Saw A Scanner Darkly, my thoughts.

[Cyre2067]

The basic premise of the story is that an undercover narcotics agent, Bob Archter is spying on his friends in an attempt to "climb the chain" to discover the distributor of substance D. As it turns out, he takes the drug, becomes an addict and the story follows the effects on his consciousness. One of the side affects is brain damage, specifically damage to the left hemisphere which makes really amusing hallucinations (for the audience, not the sufferer) common. The film style is beautiful. The animation covers the real life shots in a away that sometimes its looks like a cartoon and others it seems completely real.

There's hints of a darkness creeping over America. It takes place seven years in the future, Orange County. And most people have become "addicts". This caught my attention b/c i've seen addiction present in a multiplicity of form. Some addicted to money, some drugs, other's emotional energy or "relationships", some technology and toys, video games, work.... the list goes on endlessly.

There's one scene where a man is standing on a corner, claiming that "We're all slaves..." and that the state is truly evil, run by pathocrats with their sights on world domination. A black van comes out of no where, men in quasi-riot gear tazer the offender, load him in their van and drive off. No one seems to care.

There's allusions to not being able to see what's right in front of you, mental "blocking" and a whole host of other ideas. One of the characters is an obvious psychopath, played brilliantly. Overall the film was tragic, if i could sum it up in a word, with a glint of hope at the end. I reccomend it highly, but don't put too much stock in its messages.

 

[anart]

There's one scene where a man is standing on a corner, claiming that "We're all slaves..." and that the state is truly evil, run by pathocrats with their sights on world domination. A black van comes out of no where, men in quasi-riot gear tazer the offender, load him in their van and drive off. No one seems to care.

That man was Alex Jones, actually. It was his cameo appearance, which brings up a lot of questions in itself.

I saw it this weekend myself and am still mulling it over - as far as what it was really trying to say, but I do agree that the visual affect was amazing.

 

[Cyre2067]

Oh wow, that's funny, i thought of him when i saw the scene, though i didn't make the connection.

And i must add, i did have a funny feeling the movie was truth wrapped in a lie. But specifically which bits were true and what was lie i could not deduce. The feeling i had when i walked out of the theater was definately down, and that in and of itself made me skeptical of its purpose overall.

 

[Danny]

I wouldn't be surprised if that is exactly the feeling you are supposed to leave with.A kind of "Abandon all hope Ye who enter here".

 

[OPINMYND81]

I saw the movie the first week it came out. I never read the book but I heard of the film, it's story and was enthused to go see it as it seemed to be one of the very few smart films out this summer if not this year (I've longed stopped going to see "blockbusters" which are IMO a waste of time and money). That and Richard Linklater is a pretty competant director, I do enjoy Dazed and Confused but Waking Life was...well boring for one thing. It makes "What the bleep do we know" or "the secret" an edge-of-your-seat thriller by comparison. It's also the type of movie college freshmen watch after indulging in certain substances and talk about after in order to flatter the ole philosophical ego. The film does have some interesting points but it breaks no ground whatsoever. The film's about 30 years late and while it's better then the standard hollywood fare I wouldn't really recommend it to anybody, not even young teenagers hungry for this kind of "fast food" philosophy. That and the movie was pretty ugly and jarring to watch. Anyway I digress.

The movie A Scanner Darkly was fairly good and as one reviewer writes (in IGN) you'll have to see it a second time around in order to get it as the first time around you'll be distracted by the pretty pictures. Indeed this seems to be the case. I saw the film and read the excellent review from www.wsws.org (they always put up great reviews even though they never seem to have anything good to say about ANY film) which pointed out that Keanu Reeve's character had two personalities that were not aware of each other. I didn't pick that up during the movie. The film does convey an excellent sense of paranoia, surveillance and a dystopian near future that is a lot closer to home than we think (at least those who don't read SOTT :D). My only complaint is at the end of the film (spoiler alert!) it turns out the government is going after a large corporation which they believe is behind the D epidemic. Riiiiiight, it's an evil corporation and the poo', wittle guvernment is powerless to stop them. The only people who would believe this are moderates, hopelessly naive liberals or brainwashed conservatives. The fact that governments and corporations are one and the same, that it's the government that is likely behind the drug push (action + reaction = solution) and the long documented history of Uncle Same making, importing, distrubing and pushing drugs onto the US does not seem to factor into Mr. Linklater's world. Instead it's the government who will once again save and protect us (just like they did on 911?).

