Film A Scanner Darkly

[Raz]

I think they used too many methaphors... maybe that is why some people didn't get it... anyways, the move was a critic on govt surveillance/ police states.

I dunno, I think it's too easy to say "you didn't like it because you didn't get it"...I did get that message very clearly, and while there were bits of it I quite liked, overall it didn't really move any mountains for me...

For one thing, the art distracted me from the actual story for a lot of the film....for another thing, I was too busy playing 'spot the celebrity' to actually pay attention to their characters, and to me that's a sign that they hadn't properly engaged me in their performance so that I could lose sight of who the actor was playing them.

To be fair, I was very impressed with Robert Downey Jr....I think his was the one role which benefited from him playing an animated version of himself, because he really took advantage of that to play someone other than himself - with everyone else, I kind of felt that they could have taken a lot more liberty with their individual roles than they actually did...I could tell who Keanu Reeves was in his disguise-suit because he had exactly the same body language that Keanu Reeves does in all his movies. The film had potential to be quite good, I just don't think that potential was fulfilled.

 

[silvia saint]

somebody please explain how this film was all about police states etc and not the evils of drugs. yes, there was surveillance of citizens in a police state environment, a couple of paranoid users, a few cops facilitating addiction in order to track down a source, what else though, what message on police states?

i couldn't care any less if it were pro/anti drugs, but when people try to put it on a pedestal i have to put my hand up.

this was a boring film that was made for no other purpose than to be a trip aid.

 

[psood0nym]

somebody please explain how this film was all about police states etc and not the evils of drugs. yes, there was surveillance of citizens in a police state environment, a couple of paranoid users, a few cops facilitating addiction in order to track down a source, what else though, what message on police states?

i couldn't care any less if it were pro/anti drugs, but when people try to put it on a pedestal i have to put my hand up.

this was a boring film that was made for no other purpose than to be a trip aid.

Spoilers:

NSFW:

While not being strictly an anti-authoritarian film, it nevertheless contains numerous references to governmental corruption and power grabbing at many levels, in addition to messages regarding how citizens, through use of substance D, are complicit in that corruption. New Path, a corporation, was integrated completely with the government, thus the government has a vested interest in seeing New Path succeed (a message about the dangers of said integration). They make, manufacture, and distribute substance D, a drug that is 100% addictive and brain-destroying, even as the pose as the cure(message about freedom of information and intrusive control). After addicts become dried out husks of their former selves, they are used as slaves to cultivate substance D (a message about manipulation through depersonalization). The man on the bullhorn, who spells this out for us viewers, is beaten and taken prisoner by men in police uniforms for disseminating that information (a message about the silencing of dissenters). Substance D users and suburbanites alike are both too busy with the drudgery of their own lives to listen (a message about compliance). There's plenty more both to these examples and to other parts of the movie, but this ought to get you started. That or watch the film again when you're older. Though not without flaws, it is far more than a "trip aid" and I can see why you were bored with it if you never saw some of these things. By the way, I actually thought the themes of identity and depersonalization (PDK calling cards) were far stronger than the anti-police-state messages.

 

[silvia saint]

i'm old enough and i've seen enough films, as i said "not fully fleshed out enough".

it's kinda a pointless exercise if those you wish to enlighten need to take a course in analyzing film to see what's underneath (and there wasn't much more underneath than what was obvious on the surface), those who are the ones worried about having the latest cell phone as oppossed to issues that actually affect them.

on paper the idea was interesting, the film was poor in execution. i recall i watched it whilst high on xanax + alcohol but it was disappointing (i was highly anticipating it's release)

 

[silvia saint]

in hindsight i think i've been a little unfair when judging this film. my strong interest in the subject matter has perhaps made me prejudiced whilst viewing, my disbelief in the popularity of 1984 and the masses not drawing parallels between it and the current war on terror i guess seeing me wanting art to clearly expose rather than pose the usual questions masked by symbolism and alternate scenarios. that however is not it's synopsis and it shouldn't be judged on such. the mechanisms of an authoritarian government are present, the problem - solution - outcome modus operandi outlined. i still felt quite bored for large parts of the film though, the scenes with the trippers especially nod inducing, though this may have been partially xanax induced

 

[psood0nym]

Edit: post 121 got posted while I was writing this, oh well.

^I take your point in part. However, being acquainted with the basics of film grammar in no way means one is acquainted with any particular message conveyed through it. If you require too much prior knowledge to understand a film, you risk preaching to the choir, but if you condescend too much, you risk either insulting the intelligence of your audience or having your film mistaken for that which it is denouncing. I thought “A Scanner Darkly” struck a decent harmony between these two. That’s also a strange combo you chose for viewing, I can’t imagine a less psychedelic combination than alcohol and xanax for watching a trippy film.

 

[silvia saint]

That’s also a strange combo you chose for viewing, I can’t imagine a less psychedelic combination than alcohol and xanax for watching a trippy film.

lol, it was a spontaneous consumption

 

[AmorRoark]

I think they used too many methaphors... maybe that is why some people didn't get it... anyways, the move was a critic on govt surveillance/ police states.

I don't think this was the main message of the film, at all. Sure it talks about how difficult it is to cope (mentally and ethically) being a narc, but that's a sidebar. The book explicitly lays out for the readers that it is an anti-drug message. I thought this was pretty obvious in the film as well.

