FINALLY saw Inherent Vice

[John Bailey]

I could watch it if I tricked my computer into thinking it lives in the US.

The old film theory nerd in me reckons it would be fun to do a
group-read of the movie one day. Noting what works and what doesn't
and what tiny choices have been made that might be missed on a casual
viewing.

Eg the opening shot of the beach between two houses (which is repeated
later) seems to be what Doc is staring at as he lies on the couch, but
conventional editing would require those two shots be sequential.
Instead PTA makes us join the dots to comprehend what Doc is probably
seeing and possibly thinking.

On Wed, Mar 25, 2015 at 10:15 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You can get IV on your tv now. Watch it over and over. Not that it gets any
> better after a couple of viewings.
> On Friday, March 20, 2015, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Which has only been out here for a week. Figured the 11.50am session
>> at my local cinema would be empty but was pleasantly surprised to
>> share the session with a handful of elderly folks.
>>
>> I'm with Mr Monroe - or, at least, if that isn't Pynchon in the
>> background of the Topanga scene, it's at least a Pynchon figure
>> overseeing the exchange that holds the whole film together for me.
>>
>> It's a much more coherent work than I'd expected and I think I enjoy
>> it more than the novel (which wasn't that much to begin with).
>>
>> The Golden Fang isn't an ambiguous fog of possibility like it is in
>> the novel - it's a very identifiable conspiracy connecting a whole
>> bunch of institutions and individuals and power structures and even
>> though we (and Doc) only see a small corner of it, it's enough to
>> project the larger picture. The players don't even necessarily see
>> their position within it (eg Blatnoyd) but we're given more than
>> enough dots to join.
>>
>> And the Fang is clearly a metonym for the America Coy alludes to in
>> the aforementioned scene, which is a vertically integrated System that
>> hooks its kids with mindless pleasures and then offers them relief
>> through equally mindless promises of redemption. Heroin (and the
>> Chryskolodon Inst) in the film is totally symbolic of that, as well as
>> being an actual part of it.
>>
>> The film makes explicit how Doc's real investment in all the goings-on
>> is to see Amethyst get a parent back. It's the film's emotional payoff
>> and to me only really makes sense if the Golden Fang plays out as a
>> particular metaphor.
>>
>> But that altering of the ending, what a misstep.
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l