German Imperialists and Moscow Imperialists over the past 400 years, but Ukraine it is.


Lem was Jewish, as Lviv was the largest Jewish city in the Ukraine or Poland. It was the historic city of Herzel and Bakunin, in their debates over Pan Slavism, liberalism and anarchism.

It was the most European of all East European cities.

Which reminds me of other Great Ukrainian writers who get absorbed by the Imperialists such as Hohol, opps I mean Gogol another Ukrainian writer who was claimed by the Russians through the Russification of his name. He too was an early Sci-Fi writer.

In fact let us remember that Sci-Fi beings in Eastern Europe with the advent of RUR from whence Isaac Asimov gets his theory of robotics.


Lem himself was the originator of the paranoid universe theory, which later became a popular motif for James Blish, Brian Aldiss and of course the ultimate paranoid American Phillip K. Dick.

Lem was an anarchic science fiction writer, opposed to the oppressiveness of Stalinism but equally critical of capitalism.
In The Futurological Congress, Mr. Lem created a rollicking satire of a cosmonaut taking part in a congress in Costa Rica

The congress itself is a clash of civilizations between the capitalist and communist authorities, which is overcome when terrorists, anarchists, unleash hallucinogenic drugs into the conference room.

Lem always speculated in the realm of realities being subjective as well as objective, as hallucinogenic realities, virtual realities before their time. His concept of cyberspace as we would call it today, or VR was based on the use of drugs.

His writing is dense , which is typical of Slavic writers, but worth the readers effort. Phillip K Dick in a final moment of hallucinatory madness, the very essence of American Individualist self alienation declared Lem was a collective endeavour by the communists, not a real human being.

Lem inronically praised Dick
as the only real science fiction writer in America and he viewed Dick as a religious writer in that earliest of Sci-Fi traditions,Gnosticism.
Stanislaw Lem- Philip K. Dick: A Visionary Among the Charlatans

It is a razor edged criticism of the genre ghetto in America that was defter than Harlan Ellisons usual bad boy commentary about the same ghetto. The result was that unlike Ellisons stand up comic routines that were all bluff and bluster, Lems critique of the American Sci-Fi ghetto as 'bad writers only in it for the money, cut them to the core and they turned Stalinist on Lem.

His honorary membership in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association was withdrawn in the mid-1970s after he criticized his U.S. colleagues' writing and charged that they were more interested in making money than expanding the genre. He reserved his praise only for iconic sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick.


Lem wrote about madness and alienation, Dick descended into it. Perhaps for all its flaws there is something to be said for the collective social values of the old Soviet Union. And interesting that Lem who faced censorship by the State in Poland then faced censorship by the State of Writers in the USSA.

Lem would have been amused to see his hero Dick turned into the very incarnation of himself as an electric sheep (as in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep the short story that was to become Bladerunner).


(Philip K. Dick Robotic Memorial Portrait
At NextFest 2005)
The eerie robotic Philip K. Dick unveiled today at the NextFest 2005 event in Chicago is almost an objectification of Dick's fascination with what really makes people human. The robot was designed to provide a convincing imitation of life, with subtle head movements and facial expressions. The software that gives life to the device is well-stocked with all of Dick's printed works and memoirs. It also has face recognition software and a library of faces; it was capable of recognizing several of Dick's relatives who came to take a look at the project. It includes voice recognition and natural language processing features


Stanislaw Lem - Frequently Asked Questions


Scriptorium - Stanislaw Lem

"If [Stanislaw Lem] isn't considered for a Nobel Prize by the end of the century, it will be because someone told the judges that he writes science fiction," predicted a Philadelphia Inquirer critic in 1983. Lem is arguably the greatest living science fiction writer, and even one of the most important European authors of his generation; yet he commands little critical attention, and has failed to reach discerning American science fiction readers who ought, one would think, to be most interested in him. The reasons for this may be sought, paradoxically, in the high demands he makes of his own work: Lem is a true original, but at the price of being marginal.


We are still waiting for that Nobel Prize.

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Police View This Blog

I have been getting a lot of hits over my story on the Ianerios murder in Mexico, where I claim its a cover up. Mexican Murder Cover Up?

The most recent hit has been from the Peel Police Department. Hey guys anything to help out.

Unfortunately the Peel Police department has about as successful a record as the Mexican police, and they are just about as incorruptible as well. Remember they are police department that dealt with the Homolka/Bernardo murders.
Bernardo claims more alleged sex assaults: police



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The Conservatives Reign of Terror

What is the real reason that Immigration Minister Monte Solberg and the Conservatives are attacking immigrant workers in Canada?

Sure they have overstayed their welcome without the proper papers , but we face nowhere near the illegal immigration of other countries. And they were promised an amnesty.

I refuse to call them illegal aliens, as my grandparents, and any of us whose grandparents came from non UK based countries, were so refered to.

The big " Enemy Alien" scare in 1919 during the Winnipeg General Strike was that it was led by Reds, Bolsheviki, aliens to Canada's very British way of life. The fact that the leaders of the General Strike were all English or Scottish trade unionists in no way related to the charges that the real force behind the strike was Ukrainian, Finn, Icelandic and Jewish labour activists.


