What will grow quickly, that you can't make straight
It's the price you gotta pay
Do yourself a favour and pack you bags
Buy a ticket and get on the train
I saw A Scanner Darkly - Richard Linklater's adaption of the novel by Philip K. Dick - at the end of 2006. A beautiful, funny, disturbing film that sticks surprisingly closely to PKD's novel of addiction, paranoia & identity dissolution. The movie is live-action with rotoscoped animation layered on top. The effect is perfectly not quite right. Not a cartoon. Not real life. Some hybrid. The film ends with Thom Yorke's Black Swan playing over the credits. Went around my head for weeks. A lullaby for the distressed & hopeless.
Keith De La Rue posts on Second Life, asks "Do I have to be me, or can I be somebody else?" and name-checks PKD. Under the guise of pulp SF, PKD wrote some of the most intellectually daring novels of the 20th century. After contact with PKD, you cannot look at the world and yourself in the same way again. The protagonist in Scanner is an undercover narc given a new target - himself. His judgement long compromised by drug use and his feelings for a fellow dealer, this assignment doesn't end well.
To answer Keith's question in a roundabout way, you don't have to be you. But then "you" isn't a simple, constant thing. You may choose to emphasize a particular part of yourself. But being someone else entirely is hard work. Very hard work. Are ready to put in all that effort? And if you fail, if people don't believe who you are, you won't get a pat on the back. So it's risky. What could be worth that level of risk and labour?
People get crushed like biscuit crumbs
And laid down in the bitumen
You have tried your best to please everyone
But it just isn't happening
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2 comments:
Nice comments, Matt. I have always enjoyed PKD's work. I found a great quote from him about his view on reality - see: Nothing is what it seems. I also reference the site that is marketing the franchise - it gives a good overview of his works, particularly those filmed: Philip K Dick. I am actually of the opinion that some of the movies tell the story better than the original writing...
Hey Matt, glad you loved this twisted story too. It would have to be my For an extra dose of Black Swan trippiness have a look at this unofficial video clip for the song.
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