Animated films. I don’t like them. Why? Well, it seems that, however far removed they become from “cartoons”, there is just something “unreal” about them that repels me. Really, I hate them. Just a weird predilection I suppose.
I make an exception though with this one. In part because the subject matter is provocative and intellectually stimulating. In part because “behind” the animation are real actors acting out real parts. The creators just throw in a bunch of “cartoonish” stuff I come to tolerate. And in part because it is based on a book I have read.
Substance D: Dope. And dumbness. And despair. And desertion. And death. All personal friends of mine in one or another respect. So to speak.
Dope is always a subject that has particularly tied me into knots. In some respects it infuriates me that, while cigarettes and alcohol can be consumed legally, many of the “controlled substances” I once enjoyed “recreationally” are now beyond my reach. I just don’t have access to the folks who were once able to procure them for me. And yet I can still grasp the validity of the arguments that many make regarding the apalling harm some of these drugs cause for any number of folks who abuse them. I have seen a number friends destroyed because of dope. It’s always about context. Freedom of the individual to choose meets Big Brother is just just too simplistic a narrative. But there it is nonetheless. Along with Big Business. And [it goes without saying] organized crime. Though here the emphasis is more on an encroaching police state. And the way in which the technology makes that increasingly less…intrusive? Meaning far easier for them to pull off. Though sometimes [of course] with the best of intentions.
But, come on, how far removed will entities like New Path be from Big Brother? That’s the part they missed here. Or so it seems to me. For now though it is just one more “truther” narrative.
IMDb
[b]Based on Philip K. Dick’s personal drug experiences.
According to director Richard Linklater, filming was completed in 23 days; the animation process took 18 months.[/b]
16 months I suspect just to do the scenes with the scramble suit.
FAQ at IMDb: imdb.com/title/tt0405296/faq?ref_=tt_faq_sm
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly_(film
trailer: youtu.be/TY5PpGQ2OWY
A SCANNER DARKLY [2006]
Written and directed Richard Linklater
[b]Fred: I’m not going to tell you first what I do as an undercover officer engaged in tracking down dealers and the source of their illegal drugs in the streets of our cities and the corridors of our schools here in Orange County. I’m going to tell you what I’m afraid of.
…
Fred: … Substance D. “D” is dumbness, and despair, desertion–desertion of you from your friends, your friends from you, everyone from everyone. Isolation and loneliness…and hating and suspecting each other. “D” is finally death. Slow death from the head down.
…
Freck: What do you think about the New Path?
Barris: While it doesn’t matter what I think, I kinda have to tip my hat to any entity that can bring so much integrity to evil. I mean, imagine this: a seemingly voluntary, privatized gulag which has managed to eliminate the meddling middlemen of public accountability and free will and wrap it up in a little bow and give it to the public like a gift.
…
Medical Deputy: You know, Fred, if you keep your sense of humor like you do, you just might make it.
Fred: Make it? Make what? The team? The chick? Make good? Make do? Make out? Make sense? Make money? Make time? Define your terms. The Latin for ‘make’ is facere, which always reminds me of fuckere, which is Latin for ‘to fuck’, and I have been getting jack shit in that department as of late.
…
Bob Arctor: The pain, so unexpected and undeserved had for some reason cleared away the cobwebs. I realized I didn’t hate the cabinet door, I hated my life… My house, my family, my backyard, my power mower. Nothing would ever change; nothing new could ever be expected. It had to end, and it did. now in the dark world where I dwell, ugly things, and surprising things, and sometimes little wondrous things, spill out in me constantly, and I can count on nothing.
…
Luckman: Well! So much for our great trip to San Diego Bob, I told you we should have gone to San Francisco.
Barris: What like going to San Francisco would not have caused this problem with the engine?
Luckman: Yeah because when you’re going north, it screws this way, and when you’re going south it screws that way!
Barris: If we were in Australia![/b]
That’s the dope talking. Unless, of course, it’s true.
