Tartovsky definitely brings the mood! My favourite is still Andrei Rublev.

I did not know you were an art student. Which school?

St Martin's (which was) in Charing Cross Road. Only did a foundation year there.

Heard of it! I was at the Edinburgh College of Art for two, non-consecutive years, roughly around the same time, Massachusetts CoA (Boston) before that for a year, and much later (early 90s), NSCAD where I did a design degree.

You did better than me. I might have been able to take it further, but I was a very young 18 when I started and needed a bit of guidance (or slapping into line). St Martin's was completely laid back so I did the same. I must have had some ability but I stopped using it there. It didn't work out too bad though. After doing bit-jobs and stuff for a couple of years, I discovered that the year didn't affect my qualifications for a grant (life was easy back in the pinko-commie-socialist 1970s) so I went to university and did a philosophy degree. 

My wife went to St Martins, but the Holborn building. 

I have the T-Solaris on a Criterion Blu-ray, it's really nice. I should watch it again, been ages!

Holborn is after my time, I think. There was a separate building when I was there for the fashion school, but I have no idea where that was. I didn't think it was Holborn. What did she study?

And yes, Mrs WilliamA gave me that Criterion bluray too.

Ceramic Design. I remember a lot of her cohort were knocking out these beautiful pieces, would fit straight into a fancy shop or something. Meanwhile she was doing conceptual art things like recording videos of her tipping about a thousand ceramic doorknobs out of an upstairs window... long story short she got the only First in the year, I'm still so proud but not sure why they called the degree that  :'-D 

I think it's all moved to a fancy new building in Kings Cross now, we went to some sort of opening do that the alumni were invited to.

It was St Martin's School of Art when I went. It went through various mergers and management changes, the main one being with the Central School of Art and Design. It appears to style itself as 'Central St Martin's' now, although looking around t'web, I still see extra bits of name tagged on. The holborn site is still in use, along with a building in Archway and as you say, the fancy new buildings in Kings Cross. Well done to Tina for her first. I'm always impressed by potters and ceramicists. Does she still potter about?

When I was there, Foyles was opposite and along a bit, but they've taken over the old St Martin's building and moved in now.

 

She does a bit now and again yeah, we have a kiln and a wheel in the shed. Output seems to be much more in the “a nice set of little bowls” vein these days so some of that practical design stuff must have stuck. 

That's one of the things that always impresses me. I remember we had a ceramics teacher in our school art department and he made some goblets for the banquet scene in the school play (Macbeth). So one lesson he showed us how to turn one on the wheel, then that afternoon there were 20 of the things, all pretty much identical, drying on the window sill. God knows when he did it, but it was so quick and skillful. I think they were all pinched by the cast as souvenirs.

Circling back to Solaris's author, I just read another of his books, "The Invincible," described as a "hard science fiction novel," which, fair enough. It reminded me a lot of Jules Verne, and a bit less of H.P. Lovecraft's "Mountains of Madness." The writing quality is absolutely ace (bearing in mind I read a translation from the original Polish), it seems less philosophical and more scientific-technical than Solaris (the films, haven't read the book). Some major scifi tropes (notably militaristic themes) are attributed to Lem, and recognizable in literally dozens of derivative works.

Interesting that Lem hated Tarkovsky's first screenplay for Solaris, as did the soviet authorities, so T had to go and write another. 

I have a British Film Institute account for their online streaming thing, and Stalker is critic Mark Kermode's film of the week. Amused to notice that the crew ran out of booze (and other provisions) during filming and resorted to drinking cheap cologne mixed with sugar. Much drunkenness ensued. Tarkovsky sacked his art director on a charge of "behaving like a bastard".

For different reasons, I assume?

I imagine so, although it was probably the same departures from the original that displeased both parties.