A Scanner Darkly

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Richard Linklater
Written by: Philip K. Dick (novel), Richard Linklater (screenplay)
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson

Year / Country: 2006, USA
Running Time: 100 mins.

A Scanner Darkly, Richard Linklater’s adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s semi-autobiographical novel about a futuristic undercover agent who gets addicted to the drug ‘Substance D’ during a drug epidemic in Orange County in 1994, opens with Rory Cockrane’s junkie character being tormented by bugs that keep respawning on his body and face. It sets the tone of the film right away. This movie, set in a near-future dystopia and police state, seems to be mostly about the frightening downsides of a drug habit.

Typical for Dick, it is also about losing one’s identity as heavy users of Substance D, like main character Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves), typically develop a serious brain impairment. The movie was shot digitally and then animated using rotoscoping technique. This visual style, also used in Linklater’s Waking Life, fits this movie perfectly. Apart from the police characters’ use of ‘scramble suits’, which are suits that change their appearance and voice every microsecond to hide their identity, this is not really a science fiction film. The story – of which there is not much really – is kind of hard to follow, but thanks to the terrific visuals and strong performances by the main cast it is still captivating. Robert Downey Jr. is especially on a roll here.

After The Matrix, Keanu Reeves is on another mind trip here (he literally takes a red pill at one point), but while The Matrix delivers a crystal clear concept, what A Scanner Darkly tries to do, plotwise or thematically, remains pretty much… well… in the dark. What the movie does very well though is portray the depressing hopelessness of being stuck in a community of junkies, with all the panic, pain, fear and paranoia that comes with it. It is admirable that Linklater stayed faithful to Dick’s source material, and did not try to turn it into a Hollywood movie. But maybe this is the one book of the famous sci-fi author that could have used some clarification. Now it remains quite a confusing affair, albeit a mesmerizing one.

Rating:

Biography: Richard Linklater (1960, Houston) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He was among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s. Suburban culture and the passage of time are big themes in many of his movies, some of which are set during one 24-hours period, including his successful ‘Before’-trilogy with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. He is married to Christina Harrison and they have three children, including Lorelei who played a large part in Linklater’s much praised movie Boyhood.

Filmography (a selection): It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988, short), Slacker (1990), Dazed and Confused (1993), Before Sunrise (1995), The Newton Boys (1998), Waking Life (2001), Tape (2001), School of Rock (2003), Before Sunset (2004), Fast Food Nation (2006), A Scanner Darkly (2006), Me and Orson Welles (2008), Before Midnight (2013), Boyhood (2014), Everybody Wants Some (2016), Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (2022)

Dazed and Confused

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Richard Linklater
Written by: Richard Linklater
Cast: Jason London, Wiley Wiggins, Matthew McConaughey, Rory Cochrane

Year / Country: 1993, USA
Running Time: 103 mins.

Richard Linklater’s masterpiece about the last day of an Austin high school in 1976. ‘A time they would never forget’, the tagline states, ‘if only they could remember.’ Indeed, these are the days of aimlessly hanging around, getting wasted, performing vandalism, having sexual experiences, falling in love, and being genuinely confused about what to do next in life. The pointlessness is the point.

The whole movie plays like a seamless stream of magical summer moments experienced by kids who have just graduated and a group of freshmen, who also intermingle as the former perform hazing rituals on the latter, but also take some of them out to party and smoke weed. There is no plot or central conflict, it is just a collection of interconnected happenings and it all feels super real and not scripted at all. That is mainly because Linklater allowed the actors to bring their own experiences to their roles.

The casting is impeccable. With their authentic performances, these young actors really bring this era to life. They are also helped by the excellent production design and soundtrack, featuring songs by a.o. Bob Dylan, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. Licensing these songs raised the budget considerably, but it definitely adds to the authenticity. Many of the young adults are played by actors who would later become stars, most notably Ben Affleck, Milla Jovovich and Matthew McConaughey (for McConaughey it was his breakout role).

Linklater and his crew have created the perfect time capsule. It is like the American Gravity for the next generation. Any time you feel like experiencing this era, but also relive your own confusing high school days, put on Dazed and Confused, and it takes you right there.

Rating:

Biography: Richard Linklater (1960, Houston) is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. He was among the first and most successful talents to emerge during the American independent film renaissance of the 1990s. Suburban culture and the passage of time are big themes in many of his movies, some of which are set during one 24-hours period, including his successful ‘Before’-trilogy with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. He is married to Christina Harrison and they have three children, including Lorelei who played a large part in Linklater’s much praised movie Boyhood.

Filmography (a selection): It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988, short), Slacker (1990), Dazed and Confused (1993), Before Sunrise (1995), The Newton Boys (1998), Waking Life (2001), Tape (2001), School of Rock (2003), Before Sunset (2004), Fast Food Nation (2006), A Scanner Darkly (2006), Me and Orson Welles (2008), Before Midnight (2013), Boyhood (2014), Everybody Wants Some (2016), Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood (2022)

25 Years Ago On This Day, Pop Culture History Was Written

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

“It’s good to be in something from the ground floor. I came too late for that, I know. But lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.”
– Tony Soprano

On January 10, 1999, pay channel HBO launched the pilot episode of The Sopranos, the show that would change television forever. Before this ground breaking phenomenon, movies were far superior to television in terms of intelligent writing, production design and the actors involved. The Sopranos changed all of that.

‘The Sopranos wasn’t the first show to break all the rules’, write Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall in their book ‘The Sopranos Sessions’ (see also Oz and Twin Peaks for example), ‘but it was the first show to do that and still become a massive, enduring hit.’

But what is so good about The Sopranos? Maurice Yacowar in ‘The Sopranos On The Couch’, writes: ‘For openers: it’s brilliantly written, performed, and filmed. Each episode has the polish of an excellent feature film – with a tighter yet more complex, resonant script than most. The show is also relentlessly entertaining. The characters are engrossing, the plot twists astonishing but coherent, and the dialogue mined with ironies and poetic resonance quite beyond what we are used to hearing on the boob tube or even on the commercial cinema these days. Unique for a television series, details connect not just across the hour but across a season and beyond. The viewer has to dig for links and meanings beyond what’s spelled out on the surface and is often left with mysteries. That makes the show more like European cinema – and a complete departure for American television. At the same time, The Sopranos provocatively raises major questions about how and why we live.’

In 2021, I published the ultimate The Sopranos tribute. You can read the highlights from this tribute below:

And if you still haven’t seen the show, it is not too late! It is still available on HBO. Seriously, you’d be a douchebag to miss it.