[b]Freck Suicide Narrator: Charles Freck, becoming progressively more and more depressed by what was happening around him, decided, finally, to off himself. There was no problem in the circles where he hung out in putting an end to yourself. You just bought a large quantity of downers and took them with some cheap wine. The planning part had to do with the artifacts he wanted found on him by later archeologists. He had spent several days deciding, much longer than he had spent deciding to kill himself. He would be found lying on his back, on his bed, with a copy of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and an unfinished letter to Exxon, protesting the cancellation of his gas credit card. That way, he would indite the system, and achieve something by his death, over and above what the death itself achieved. At the last moment, he changed his mind on a decisive issue and decided to drink the pills with a connoisseur wine, instead of Ripple or Thunderbird. So he set off on one last drive, over to Tiny’s Liquors, which specialized in fine wines, and bought a bottle of 2001 Azalea Springs Merlot, which set him back almost seventy dollars. Back home again, he uncorked the wine, let it breathe, drank a few glasses of it, tried to think of something meaningful but could not, and then, with a glass of Merlot, gulped down all the pills at once. However, he had been burned. Instead of quietly suffocating, Charles Freck began to hallucinate. The next thing he knew, a creature from between dimensions was standing beside his bed, looking down at him disapprovingly.
Freck: You gonna read me my sins?
[Creature nods]
Freck: Eh, it’s gonna take a hundred thousand hours.
Creature: Your sins will be read to you ceaselessly, in shifts, throughout eternity. The list will never end.
Creature [starts reading]: “The Sins of Freck”
Freck Suicide Narrator: Charles Freck wished he could take back the last half hour of his life.
Creature [Creature continues to read]: “… theft of fingernail clippers…” “… you did knowingly and with malice…” “… punched your baby sister, Evelyn…” “… December, theft of Christmas presents…” “… one billion lies…”
Freck Suicide Narrator: One thousand years later, they had reached the sixth grade, the year he had discovered masturbation.
Creature [Creature continues to read]: “… November fourteenth, Percodan… Vicodin… Cocaine…”
Freck Suicide Narrator: Charles Freck thought, “At least I got a good wine.”
…
Man with megaphone: “Where did Substance D come from? Why can’t we stop it? The bigger this war gets, the more freedoms we lose…the more Substance D is on our streets. Can’t you figure this out? Look around you. Look how far we’ve come. Humanity wasn’t meant to live like this. Our every waking moment tracked and traced and scanned. It’s time to stop submitting to this tyranny. It’s time to realize that we’re being enslaved.”
…
Fred [voiceover]: What does a scanner see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does it see into me? Into us? Clearly or darkly? I hope it sees clearly because I can’t any longer see into myself. I see only murk. I hope for everyone’s sake the scanners do better, because if the scanner sees only darkly the way I do, then I’m cursed and cursed again.
…
Audrey: I just wonder if it even matters at this…
Mike: It matters, Audrey. It matters when we can prove that New Path is the one growing…
manufacturing and distributing.
Audrey: How does he look? I mean, do you think he’s gonna be able to pull through for us?
Mike: All we can do is hope that when he finally gets in there…a few charred brain cells will flicker on and some distant instinct will kick in.
Audrey: It’s just…It’s just such a cost to pay.
Mike: Yeah. But there’s no other way to get in there. I couldn’t, and think how long I tried. They got that place locked up tight. They’re only gonna let a burnt-out husk like Bruce in. Harmless. You have to be, or they won’t take the risk.
Audrey: Yeah, but to sacrifice someone…a living person, without them ever knowing it. I mean, if he’d understood, if he had volunteered…but he doesn’t know and he never did. He didn’t volunteer for this.
Mike: Sure he did. It was his job.
Audrey: It wasn’t his job to get addicted. We took care of that.
…
Mike [to Audrey]: I believe God’s M.O. is to transmute evil into good and if he’s active here, he’s doing that now…although our eyes can’t perceive it. The whole process is hidden beneath the surface of our reality and will only be revealed later.[/b]