Linklater-fest

I was lucky enough to have a day on my own over the weekend, so I decided that I would do something that I haven't done in ages and watch some videos. Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly were recommended to me, so I went with a Linklater animated double feature. They are both animated, but not exactly. Linklater uses a technique called Rotoscope to lay animation over actual film footage for both Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, and the effect is striking. One of the things I enjoy about Richard Linklater's films is watching the background to find places I recognize in Austin, and even in animation, Austin in unmistakable.

In Waking Life a young man tries to wake from one dream after another. Each dream he travels through involves people discussing (or ranting) about different philosophical questions and perspectives. This film brought to mind a book that Steve recommended a few years ago, God's Debris A Thought Experiment, by Scott Adams. Waking Life throws so many complex ideas and thoughts at you in such a short time through the lucid dream sequences, that I am sure I have to see it at least one or two more times to really feel like I've taken all I can away from the experience. I think I will have to re-read God's Debris, also.

I did wonder as I was watching the film, why Linklater would make a movie that seems to me to be about what it is to be human and alive, and remove the human element through animation. I guess it adds another layer to the creative onion, making it both fascinating and beautiful to watch, but I don't know if it helped or hurt the film in the end.

These are two of my favorite quotes from the movie:

“Whatever you do, don’t be bored. This is absolutely the most exciting time we could have possibly hoped to be alive. And things are just starting.”

and,

“When we communicate with one another and we feel that we have connected and we think we’re understood, I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion…I think it’s what we live for."

and this is one (of many) passages that I found myself nodding affirmatively to:

Philosophy Professor: The reason why I refuse to take existentialism as just another French fashion or historical curiosity is that I think it has something very important to offer us... I'm afraid were losing the real virtues of living life passionately in the sense of taking responsibility for who you are the ability to make something of yourself and feel good about life. Existentialism is often discussed as if it were a philosophy of despair, but I think the truth is just the opposite. Sartre, once interviewed, said he never felt once minute of despair in his life. One thing that comes out from reading these guys is not a sense of anguish about life so much as a real kind of exuberance, of feeling on top of it, its like your life is yours to create. Ive read the post modernists with some interest, even admiration, but when I read them I always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out. The more you talk about a person as a social construction or as a confluence of forces or as being fragmented of marginalised, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses. And when Sartre talks about responsibility, he's not talking about something abstract. He's not talking about the kind of self or souls that theologians would talk about. Hes talking about you and me talking, making decisions, doing things, and taking the consequences. It might be true that there are six million people in this world, and counting, but nevertheless -what you do makes a difference. It makes a difference, first of all, in material terms, to other people, and it sets an example. In short, I think the message here is that we should never write ourselves off or see each other as a victim of various forces. It's always our decision who we are.

What a great movie.

A Scanner Darkly tells the tale of drug addiction, paranoia, brain damage and treachery (both personal and systemic). I think this film was definitely aided by the Rotoscope animation, which was especially well done for the "scramble suit," a computerized cloaking device that uses an infinite number of facial and body types to disguise the wearer . The story seems like it could be happening now, even though it was written in 1973. Pick your poison, crack, X, or in this case "Substance D," then throw in a liberal amount of Big Brother watching, and the recipe cooks up the same tragedies, regardless of the age.

After watching the movie, I watched one of the extras on the DVD, an interview with the author, Phillip K. Dick. I was surprised that the interview for his book was done in 1977. He described the McCarthy-esque (and now Bush-esque) feeling of persecution and loss of civil liberty that led him to write A Scanner Darkly, and he could have been talking about things that are happening now with drugs, our government, and our world. I think I will hunt down a copy of Divine Invasions, a Phillip K. Dick biography sometime soon.

I watched both of these films with an open mind, not knowing what to expect beyond the fact that they are animated features. I'm glad I didn't know more, it's given me more to think about, and my brain is still buzzing.