A Journey into the Mind of [p.]

[John Bailey]

Having viewed the Dubini film on the weekend, I thought I'd post my brief 
impressions of it. I recall it was going to be shown on European TV (on Arte 
maybe?) at the end of August; I don't know if this is still the case.

I attended the documentary's second screening in Melbourne (was O/S for the 
first), on a chilly Saturday afternoon at one of the bigger cinemas around. 
The session was surprisingly well attended considering the subject matter, 
although I overheard a lot of people in the queue noting that they'd never 
read anything by Pynchon, and many hadn't heard of him. In fact, one 
post-screening comment made by a patron who was sitting behind me led me to 
think that this person had thought the film was a mockumentary about a 
fictionalised subject. I guess this is indicative of the sort of Film 
Festival patron we get locally, willing to see anything.

A further note: unfortunately, the brief capsule review the film received in 
that day's festival roundup was not kind. I won't post it but I was quite 
surprised at this particular reviewer's dislike for the piece, though I 
expect it was the more non-narrative elements he had a problem with.

In some ways I agree, as the film does seem to walk both sides of a 
barbed-wire fence, and suffers as a result. One one side there's a strong 
chronological structure employed, with the film broken up into five 
segments, whilst on the other, there are long, rambling sequences of footage 
which at times seem only vaguely relevant, such as the extended footage of 
Mexico City, and the frequent return to Lee Harvey Oswald. If the piece had 
gone further in either direction, I think it would have been improved. The 
Residents' soundtrack is great, as well, but several key tunes get repeated 
too often for my liking.

It seemed a film which presumed some knowledge of Pynchon, but not a huge 
amount, which is a difficult stance. It really didn't give an impression of 
his writing at all (Vineland, SL and non-fiction not even a mention) and 
people I spoke to afterwards had no idea what his writing would be like, 
except, perhaps, weird. This was also a problem as it removed any context or 
motivation for some of the historical stuff shown, like the superb rocket 
footage and all-too-brief images of Nordhausen. The more emotionally 
impactful section depicting governmental LSD experimentation also seemed 
only tentatively linked to Pynchon's novels, for those who hadn't read them, 
and I found the cat on mescaline footage too much for this cat lover. At the 
same time, I really enjoyed most of the investigative stuff with the 
Pynchonite community, and some of the conspiracy theories are wildly 
entertaining ('you know who' got a big laugh...)

I should point out that the P-in-Nazi-drag comment mentioned earlier on the 
list is a misinterpretation, just for the record. Chrissie Wexler (whom I 
thought very funny) describes him play-acting as if he were in Nazi Germany, 
ie hiding in the back seat of the car etc, while in a separate section a 
bookseller named Roland? I think? describes how he believes Pynchon dressed 
up in drag once when visiting his bookshop, to ensure anonymity.

The footage of Pynchon's house and surrounds in California was very nice, 
and was a perfect replica of the way I imagine the sections of Vineland set 
in the 60s. The constant return to the rolling waves of the beach in the 
background was an effective touch, and I suppose correlates to the footage 
of Mexico City I mentioned earlier, and later footage of a hotel in New 
York, but if the intention was to convey the surrounds in which P's books 
were written, the point was probably overemphasised.

I also felt a little dirty by the end of the film, as the closing sections 
focused more on the real P living in New York, and the quest to find him. 
The repetition and scrutiny of the CNN footage brought echoes of 
'pornographies of detection' to my mind, but I guess that was because the 
preceeding eighty minutes had done well without the need for an image of the 
guy.

Overall, I left with mixed reactions, but very glad I'd seen it, and more 
appreciative now that a few days have passed.

_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com