“A Scanner Darkly” (Philip K. Dick)
PKD's novel got transformed into a rotoscopic nouveau-noirish film via a room full of G5s in Austin, under the watchful supervision of Richard Linklater. See a brief description of the technique at FlatBlackFilms
“A Scanner Darkly” (Richard Linklater)
I watched this film a few weeks (months?) ago, before I decided to scribble down thoughts, theoretically coherent, while I'm watching the movie.
My notes, as much as I can make out anyway, follow. Well, translated into english-esque. My handwrithing was particularly serpentine. I should have learned Arabic or Sanscrit instead of Chinese.
-why animated? why make the story into a cartoon? What's the point/benefit?
-Winona Ryder's voice is extremely irritating - did they filter it? or is it just me?
-so obviously filmed in Austex, I think I could find many of the locations given a couple days. Used to drive around in my car, stereo blasting, furiously thinking 'deep thoughts'. Probably drug related, but we won't get into that in print.
-“Rotoscope a cool effect, a software technique, but without a script” - RL
-R Downey, Jr. writes out all his lines for the next day, then re-writes them illegibly, then rewrites them again as acronyms. Typically 1500 words.
-Seems like PKD would have liked this adaptation: great empathy for the drug users.
and then I started doodling in my moleskin:
Poems The taste of bitter edges and of that preoccupied smirk linger in the creases of my mouthPoetry, your border of ideas so ill-defined
the circumbulation of entire frames of reference
Occupied as by an invading army
Coffee does you no good
Just blurs the edges even more
So, was the film any good? Yes. Not quite what I expected, but worth watching. Did it linger in my consciousness, and in my subconsciousness? No, not particularly. Did it cause me to reread the original novel? Yes, actually, it did.
Sorry, Pauline Kael I'm not.
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Wait, Keanu Reeves!
