Stanisław Lem

Writing

Stanisław Lem

Born 1921-09-12 · Lwów, lwowskie, Polska (obecnie Ukraina)

Stanisław Lem (September 12, 1921 – March 27, 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire. He was named a Knight of the Order of the White Eagle. His books have been translated into 41 languages and have sold over 27 million copies. He is perhaps best known as the author of the 1961 novel Solaris, which has been made into a feature film three times. In 1976, Theodore Sturgeon claimed that Lem was the most widely read science-fiction writer in the world. His works explore philosophical themes; speculation on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of mutual communication and understanding, despair about human limitations and humankind's place in the universe. They are sometimes presented as fiction, but others are in the form of essays or philosophical books. Translations of his works are difficult due to passages with elaborate word formation, alien or robotic poetry, and puns. Multiple translated versions of his works exist.

Acting credits

No artwork available
10.0

This is a documentary about a well-known figure in Polish politics - Wladyslaw Bartoszewski. The hero of the film is a man with a very rich resume. He was born and raised in Warsaw. He was a prisoner of Auschwitz, a soldier of the Home Army, an activist of the Polish Underground State, a participant in the Warsaw Uprising, twice served as foreign minister, and finally a publicist, writer and scientist. In a forty-two-minute documentary it would be impossible to present the full biography of this man - that's why this film selects only the more important episodes from Bartoszewski's life. His life is narrated by the hero himself. Stories about him are also spun in front of the camera: Jerzy Sienkiewicz, Jerzy Turowicz, Krzysztof Kozłowski, Israel Gutman, Jan Nowak Jeziorański, Stanisław Lem and Stefan Kisielewski.

Bartoszewski

1998

Stanisław Lem: Autor Solaris poster
6.6

An account of the life and work of the Polish writer Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), a key figure in science fiction literature involved in mysteries and paradoxes that need to be enlightened.

Stanisław Lem: Autor Solaris

2016

Poles Poles poster
7.0

For decades the photographer Krzysztof Gierłatowski has portrayed eminent Polish figures, thus creating an invaluable visual testimony. This time his "victims" are well-known citizens of Kraków: Stanisław Lem, one of the most brilliant, versatile, and unapologetically cerebral science fiction writers, author of 'Solaris'; Krzysztof Penderecki, one of the most esteemed and widely discussed Polish composers of the 20th century; and Wisława Szymborska, Nobel laureate in Literature in 1996, one of the few women poets who has received the Swedish prize. Gierłatowski assumes the role of a modern Stańczyk, a legendary thinker-jester, prophesying on the historical Polish Republic in his dramatic conviction that History annihilated the intellectual elite of his nation and the future will bring awe and destruction.

Poles Poles

2003

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Moment

Stanislaw Lem: Science and Fiction poster
NR

A multifaceted portrait of science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem.

Stanislaw Lem: Science and Fiction

1990

Behind the camera

Layer Cake poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Layer Cake

1989

Trap poster
9.0

Ijon Tichy arrives on a new planet in a single-person spacecraft. His habits and fantasies are with him. The aliens recreate the sex bomb from the poster that could be found in the cabin of his spacecraft. Then, they present him a live dummy. A male-female evening in space with some pre-war music hits becomes possible.

Trap

1962

Solaris poster
4.0

Shot while the director was still in college, the film is a remake of the Russian film of the same name. The man's dead ex who had committed suicide appears in front of him. The ghost has a cross-like scar on her wrist.

Solaris

2007

Space Travel poster
10.0

An elderly traveler arrives on an alien planet. The natives greet him friendly. Cosmic virgins want to clone the guest so that each of them would have him for herself. The man from planet Earth manages to escape, but his clones remain where they are.

Space Travel

1961

No artwork available
7.2

The man-made artificial intelligence GOLEM XIV faces its creators with a detached view of human nature and its culture.

Golem

2012

Roly Poly poster
7.1

The main character, race car driver Ryszard Fox, is involved in many car accidents. After each car crash he gets a transplant for one or another internal organ. After a while there is a question: Who really is Ryszard Fox?

Roly Poly

1968

Revisiting Solaris poster
NR

The astronaut Chris Kelvin receives a visit from a woman who is a double of his dead wife. This story, told in Stanislaw Lem’s eponymous novel, was once adapted into the film Solaris by the legendary Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky. According to Deimantas Narkevičius, Tarkovsky was not as critical of the increasing impact of electronic media on relationships and on the complex nature of human memory as Lem, the original author of the story. In this video, the actor Donatas Banionis reappears in his role as Kelvin, forty years after Tarkovsky’s film was shot. Revisiting Solaris is based on the last chapter of Lem's book, which had been left out of Tarkovsky’s adaptation. In order to visualize the landscape of Solaris and expose complex specters of the past, Narkevičius combines the new footage and a series of photos from 1905 taken by the Lithuanian painter and composer Mykolojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis.

Revisiting Solaris

2007