Watching A Scanner Darkly again, not to mention reading through my collection of Dick's books recently, I've got to say Linklater hit the mark with Scanner. This is not a drugged out, spacey, psychedelic romp, but a somewhat serious and sincere film. Don't get me wrong, it is funny and crazed at times, but overall I would say it has a pretty somber undertone, like much of Dick's work.This film could have gone so many ways, but Linklater doesn't undermine the film by emphasizing drug use and tripping out, nor does he sensationalize the lifestyles of the users. If anything this film stays on target with Dick's book by emphasizing relationships, the problem of 'drugs', of addiction, of reality, and of the contradictions of civilized life in which many, if not all of us, seek to escape at one point or another.
It reminds me of this quote by John Lennon: "The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?"
This is somewhat at the bottom of A Scanner Darkly...there is this oppressive feeling of outside control throughout the entire film, though there is no 'they' in control of anything.
Life in Scanner is a hallucination. It seems that no one's motivations are their own, and that there is a futility to living that cannot be escaped within drugs, nor within society. So where is one to go? Drugs don't empower the characters with any insight, but seem instead to deemphasize the self and to create either paranoia and distrust or submissiveness and impressionability. The characters become lost in the fog of their own vulnerability to a point where they cannot connect with each other or the world in which they live.
Rotoscoping works perfectly for this film. It forces the viewer out of the characters and out of the action because everything is off. We are familiar with the actors, but they never look the same twice, and are full of nuances that were not noticed before. There is nothing to connect with but impressions of impressions, for which the many faced scatter-suits are a creepy and captivating example.
0 Yorumlar