I'm confused as to how people interpret the New Path was directly in kahoots with the government. The government had a deal with the rehab center (to keep any outsiders other than totally mentally ill people) out. This deal came out of some corrupt officials, but the whole premise was cops trying to bust the rehab center... hence Arctor's use to the government. As put by Hawthorne he was a sacrifice for something bigger. Obviously the bigger goal was to get someone in there in hopes that he would be able to eventually relay how exactly this uber-fucked up New Path Rehab Center was operating.

 

[psood0nym]

I'm confused as to how people interpret the New Path was directly in kahoots with the government. The government had a deal with the rehab center (to keep any outsiders other than totally mentally ill people) out. This deal came out of some corrupt officials, but the whole premise was cops trying to bust the rehab center... hence Arctor's use to the government. As put by Hawthorne he was a sacrifice for something bigger. Obviously the bigger goal was to get someone in there in hopes that he would be able to eventually relay how exactly this uber-fucked up New Path Rehab Center was operating.

I think it's still accurate to say that the government is in kahoots with New Path even if that doesn't necessarily mean the entire government is (how could it be?); I think there is evidence in the film that a significant, high-level portion of it, if fact, is, while most of the rest of it is merely complicit, perhaps having money funneled in secretely without knowing or caring about the full truth (or something). What about the bullhorn man being beaten and arrested by the police for trying to inform people of the truth? He says, "Hey, I used to be one of you!". This implies that he ascertained at least some of his knowledge from working on the police force, otherwise why include this exact line in the script? Also, it isn't just outsiders that are kept out of New Path, it's all types of surveillence. I assume it would take more than just a few corrupt officials to keep surveillence off the ONLY treatment institution. Wouldn't the government have a strong interest in keeping track of the treatment of Substace D addiction if it is such a national menace, nevermind curiousity as to the eventual location of all those thousands of citizens? The fact that this "good" section of the government had to go to such extreme lengths to infiltrate New Path shows that only those parts of the government with very little political power remain fully uncorrupted by New Path. Perhaps the book is different, but I'm referring strictly to the story as conveyed by the film. I definetly agree about the anti-drug message, but it's one that applies to drugs as they pertain to enforcement and political power as well as to personal use.

 

[Ravr]

Well, I was refering to the film, and it is more than a "trip aid." For example, the scanner suit seemed to represent Michael Foucault notion of the panopicon( modern day prisons.)... "in the Panopticon, a single guard can watch over many prisoners while the guard remains unseen. The dark dungeon of pre-modernity has been replaced with the bright modern prison, but Foucault cautions that "visibility is a trap". The suit in the movie represents the invisible power of the government or beaurocracy. Disciplinary power is invisible and comes from everywhere. In our society today, people are self-governing. Moreover, the people in the movie seemed to be living in terrible living conditions, and anybody that speaks against the government as we see in the movie is arrested. Indeed, the war on drugs is used to quash any form of resistance and take away people's right to critic their government( like the war on terror). Also, drugs have historically been used to manipulate people and let down their resistance. Remember the Spanish conquistadores gave coca leaves to the Indians to enslave them/ make them work harder.

 

[Pander Bear]

the Panopticon is Bentham's Baby, not Foucault's. Besides, the real power isn't in the observation of many by one, it is in the belief that one is being observed, or being taught to be both the observer and the observed. Then you don't even need the guards.

 

[Ravr]

the Panopticon is Bentham's Baby, not Foucault's. Besides, the real power isn't in the observation of many by one, it is in the belief that one is being observed, or being taught to be both the observer and the observed. Then you don't even need the guards.

Michel Foucault was a French philosopher that used the concept of the Penopticon as a "metaphor for modern "disciplinary" societies and its pervasive inclination to observe and normalize. " And yes, I was refering to self-governing, as that was also Focucault's point.

 

[reddragon]

Awful movie sober or tripping. I tried watching it both ways and wish I hadn't wasted those hours of my life...

 

[tribal girl]

^Mmm. Tedious nonsense in my opinion. Even the whole look of the film became annoying after a while too

 

[L2R]

^ i felt the same way on the small screen with a downloaded copy, but then i saw it in the theatre and it didn't bother me at all.

 

[ChemicalBeauty]

I [mistakingly] purchased the DVD and found it to be quite the bore.

I couldn't get through the first half of it before i gave it away to the next person that came over.

 

[wArEhOuSePuNk]

The only thing cool about that movie is the animation.

 

[ghtto_cwby]

I thought it was an excellent movie , one of my favorites. I didn't like the ending though.

 

[ControlDenied]

I'm glad to see a bunch of opinions I agree with here...complete disappointment, captured a neat cartoony atmosphere sometimes but that's it. it's a mess of a movie; I don't know how so many people were tricked into enjoying it (I suspect secret police)

 

[Beatlebot]

Look, you'd have to be high on acid to enjoy this movie.

I enjoyed it immensely. The stories within the storylines really helped me engage with the characters and the way the story is told had me just as confused and out of it as the characters themselves, and that was great.

The central theme, as I understood it, was the search for truth when dealing with the day to day complications of human life. I found some of the scenes very touching in those few moments of clarity that Bob Artor had about his relationships and circumstances.

I'm definitely glad I saw it.