The government of the day was of course Conservative. Eighty years later the Conservatives are in power once again and attacking immigrant workers as Aliens.

Bad enought they began deporting Portugese construction workers in Toronto, that has caused an outrage and raised concerns about the Conservatives immigration policy.
Illegal immigrants told to stay 'underground'

One that appears influenced by the likes of Paul Fromm and his White Power advocates who influence the base of the Tories.

Here is the latest spin that the Conservatives will use to kick out undocumented workers; State security. And instead of it being Bolsheviki Reds they will use Terrorism as their excuse. But again like in 1919 the Conservatives will justify their reactionary policy with the supposeded threat of Enemy Aliens.

Cabbies speak out on arrest of colleague
Globe and Mail - 1 Apr 2006
NEWMARKET -- The recent arrest of two Toronto-area men on immigration charges -- and a published report linking one to a notorious Pakistani terrorist group -- has cast a chill over neighbours and co-workers while raising fresh concerns about how Canada ...
Suspect denies terror links Calgary Sun
Alleged al Qaeda terrorist arrested near Toronto CTV.ca
London Free Press - Toronto Sun - York Region Era Banner - 640 Toronto - all 26 related »


But we still have to ask why the Conservatives are hell bent on kicking out working class folks who are earning a living? It's not like we don't need them.

There is something sinister and white behind the Conservatives immigration concerns. It was no mistake they put a Mormon from white Southern Alberta in charge of Immigration. His riding is rife with racist attacks on foreign workers as the strike at Tysons showed last year.

And who is the new deportation policy hurting? Why those least able to defend themselves who came here looking for work. And of course they are not white.

Filipino caregiver in Canada to stay and fight deportation

Canadian immigration authorities set to deport Egyptian writer and ...





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Surrealist Blog



In searching web for my previous article on Zoo's I came across this interesting Surrealist Blog. And unlike the paintings of Salvador Dali, the blog does not melt on your screen.

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Zoo Screwed

Forget the protests by Pamela Anderson about the seal hunt. If she and other ill informed Anti-Sealing opponents were really concerened with wildlife they would have fund raised for the Quebec City Zoo which closed this weekend. It is not just an animal story but a political animal story.

It is a sad tale that exposed the continuing failure of the Neo-Conservative agenda. It includes opportunist federal Conservative candidates claiming they would save the Zoo. A secret report to the Liberal provincial government that exposes their privatization of the Zoo failed, and finally the closure of the Zoo this weekend.

The image “http://www.alamut.com/images/1999_misc/ernstBirdhead.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.The Chicago Surrealists called for the freedom of prisoners in Zoo's.

Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm describes the origins of Zoos in the 19th century, in his book Age of Empires, as part of the culture of Imperialism. Zoos captured and imprisoned animals and humans. The Zoo's and anthropological exhibtions of the 19th century included animals and captive humans from Africa. We have since released the humans from their beneficial captivity, but the myth of the benefits of Zoo's for animals continues.

That being said the occupants of the Quebec Zoo deserve to live their final days in security.

But some beasts like a pair of grizzly bears are probably too old to be moved, even if a new home can be found for the lumbering orphans. Devastated zookeepers say they have no intention of destroying any animals, but they have yet to hear the shut-down plan from the zoo's owner, the Quebec government. "We have an obligation to these animals, and there is nobody here who is going to euthanize these animals just because the zoo is closed," keeper Karl Fournier said in an interview.

Something they have in common with working class pensioners who now face a concerted capitalist assault on their penison benefits.


Joey the Bear meets Joey the Worker and they both get screwed by capitalism.

Quebec zoo closure ruffles a few feathers
More recently, the federal Conservative government refused to help despite the claim by many Quebec City residents that local Tory candidates promised during the recent election campaign to bail out the zoo. Josée Verner, the minister in charge of the Quebec City region, says the candidates' words were twisted. The provincial Liberal government finally decided to pull the plug on the zoo after a secret report that apparently recommended closure. When the zoo reopened a few years ago after renovations, admission was hiked to $25 per adult. Prices were later cut in half but annual attendance dropped from 250,000 in the 1990s to 60,000 by 2005. The zoo ran a $5 million deficit in each of the past three years, covering about half of its operating expenses. The province estimates closing the zoo will cost $23 million.


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WTO NAFTA And Montreal Metro

The Left has been correct in dissing the international accords Canada has signed that restrict our economic soverignty. Here is a case in point.

The irony being that the state capitalist Bombardier corporation calls for protectionism in the case of construction of subway cars for Montreals Metro.

While Premier Jean Charest, Mister Privatization at all costs, warns that if the Metro deal is done Bombardiers way it may meet a WTO or NAFTA challenge.

Which begs the question for all those right wingers who say don't worry about privatising Canada's medicare system, such NAFTA and WTO rules don't apply. They do. Just the same as they do for subway cars.

MONTREAL -- Bloc Quebecois industry critic Paul Crête says that Premier Jean Charest is dragging his feet on a construction contract for Montreal's metro.

