VLVL Movie(s) of the Week

[jbor]

on 27/2/04 5:34 AM, Paul Mackin wrote:
 
> The James M. Cain novel rather than the film version might have had more
> relevance to the Wheeler family. Mildred was more promiscuous and
> opportunistic in the book.

Don't think there's much to Zoyd's _Mildred Pierce_ reference (57) apart
from his wishful thinking, using an old-time movie reference as a way of
trying to ingratiate himself with his soon-to-be-ex-wife. Doesn't work for
him in the slightest, 'coz Frenesi's already decided to get back with Brock.

The most interesting part in the description of how Roscoe saves Brock's
life -- and thus repays part of "his debt to Brock" -- in the "memorable
dope-field shoot-out" (271-2), is the way Roscoe perceives Brock's
"insulation" or "supernatural luck",

    the aura that everyone, winners and losers, picked up, which
    Roscoe swore under oath he'd observed during that pot-plantation
    run-in as a pure white light surrounding Brock entirely, which
    Roscoe believed would keep him, then and after, immune to gunfire.
                                                        (272.7)

So impressed is Roscoe by this emanation that he even questions "[w]ho had
been sticking close to whom" in the shoot-out. This aura of light seems,
perhaps, meant to relate to Frenesi's attraction to Brock also.

The story of Roscoe and Brock's double act is a parody of the standard gruff
old codger teaming up with a brash-young-upstart-who-thinks-he-knows-it-all
cop movie or tv fare, and, indeed, Brock thinks of himself and his
"underling" as being the Lone Ranger and Tonto. Pynchon employs this comedic
mismatched buddies trope quite a lot -- Blood and Vato are another good
example, M & D perhaps the exemplar -- and it goes back variously to
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and, especially, to Don Quixote and Sancho
Panza.

best