Dick on a Saturday morning

Today was one of the rare occasions that I actually paid to see a new release. A Scanner Darkly, the new film by Ricard Linklater based on a Philip K. Dick novel and starring Keannu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder. Normally if I’m going to fork over $10.75 for a fucking movie, I would at least see it at one of the swank new Manhattan theaters in order to get the most up-to-date audio/visual experience possible, but I was lazy and settled for a little art house cinema on the lower east side. Not that art house theaters on the lower east side are the run-down places they used to be -- this one had comfortable new seats. But still, the screen was little bigger than the typical lower middle class person’s home system and the surround sound not as good.

I’ve never been able to finish a Philip K. Dick novel but have liked all of the movies I’ve seen based on his work. To my taste, he was a great visionary but a lousy novelist. But I haven’t actually finished any of his books and there’s well over forty that I’ve never even started, so I could conceivably change my opinion. Still, I don’t have him on my summer reading list.

Anyway, Scanner tells a good story about drug addiction and the larger societal factors that support it. Both the characters and the organizations portrayed in the film act consistently with how similar characters and organizations act in real life. Linklater’s ear for dialogue is perfectly tuned to the addled ramblings of the very stoned and his actors are well-chosen for their parts. Woody Harrelson, as far as I could tell, was playing himself. There are quite a few funny sequences. And as you expect from a Philip K. Dick story, some heady philosophical stuff as well. There are plot twists you probably won’t see coming and the film transitions seamlessly from superficial comedy to great tragic depths and Linklater does a good job of balancing it all. The movie is well-paced and ultimately satisfying.

Cinematically speaking, the film is done as a faux animation. Rotoscoping is the technique used to turn frames of film into cartoons. If you have ever posterized an image in Photoshop, that will give you some idea of what it looks like.

Linklater used the same technique in Waking Life, a movie that got good reviews but which I was unable to watch. And take my opinions on art for what they’re worth (absolutely nothin), but it’s very rare that I find a well-reviewed artsy movie so bad that I actually don’t finish it. But rotoscoping is the only storytelling thing A Scanner Darkly has in common with Waking Life. Linklater did not screw up Philip K. Dick. His is actually among the best of the Dick movies, probably second only to Blade Runner. The rotoscoping technique works very well in the context of the story.

Generally, the music is unobtrusive – sad sounding string instruments and the like, not some kind of School of Rock soundtrack, but there was a killer song by Thom York that played over the closing credits. I went immediately to ITunes to buy it when I got home, but it was unavailable. A little research leads me to believe that it is called Black Swan and will be on his new album to be released in a couple days. I’ve tried, I’ve really tried, but have never been able to like Radiohead, precisely because of Yorke’s weak vocals, but they were perfectly suited for the song and the song was the perfect coda for the movie.

All fucked up. Yep.