Machurian Candidate (2004) pulled a similar stunt like this where a group of army officers and feds bust the bad guy corporation conspirators and saves Democracy(tm). Even the WSWS pointed this out in their review that it's absurd to take that seriously but, hey, what do you expect from Hollywood? Truth? As David McGowan, among many others, have pointed out Hollywood is just DC's propaganda arm and its no surprise that these so-called "subversive" films all corral the sheep back into the fold.

Of course I can't talk about Scanner without mentioning our good friend Mr. Jones. He makes a cameo in this movie, as he does in Waking Life, with his usual ranting, screaming and self-victimization. I just rolled my eyes and couldn't believe people take this guy seriously. Someone ought to post that Jarhead article on infowars.com and give those poor saps a clue.

I actually can personally relate to the film in one way. Last year I was actually living in the type of house and environment the main characters were living in. We had two roommates from Halifax, one was like Woody Harrelson's character (in that he was into bike repair and drugs) and the other was an EXACT carbon copy of the Robert Downey Jr. character. He hardly ever left our place and just slept, smoked marijuana, drank beer and basically schemed against others, playing Byzantine games to try to take over our residence by kicking certain people out including myself. He baited me then managed to get the hippie sociopath that owned the lease to kick me out but I managed to play my cards, counter both of them and stay.

He did copious amount of drugs and was a the type of conspiracy theorist that Alex Jones would love to have as a follower. The guy was paranoid to the point of parody, he was constantly worried about 'narcs' coming and busting him (his friend would recount even more amusing tails of his paranoid antics at his hometown). But the guy was also very sociopathic as well, he graduated from university in finance and was very 'rationally economic' in his thinking (he was constantly evaluating everyone's 'contribution' to the household). He abandoned a 6 figure career in stocks for his 3 passions of, in his words, "drugs, beats (he was a DJ) and [the ideology of] sustainable living." I won't go into my criticisms of the cult of sustainable living which I find, at best, naïve and without hope (talk about having your cake and eat it too) or at worst a form of eco-fascism not unlike the whole peak oil scam.

Despite his supposed frugal lifestyle he always seemed to have a lot of money with him and would use it as emotional and economical blackmail with the others. The bottom line is that the guy definitely had sociopathic characteristics as did the abysmally foolish and frankly stupid hippie woman who owned the lease. I won't even start on the actual hippies that she had move in. A very interesting and illuminating experience nonetheless; you really saw social dynamics in a very raw form...and how sociopaths, with just the smallest amount of power, or even lack thereof, could take over a small group and dominate others with little to no effort.

 

[Simon]

Alex Jones was in A waking life which was made by the same person, its only natural that he would invite Alex to do his whole anti-nwo thing.

People read into things way too much.. I guess thats your perogative.

 

[Laura]

People read into things way too much.. I guess thats your perogative.

You might want to check out the following threads:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=2184

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=2145

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=2002

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1979

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1976

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=2634

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=2617

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1937

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1848

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1820

And about Jone's buddy, Jeff Rense:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1742

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1740

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1210

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1093

And related COINTELPRO operations:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=626

 

[Ryan]

Keanu Reeves certainly has played some interesting roles. And I noticed while browsing this that he was born in Beirut. It seems he has had nothing to say about the recent atrocities there though, and least from what a quick Google search could yield.

 

[3DStudent]

I watched this the other night. My reaction to the movie was that it was a "crazy stoner movie". About 2/3 into the movie I was like, "Where is this going?" I don't think I grasped the plot until the end, but still had to look it up on wikipedia. You have to pay close attention it seems.

It left me feeling pretty down too, kind of hopeless. But the visuals were really nice, taking 15 months to animate with rotoscoping!

 

[lamalamalamalama]

I get an error message for almost everyone of these threads. Says it might be missing or off limits to me.
first one works, but all the others don't.
Are they missing?

Thanks

People read into things way too much.. I guess thats your perogative.

