Impolex [sic]

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Hmmm.  I wonder if he tried to get Pynchon's blessings or permission or whatever.

He's clearly read Vineland as well.

http://www.vimeo.com/4903082

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>Sent: Aug 16, 2009 10:13 AM
>To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Impolex [sic]
>
>Impolex
>Alex Ross Perry 2009
>Run time: 75 min. | USA
>
>Months after the end of World War II, fresh-faced Tyrone is sent on a
>mission by the U.S. Army to locate and retrieve German rockets. This
>quest leads him through the woods without a map. But on this journey
>he gets advice from fellow travelers, sees visions of a girl he left
>behind and, most importantly, kicks back with a talking octopus on a
>tree. In spite of or perhaps because of his odd journey, Tyrone
>eventually discovers a V-2 rocket, the most advanced long-range rocket
>ever created to that point. It is the second-to-last one manufactured;
>now Tyrone must find the last. With IMPOLEX, director Alex Ross Perry
>creates his own eccentric world with deep emotional arcs and fairytale
>outcomes, a story laced with poignant touches and curious characters
>to keep you charmed and smiling. In spite of its sometimes fantastical
>scenarios, somehow you connect to this world, like all those times you
>were searching for history while stumbling over your past. You laugh
>with the film but you also sink in to its colorful, fuzzy confines.
>
>http://cinevegas.bside.com/2009/films/impolex_cinevegas2009
>
>The film centers around Tyrone is on an obfuscatingly aimless journey
>into nonsensical frustration as he searches for undetonated German V-2
>rockets at the close of WWII, guided by a lover he left behind and a
>talking octopus.
>
>Tell us briefly about the film’s story and the world you created for it:
>
>IMPOLEX is about a soldier in the United States Army at the end of
>World War II looking for undetonated German V-2 rockets. The Germans
>were working on this rocket basically from around 1940 and finished it
>just in time to lose the war. They still got to use them, most notably
>in the bombing blitzes on England and other places, but they had
>already lost. And it was a perfect weapon, the world’s first liquid
>fuel long range, aim-able rocket. The US launched this initiative
>called Operation Paperclip and basically sent soldiers all over Europe
>looking for these damn things, and also arresting scientists and
>bringing them to America.
>
>I first became aware of this dark corner of military history while
>reading Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, and then made a script out
>of my own research, which included monographs on the V-2 rockets,
>German general’s memoirs, stuff like that. I occasionally added in
>vague allusions or homages to some parts of the novel I thought I
>remembered, though I never went back through the book to make sure I
>wasn’t making them up myself. I was just making fragmentary notes and
>bits of dialogue for a while and that structure, if you can call it
>that, definitely became the so called structure of the film, not that
>it really has one. To me, there is a sense of hopelessness and
>confusion about this story, the real one, and I wanted to find an
>interpretational way to make a film that was true to that and also
>true to the lessons I felt I learned about character and narrative
>from reading Pynchon.
>
>How did you find your cast, especially the octopus?
>
>Riley O’Bryan, who plays Tyrone, was somebody I worked with. The first
>night that I had my dream about a guy carrying a miniature V-2 through
>the woods. I knew I had to make a movie about it, I knew it would be
>him. I got to work at 10:00, he showed up and noon and I told him
>about this movie I knew we had to make. He said okay.
>
>Kate Sheil, who plays Katje, I knew from school....
>
>http://www.cinevegas.com/blog/?p=1317
>
>United States Army issued warning about the upcoming motion picture
>IMPOLEX, which fictionalizes and trivializes the events that occurred
>to the Initiative for the Monitoring and Protection of Liquid Energy
>Explosives at the end of World War II.
>
>http://www.vimeo.com/4903082
>
>Imipolex G
>
>242; used as insulation for rocket; a new plastic, aromatic
>heterocyclic polymer, developed by in 1939. . .by one L. Jamf for IG
>Farben" 249; details, 249-50; "the company albatross" 261; "a fat file
>on" 283; "what's haunting [Slothrop] now will prove to be the smell of
>Imipolex G" 286; "a white knight, molded out of plastic" 436;
>"Oneirine Jamf Imipolex A4" 464; skinsuit at The Castle, 487; "This is
>Imipolex, the material of the future." 488; Imipolectique, 490;
>aromatic polyimide, 576; characteristics of, 699; shroud of, 751; "the
>Imipolex shroud. Flotsam from his childhood are rising through his
>attention" 754; See also aromatic rings
>
>Contributed by Peter Morris:
>
>The name Imipolex, in addition to being a pun (imitation pole),
>obviously stems from a combination of "imido" with a near-reversal of
>"explode", possibly in analogy with Igelit (IG Farben's PVC) and
>Igamid (IG Farben's nylon resin). IG Farben's polymers often had
>alphabetical suffixes (Buna S, Igelit G, Igamid A).
>
>http://www.thomaspynchon.com/gravitys-rainbow/alpha/i.html#imipolex
>