Lash, D. (2019). "You Can't Imagine How Terrible It Is to Make the Wrong Choice"—Faith, Agency and Self-Pity in Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker. Quarterly Review of Film and Video. https://doi.org/10.1080/10509208.2019.1589855 Peer reviewed version Link to published version (if available): 10.1080/10509208.2019.1589855 Link to publication record in Explore Bristol Research PDF-document This is the author accepted manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via Taylor & Francis at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10509208.2019.1589855 . Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. University of Bristol - Explore Bristol Research General rights This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/red/research-policy/pure/user-guides/ebr-terms/ title page article title: 'You can't imagine how terrible it is to make the wrong choice'. Faith, agency and self-pity in Tarkovsky's Stalker author: Dominic Lash affiliation: University of Bristol email:
[email protected] abstract: This article undertakes a reading of Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker that runs, for the most part, against the grain of the director's own pronouncements on the film. My focus is on a character study of the Stalker himself, and the consequences of his most unattractive characteristics: his manipulativeness, his petulance, and his self-pity. Rather than seeing the Stalker as an emblem of pure faith I explore the possibility that he is a quasi-tragic figure trapped by his own myopic idolatry.