The Definitives
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
Director: Richard Linklater
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Winona Ryder, and Rory Cochrane
Rated: R
Runtime: 100 min.
by Brian Eggert
Entered into
The Definitives:
06/05/2007
Original Release Date:
03/31/1954
Based on the acclaimed novel by Philip K. Dick, Richard Linklater’s 2006 film of A Scanner Darkly innovates on common science fiction narratives, presenting a cautionary tale on paranoia and surveillance in a unique formal arrangement. By rotoscoping, or animating over live-action footage, the film was adapted into one of the most visually and thematically original motion pictures in decades. Though it is in part an examination of drug addiction, the picture does not pass judgment on users. The film's world is so skewed from the excessive filtering of surveillance technology and a paranoid dystopian government, it remains impossible to see anyone for who or what they really are.
In the early 1950s, author Philip K. Dick began writing science fiction and eventually elevated the genre, normally considered unsophisticated, to the level of art. Over the subsequent thirty years, Dick would release upwards of thirty novels and several short story collections. His self-proclaimed title was not that of an author, but rather, truth teller. The truth he wrote was his own and consisted of a vast fictionalized philosophy some might argue was—and is—not necessarily fiction. His most enthusiastic followers might say his work is visionary, if not prophetic.
Dick, who was primarily a science fiction writer, claimed his work spoke, and still speaks, to disturbed, troubled, and “off” members of society. His writing is for those who cannot rationalize society or reality: for those who need a satire, base, or frame of reference to rely on, as coping mechanisms. Science fiction creates the desired satirical reality for readers.
Written in 1977, A Scanner Darkly is fictionalized ode to the drug counter-culture of Dick’s own Berkeley, CA group. Standing against the blatantly penetrative Nixon administration, which was marked by a reputation for undue suspicion and conspicuous surveillance, his Berkeley group purveyed heavy paranoia and conspiracy theories. And yet, it also included a vast set of respected of thinkers, unafraid to speak out—not just mindless stoners. According to an interview with French TV, Dick claims the group’s paranoia was not unjustified. During the interview, Dick speaks of secret CIA and FBI files on him, covert operations to get at his personal documents, and rampant spying led by the heads of various government organizations. The Berkeley group, for Nixon and his administration, was a misunderstood collection of hippies—or simply “the unknown”—seen through a distorted set of views and political mechanisms.
The author had a lifetime’s worth of experience with drugs, psychosis, and a slight case of schizophrenia, but in no way should those characteristics (as opposed to problems) hinder the author’s message. Dick’s distinctiveness within the Berkeley group should reinforce that A Scanner Darkly may be more autobiographical than his other novels.
The story's main character is Bob Arctor (played in the film by Keanu Reeves) who is an addict of a drug called Substance D. But Bob is also Fred, an undercover narc spying on Arctor’s group of user friends. The main character loses sight of his identity because of Substance D, which chemically separates brain functions in the hemispheres; after prolonged use, the left and right sides of his brain are unaware of each other. Furthermore, the Fred portion of the main character is forced to conceal his identity from his supervisors for his own safety. No one knows exactly who Fred is; no one knows exactly who Bob is—including himself. The sole man representing both the narc and the addict does not realize he is spying on himself, and in a way, informing on himself, which next to suicide, stands as the penultimate form of self-betrayal.
“Substance D” may refer to “slow death.” According to the novel, the drug is made from a flower called “mors ontological”—Latin for ontological death—which denotes the death of existence or being. Seeing first-hand the damage substance abuse caused his friends (and not entirely unaffected himself), Dick weaned himself off drugs before this book was written. At the very end of his novel, Dick dedicates his fiction to several friends who died or retain permanent physical and mental dysfunction due to excessive drug use (this dedication is abbreviated at the end of Linklater’s film). He writes that for attempting to “play” with something dangerous, users are punished excessively and even unknowingly.
So often drug users are deemed worthless or mindless junkies for their habits, but A Scanner Darkly—the story and the title itself—asks that we do not pass judgment until we can see, in its entirety, the role of users. Throughout the course of the film, viewers are forced to accept drug use as a fact of the story, rather than a downfall of character. Drugs are the obscuring mechanism by which the narrative challenges audiences to accept and ultimately forgive the characters within.