Bombardier has requested that the province award the Montreal company the contract, worth $1.2 billion, without an invitation to tender.

Charest, however, says that he must first make sure that such an arrangement would not violate any international trade agreements.


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Mexican Cover Up Redux

Stephen Harper and Vincente Fox met and did not discuss the fate of the Canadian Couple who were murdered in Cancun.

When asked a direct question by Robert Fife of CTV, who insisted that Fox anwser in English, about why he said it was Canadians who murdered the Canadian couple, Fox deftly avoided speaking English or answering the question. Leaving slack jawed Harper to say that the two governments were coordinating their efforts.
To further mess up the evidence, the Mexican authorities right on cue released evidentiary photos, forensic photos of the murder scene. This was done within hours of the end of the tripartite NAFTA confernce in Cancun. Tipster points to Canadians in Mexican murder

Which begs the question why the Mexicans are trying to foist this murder as being done by Canadians when we know full well that Cancun has had a spate of tourist murders as part of an ongoing drug/gang war in the region. One that netted the chief prosecutor last year as one of the conspirators in the drug/gang war. See my original post on this; Mexican Murder Cover Up?

Of course the drug cartels have expanded under the free market ideology of Vincente Fox. No wonder he wants to divert attention away from the possibility that the Canadian couple who were murdered were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Simple as that.




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If Wishes Were horses

Beggars would ride, as my mother would say.

Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft hopes the vote not only signals the demise of Mr. Klein, but of the Tory party. "Clearly it's the end of an era, not just for Ralph Klein but for conformity in Alberta politics and the end of the PC party as we have known it for so many years." Klein set to declare leadership decision


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Return of the Socreds

Presto Manning is contemplating a run for the leadership of the Party of Calgary. Somethings never change. Preston Manning Expresses Interest In Replacing Klein

That would mean 35 years of Socred power that ended with his father, Ernest, being replaced with a lame duck Premier, then 33 years of PC power starting with Peter Lougheed and ending with a lame duck Premier, and then the possibility of that strange beast the Reformed PC Socreds under Presto.....noooooooo.


Preston Manning, who was once the second-most-powerful leader in Canada as leader of the opposition, is apparently now considering his chances of becoming the second-most-powerful leader in Canada as premier of Alberta.

King Ralph is dead
The Alberta Tories' regicide of Ralph Klein was big news for 12 hours. Then Preston Manning trumped it, telling reporters he was considering running for Klein's job.

Daddy Ernest Manning gave up party power to Peter Lougheed, thus assuring a Liberal Conservative Socred Alliance that was Seventies PC's. That alliance was shattered as neo-cons took over under Klein, the fiscal right was far less powerful than the social conservatives. The social conservatives align behind Oberg, the Reform types around Morton, and the liberal wing under Dinning. Alberta Tories in disarray

Dining did the dirty deed of balancing the budget on the backs of the working class, with wage and benefit cuts to the public sector. Then with victory in his back pocket he left the government.

The neo-cons in the party then went on to shape the Ralph Revolution, using the the debt and deficit hysteria of the ninties to impose their Republican Lite vision on Alberta, while promoting it for the rest of Canada with Prestos Reform Party.

Government that governs least is best — or not

When Mr. Klein became premier, the province had a $3.4-billion deficit and a $23-billion debt. He argued these burdens arose, in part, from governments having involved themselves too much in the economy. There were bad investments. The government taxed too much. Government regulations were too onerous. The free market, he asserted, would be encouraged if the government got out of the way.

This contrasted with the approach of Peter Lougheed, who led the Conservatives to power in 1971. Mr. Lougheed was no socialist, but he did believe the government should try to direct, cajole and even force the market in directions he believed Alberta needed. Only that way, he reasoned, could Alberta's economy be diversified and energy revenues used not just for today's needs, but for the future.

Mr. Lougheed's dirigiste preferences evaporated under Mr. Klein, but now some Albertans want that kind of guiding hand back, at least in a modified form. In a free-enterprise province, the critics are now demanding a “plan” for using the revenues that would be more than driving up spending on ongoing programs.



Presto would be an interesting add to the mix but his chances of winning are less than none. Unless he has something up his sleeve, oh like say Medicare Reform.
If anyone could enunciate and promote the Third Way in Medicare it would be Presto.

“Where I think we're headed is a system of universal care, where everybody is covered ... with two tracks for delivery, and two tracks for payment. It's not a question of private versus public, but what mix of the two is appropriate.”

Mr. Manning left what he likes to call "active partisan politics" in 2002 to become more involved in the public-policy debate. He quickly got on board with the Fraser Institute and the Canada West Foundation, and he set up the Manning Centre for Building Democracy.

He and Mike Harris authored the Fraser Institute Report on exactly the musings that King Ralph has been tossing about for the past decade. And perhaps that would be the reason for him to run, otherwise Third Way Medicare Reform is dead in the water.

Third Way predicted to meet Klein's fate

Dead-end way Tories mull future of health-care reform if Ralph exits scene



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