A SCANNER DARKLY
Philip K Dick did drugs better than any other writer. If one simply must get messed up for the expressed purpose of using one's personal experiences as a synthesis of process and reaction, then one must be prepared to compete with the masters of the form. I am not necessarily referring to people such as Hunter S Thompson or even F Scott Fitzgerald. What I do mean is that body of writers who, let us say, had a series of prolonged personalized encounters with the darker hues of psychological manifestations emerging from dangerous levels of hazardous chemicals ingested primarily for purposes of expanding one's consciousness, rather than, say, getting off for its own sake. Dick's 1977 novel, A Scanner Darkly, hits all the highs and lows with a practitioner's expertise. It's also quite disturbing and simultaneously funny as hell.
That statement applies to Richard Linklater's rotoscopic animation feature of the same name (2006). Staying close to the novel's storyline, director Linklater introduces us to a new world (same as the old world?) where the police state hires out Keany Reeves to infiltrate a group of hardcore druggies inhabited by Robert Downey Jr, Woody Harrelson and Wynona Ryder. The group favors an instantly addictive intoxicant called Substance D. We don't get much of a sense as to the drug's pleasant effects (unless untrammeled paranoia is pleasant, which, in that world, it might just be), but we certainly get our eyes full of the heightened suspicion, the inducement to idiotic violence, the impulsiveness of consumerism, and the devastation of withdrawal.
Reeves plays an undercover cop whose interactions with the public require him to wear a special suit that alters his appearance every second or so (one of which appearances is Philip K Dick himself). Ryder plays Donna, the connection Reeves hopes will take him to the next level so he can bust the guy from whom she gets her supplies. Harrelson plays a variation of the characters for which he is best known--quiet, loud, morose, funny, righteous, evil. And Downey runs a manic streak so unsettling that I wanted to shout "Shut up!" at the screen at least three times.
If you have not experienced rotoscope technology in your movie-going delights, then you never saw the dance scenes in the Betty Boop cartoons, or watched The Beatles movie Yellow Submarine, or Linklater's own Waking Life (2001). Possibly you never saw Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, although a subtle reference to Walt appears in the refrigerator scene of A Scanner Darkly. (A lot of subtle references pop up here, including a strange fascination with bear imagery. Hey, getting the jokes is half the fun.) What the process ultimately involves is shooting the movie, which Linklater did in just twenty-three days, and then having the animators trace over it, which took over a year, giving the finished product the magnificent sense of being a graphic novel brought to life.
I can think of no better way to summarize the experience of this movie that to recall the oft-quoted observation that "even paranoids have enemies." In the near future of this film, we are the paranoiacs and the enemies have us. In other words, if you have any sense of humor at all or have ever known anyone who did, or if you have ever had an enemy but didn't quite know who it was, you will enjoy this motion picture. The fantastic becomes real.
That statement applies to Richard Linklater's rotoscopic animation feature of the same name (2006). Staying close to the novel's storyline, director Linklater introduces us to a new world (same as the old world?) where the police state hires out Keany Reeves to infiltrate a group of hardcore druggies inhabited by Robert Downey Jr, Woody Harrelson and Wynona Ryder. The group favors an instantly addictive intoxicant called Substance D. We don't get much of a sense as to the drug's pleasant effects (unless untrammeled paranoia is pleasant, which, in that world, it might just be), but we certainly get our eyes full of the heightened suspicion, the inducement to idiotic violence, the impulsiveness of consumerism, and the devastation of withdrawal.
Reeves plays an undercover cop whose interactions with the public require him to wear a special suit that alters his appearance every second or so (one of which appearances is Philip K Dick himself). Ryder plays Donna, the connection Reeves hopes will take him to the next level so he can bust the guy from whom she gets her supplies. Harrelson plays a variation of the characters for which he is best known--quiet, loud, morose, funny, righteous, evil. And Downey runs a manic streak so unsettling that I wanted to shout "Shut up!" at the screen at least three times.
If you have not experienced rotoscope technology in your movie-going delights, then you never saw the dance scenes in the Betty Boop cartoons, or watched The Beatles movie Yellow Submarine, or Linklater's own Waking Life (2001). Possibly you never saw Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, although a subtle reference to Walt appears in the refrigerator scene of A Scanner Darkly. (A lot of subtle references pop up here, including a strange fascination with bear imagery. Hey, getting the jokes is half the fun.) What the process ultimately involves is shooting the movie, which Linklater did in just twenty-three days, and then having the animators trace over it, which took over a year, giving the finished product the magnificent sense of being a graphic novel brought to life.
I can think of no better way to summarize the experience of this movie that to recall the oft-quoted observation that "even paranoids have enemies." In the near future of this film, we are the paranoiacs and the enemies have us. In other words, if you have any sense of humor at all or have ever known anyone who did, or if you have ever had an enemy but didn't quite know who it was, you will enjoy this motion picture. The fantastic becomes real.
