There are a litany of ways to take in Stalker, from simply admiring the atmosphere it creates to character analysis to digging through its larger philosophical point, and this write-up is more a collection of thoughts I had during a recent viewing than actual in-depth analysis. So, with that in mind…

If I had to boil my interpretation down to a concise thought (which is hard here), it’s that the point of the revolving plots are to illustrate how human life is spent in a constant push/pull between self-interest and selflessness; no matter how far back or how far into the future we go, it’s the nature of who we are. And as we see again and again throughout the film, whichever impulse we act on will affect our own life as much as the lives of those after us.

The era that There Will Be Blood is set during is such a romanticized period of time in this country. The turn of the century was when you could move out west, buy land, and really “make yourself.” I’m sure that there were people who pursued that nobly, but I bet for a large swath their attitude was less about independence and freedom, and more about profit.

Looking at 1999 with the benefit of hindsight, it seems symbolic that Woodstock should die the year that Coachella was born, setting new foundations on which the modern festival circuit would be built.