Philip K. Dick in Hollywood
I just saw Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly. You would think Linklater, of all people, might be best positioned to adapt the obsessively wordy Dick. (I was also hoping Linklater would preserve the ’70s feel of the book.)
You would be wrong.
The trouble starts with Rory Cochrane’s mugging while washing (hallucinatory) aphids out of his hair. Good scene, bad actor. It gets worse when Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) gives a speech to a local club (like the Elks and such).
In Dick’s version, Arctor gets a mostly inoffensive intro but then strays from his safe speech to give an impassioned speech on how most junkies are rather harmless and that police should focus on the dealers. In Linklater’s, you learn the Brown Bears or whatever are being sponsored by a somewhat sinister addiction recovery group.
Dick’s book makes tragic hay of doper paranoia. Linklater indulges it, expands it and reads current problems into the book. He does not burn out the temporal elements for the timeless, he adds to them.
You would be wrong.
The trouble starts with Rory Cochrane’s mugging while washing (hallucinatory) aphids out of his hair. Good scene, bad actor. It gets worse when Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) gives a speech to a local club (like the Elks and such).
In Dick’s version, Arctor gets a mostly inoffensive intro but then strays from his safe speech to give an impassioned speech on how most junkies are rather harmless and that police should focus on the dealers. In Linklater’s, you learn the Brown Bears or whatever are being sponsored by a somewhat sinister addiction recovery group.
Dick’s book makes tragic hay of doper paranoia. Linklater indulges it, expands it and reads current problems into the book. He does not burn out the temporal elements for the timeless, he adds to them.