The book’s title refers to a verse from the bible, namely 1 Corinthians 13: 11-12, a verse that is paradoxically read both at weddings and funerals:For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
There exists a pattern of dualism involved in this passage, particularly after its application to popular culture. Both in the novel and the film of A Scanner Darkly (not to mention Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s film Through a Glass Darkly), the idea of childhood versus adulthood, known and knowing, and parts versus the whole, are circumscribed so that the reader or audience cannot reconcile metonym from metaphor.
Dick’s writing often tells of worlds that are not what they seem. With A Scanner Darkly, the world remains undefined, distorted through a complicated process of filtration. Throughout the narrative, Dick never reveals the identity of his main character, in part, due to the setting’s massive use of surveillance technology. The protagonist is not altogether Bob, nor is he altogether Fred; he is made up of several constructs that refuse to assemble into a single, comprehensible symbol. Agent Fred watches Bob on numerous holo-scanners, which are located everywhere; every moment of every day in every location is scanned. Someone is always watching (or, that is what they want you to think). But Fred never fully understands or sees Bob. When he looks, he watches through a filter: the scanner. Thus, as Bob and Fred are the same person, Fred cannot fully understand himself. The overwhelming network of observational devices, the protagonist realizes, may distance the truth of what he sees.
The main character questions the authenticity of scopophilia-driven ways of looking at oneself or others:
What does a scanner see? he asked himself. I mean, really see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does a passive infrared scanner like they used to use or cube-type holo-scanner like they use these days, the latest thing, see into me—into us—clearly or darkly? I hope it does, he thought, see clearly, because I can't any longer these days see into myself. I see only murk. Murk outside; murk inside. I hope, for everyone's sake, the scanners do better. Because, he thought, if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I myself do, then we are cursed, cursed again and like we have been continually, and we'll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong too. - (A Scanner Darkly, p.185)
Scanners prevent authorities from seeing their suspects clearly; drugs debatably prevent the film’s main characters from seeing reality clearly (although, depending on the point of view, drugs may enhance their perspective); Linklater’s innovative use of animation in the film prevents audiences from seeing clearly. All these devices—scanners, drugs, animation—are filtering devices. They distance the viewer or the subject from the truth, for which knowledge thereof is impossible. We see through these devices as if a sfumato haze lingered between our eyes and what we see, the distortion impeding an accurate understanding.
With the latter example, the film’s animation, the distortion does not take away from the audience’s understanding of the story’s message. It adds to it. The rotoscoping technique postponed the film’s scheduled release, yet made the lengthy, nearly two-year production worth every moment to waiting audiences.
A Scanner Darkly’s filmic production actually struggled on for well over a decade with interested directors and forgotten scripts. In the 1990’s, filmmakers ranging from Brazil director Terry Gilliam to Naked Lunch director David Cronenberg attempted but failed to get their adaptation to film. Charlie Kaufman, writer of Being John Malkovich and the very Philip K. Dick-esque Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, wrote a screenplay for Dick’s much praised drug novel, although the script was never produced. Eventually, writer and director Richard Linklater wrote an adaptation, and George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh’s production company, Section Eight, picked it up.
Linklater’s versatile career includes comedies, an existential cartoon, and pensive, talky dramas. He is best known for his successful commercial work, such as Dazed and Confuzed and School of Rock, but his real talents flourish with narrative art film. Linklater's Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, Slacker, and the rotoscoped Waking Life have received praise for his impressive structuring of whole films around an ongoing conversation.
Similar to his own Waking Life, a film that some find existentialist nonsense and others see as philosophy on film, Linklater made the decision to rotoscope A Scanner Darkly. The process was originally used in 1914 by cartoonist Max Fleischer, and then next by Walt Disney to help cartoonists simulate natural movement. By painting or inking on live action footage, the characters in a film such as Sleeping Beauty were given more realistic bodily actions and facial expressions.
The original plan scheduled nine months worth of post-production animation, but the process took eighteen months to allow for the detail Linklater wanted for his rotoscoping. The result, in even seemingly insignificant scenes, is breathtaking. The flawless animation appears to be a comic book with a pulse; combine that with the bravado performances of the film’s actors, and the animation becomes just another piece of the apparatus that disappears in the glory of a great story. Some may hold reservations towards the technique, believing that the animation takes away from the authenticity of the actors’ performances or the narrative, but the result proves to enhance rather than hinder the actors’ places in A Scanner Darkly’s bizarre, paranoid reality just as it does with the film’s message.
