Re: Inherent Vice’s 70s saga loses mojo mid-flight

[Danny Weltman]

"Not having read Pynchon’s original novel, I can’t say for sure that the
book peters out midway as well. But knowing Pynchon’s penchant for
frustratingly dense storytelling, not to mention Anderson’s fanboy zeal in
getting the details right in his adaptation, I’m guessing the book ends
just as uneventfully as the movie does. No resolution, no answers, not even
a real ending. It’s like a great inflight meal with a lousy desert.
Unsatisfying in the extreme."

I'm always a little mystified when I see people express this sort of
opinion. How do people end up equating "conclusive, eventful, full of
answers" with "satisfying?" Especially when it comes to the end of a story?
Is it a desire not to be forced to think about anything for oneself, and
thus a desire to have everything presented in a neat little package that
tells you how to feel about what has just occurred? Is it just a preference
for the sorts of stories one normally is told, which often do have pat
little endings, and some kind of rejection of the weird and unfamiliar
simply because it's weird and unfamiliar? Do people just get bored if a
bunch of stuff doesn't string itself together into a simple through line,
their attention span flagging at the first sign that the story isn't going
to pull them along while they sit back and twiddle their thumbs? Have they
never spent a satisfying day that was neither conclusive nor eventful nor
full of answers?

This sentiment seems to me like it's behind a lot of distaste for "art"
films, which tend to be meandering, expressive, and obscure as opposed to
eventful, answer-packed, and conclusive. Maybe it's just a sort of identity
thing - some people see themselves as the sorts of people who like these
things and manage to like them, and some people see themselves as the sorts
of people who don't like these things and manage not to like them.

On Mon, May 4, 2015 at 5:13 PM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> http://www.runwaygirlnetwork.com/2015/05/03/ife-film-review-inherent-vices-70s-saga-loses-mojo-mid-flight/
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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