You might want to check out the following threads:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=2184

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=2145

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=2002

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1979

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1976

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=2634

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=2617

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1937

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1848

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1820

And about Jone's buddy, Jeff Rense:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1742

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1740

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1210

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1093

And related COINTELPRO operations:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=626

 

[Vulcan59]

I get an error message for almost everyone of these threads. Says it might be missing or off limits to me.
first one works, but all the others don't.
Are they missing?

Thanks

Hi lamalamalamalama,

The links probably got merged which is why you are getting the error message. I am getting the same errors. :)

 

[Rabelais]

I watched this the other night. My reaction to the movie was that it was a "crazy stoner movie". About 2/3 into the movie I was like, "Where is this going?" I don't think I grasped the plot until the end, but still had to look it up on wikipedia. You have to pay close attention it seems.

You can't lose sight of the fact that Phillip K. Dick was "a crazy stoner". This did not stop him from creating some incredible literature. I read this book a few years ago. It was intriguing, but not what you could call "feel good". I watched some of the movie when it came out, but at the time couldn't get into the animation. I guess I need to go back and watch it again.

Reading Dave McGowan's, Laurel Canyon series, Gary Webb's exposé (Dark Alliance) of the CIA's flooding of California, and the rest of the country, with crack cocaine, and knowing that Huxley, Leary, et al, were a part of the joint Tavistockian/Rand social experiment with drugs in the 60s west coast scene... the concept of a psychotropic drug(s) being introduced into a society for obscene profit and/or control does not seem so far fetched.

I thought that the book's depiction of a person's downhill slide into addiction, all the while being acutely aware of it - and yet consciously continuing the habit to it's tragic conclusion was very well done. I have known a cop who traveled that path.

 

[Julius]

the concept of a psychotropic drug(s) being introduced into a society for obscene profit and/or control does not seem so far fetched.

I guess that's called wheat !!!

 

[whitecoast]

A Scanner Darkly was originally an adaptation to a novel by Phillip K. Dıck, the same author who wrote the stories behind Total Recall, Minority Report, and Blade Runner (a.k.a. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) He was a prolific soft science fiction writer, and deals with a lot dark topics on addiction, identity, psychology, and even gnosticism and dualism (especially in his later work, like the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and The Divine Invasion).
From many of the works of his that I read, he often does leave readers hanging, as if it's our job to fill in the blanks and delve further into the reality and characters he chose to leave behind.

I found this interesting gem in his Wikipedia entry:

Unusual Experiences

On February 20, 1974, Dick was recovering from the effects of sodium pentothal administered for the extraction of an impacted wisdom tooth. Answering the door to receive delivery of extra analgesic, he noticed that the delivery woman was wearing a pendant with a symbol that he called the "vesicle pisces." This name seems to have been based on his conflation of two related symbols, the ichthys (two intersecting arcs delineating a fish in profile) that early Christians used as a secret symbol, and the vesica piscis. After the delivery woman's departure, Dick began experiencing strange visions. Although they may have been initially attributable to the medication, after weeks of visions he considered this explanation implausible. "I experienced an invasion of my mind by a transcendentally rational mind, as if I had been insane all my life and suddenly I had become sane," Dick told Charles Platt.[27]

Throughout February and March 1974, he experienced a series of visions, which he referred to as "2-3-74", shorthand for February–March 1974. He described the initial visions as laser beams and geometric patterns, and, occasionally, brief pictures of Jesus and of ancient Rome. As the visions increased in length and frequency, Dick claimed he began to live a double life, one as himself, "Philip K. Dick", and one as "Thomas", a Christian persecuted by Romans in the 1st century A.D. He referred to the "transcendentally rational mind" as "Zebra", "God" and "VALIS." Dick wrote about the experiences, first in the semi-autobiographical novel Radio Free Albemuth and then in VALIS, The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, i.e., the VALIS trilogy.

At one point Dick felt that he had been taken over by the spirit of the prophet Elijah. He believed that an episode in his novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said was a detailed retelling of a story from the Biblical Book of Acts, which he had never read.[28]

His experiences and faith were documented and discussed in a private journal which was published as Exegesis.

Were these visions truly part of some transcendental retrieval information from a higher mind, or just a biproduct of his drug history and recovery from a sodium pentothal administration? We'll never know.