pynchon movies

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Went to see "A Journey Into the Mind of P." yesterday in Cologne. I don't have
the time to write a full review. Here are a few personal impressions:

Pros: A spelling mistake that turned Pynchon's "marital status" into "his
"martial status"; archive footage showing exploding V2s, von Braun, John F.
Kennedy, Jack Ruby killing Lee Harvey Oswald; archive footage from a CIA or FBI
experiment supposedly showing a cat under the influence of LSD (definitely not
a pretty sight, whatever the substance was); the soundtrack (I had never
listened to the Resident's "Third Reich'n'Roll" before); interviews with George
Plimpton and Irvin Corey; interviews with the Great Quail (whose real family
name seems to have been misspelled as well, but whom it was great to see in
person) and Tim Ware; James Bone's story about he photographed Pynchon (he
essentially tells us, without noticing himself, that he got what he deserved
when P told him "Get your fucking hands of me!").

Neutral: An interview with Chrissie Wexler (sp?), former girl friend of Pynchon
and wife to Jules Siegel. Interesting to learn that P lived in Manhattan Beach,
which I have visited for the first time a few weeks ago, while writing GR.

Cons: An interview with Jules Siegel who came across quite sympathetic until he
started developing strange theories; most of the statements of Richard Lane (is
that the man who created the "Pynchon Files"?) who was getting all paranoid
about P's life, self-consciously so, but nevertheless; the final discussion
about which of the persons filmed by CNN was P; too much left out, the
Farina-Baez-connection, for example, Wanda Tinasky; generally the focus on the
man's life, not his books.

All in all, I found some bits quite interesting but wasn't really enjoying
myself. Too much cult of personality, not nearly enough focus on the texts and
the things they deal with. For my taste.

Thomas