The most impressive piece of animation in the picture is agent Fred’s “scramble suit,” which prevents Fred’s supervisors from identifying him, maximizing the security of his cover. Fred’s boss wears a similar suit; neither Fred nor his boss knows who is behind the other's suit. The “scramble suit” projects false identities via constantly shifting characteristics so that no surveillance mechanism can pinpoint the wearer’s identity. Animating the suit consists of creating hundreds, if not thousands of facial and bodily fragments that rotate at random. But each momentary identity has to maintain an overall shape and still project the actor underneath. When Keanu Reeves’s Fred moves, even from under the continually changing scramble suit, the audience can still recognize Reeves’ movements and body language.
The performances themselves were given by actors chosen not only for their sheer talent but, seemingly, for their off-screen reputation with drugs. Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, and Rory Cochrane have all had, or even lived, similar roles to theirs in A Scanner Darkly. Somehow rotoscoping wipes away that stigma, compiling a new face literally painted over the actor’s old one. The performers are made whole again, permitting the audience to forget about Downey Jr.’s reoccurring drug problems or Harrelson’s history with marijuana. They are no longer actors, but rather, characters given free range because of the innovative medium. Their off-screen reputations linger in our subconscious, to be remembered later upon reflecting on the film's artistry.
The most notable performance of the group is Robert Downey Jr. as Barris—a suspicious character so burnt out from the drugs and constant onslaught of paranoia that he’s become sadistically mistrusting, if only internally, of his friends. Downey Jr. plays Barris as a fast talking, often brilliant individual that can turn at any moment. He attempts, albeit unsuccessfully, to make a homemade silencer out of a toilet paper roll, and cocaine by freezing aerosol spray. Downey’s maniacal rapid-flow speech and brazen waving of the arms brings Barris—the most conniving, intelligent, humorous, sadistic, and likable character from the novel—to life.
Keanu Reeves and Rory Cochrane’s performances deserve mentioning, as each actor completely embodies their respective role. Reeves takes Bob (or is it Fred, or Bruce?) to the ambiguous level demanded. While Reeves has taken his share of guff for his inexpressive acting, he seems at ease and perfectly cast here. Looking back, no other actor could have given Bob-Fred-Bruce the same ambivalence to the world and to himself without making it appear too unintentional (or too intentional, for that matter).
Cochrane plays Freck, an overdosing Substance D fiend and one of Bob Arctor’s group of stoners. The first scenes in the film are of Freck attempting to wash and kill hallucinatory aphids from his body and out of his hair. Cochrane gives Freck the perfect helpless-yet-fearful twitch of a user that knows he has gone too far. Freck is pathetic, in the way that a victim is pathetic: although aware of his deteriorating state, he is too far gone to change the situation, and helpless to prevent his eventual collapse…
Like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed—run over, maimed, destroyed—but they continued to play anyway. We really all were very happy for a while, sitting around not toiling but just bullshitting and playing, but it was for such a terrible brief time, and then the punishment was beyond belief; even when we could see it, we could not believe it.
With Freck, we do not judge the users in A Scanner Darkly; instead, we see them as victims of ignorance. The novel was written before the establishment of massive anti-drug campaigns and foundations like D.A.R.E.. Dick and his Berkeley group, which one can imagine was not dissimilar from Arctor’s group, were neither victims nor criminals for their usage. Both the film and Dick’s novel share a potent message—particularly in the climax of the story, which reveals that the foundation set up to cure people of Substance D addiction is the very organization creating it—that speaks against the type of suspicious world where people have no choice but to escape. Neither the film nor the book condone drug use, but they understand it and do not blame users for attempting to distract themselves from the ever-encroaching, even oppressive watchful eye of society and the government looming in.
Richard Linklater’s film has been praised, even by Philip K. Dick’s daughter Isa, as an accurate, generous, and artistic adaptation. Dick’s work has a notorious reputation for being slaughtered by screenwriters. The few good adaptations out there still stray from the writer’s original yarn, though in spirit they remain faithful. Linklater captured the plot, the spirit, and most importantly, the eccentric dialogue of Dick’s original work.
Wondrous and curious sights are shown in this film—so wondrous that we begin to mistrust our eyes. When we cannot trust what we see and how we feel, when we suspect our senses, and when a world like the one depicted in A Scanner Darkly succeeds so well in drawing us in and making us as paranoid as its characters, we find ourselves involved in the story more so than we realized. Like the characters in the film, we involved in the long, drug-fueled conversations and skewed perceptions of reality, forgetting about the inherent dangers until all at once, we realize that Freck, Arctor, and eventually the rest, will succumb to a slow death.
Philip K. Dick (1928-1982)