A Scanner Darkly (film)
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| A Scanner Darkly | |
|---|---|
 "A Scanner Darkly" Promotional Poster |
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| Directed by | Richard Linklater |
| Produced by | Tommy Pallotta Anne Walker-McBay Palmer West Jonah Smith Erwin Stoff |
| Written by | Novel: Philip K. Dick Screenplay: Richard Linklater |
| Starring | Keanu Reeves Robert Downey, Jr. Woody Harrelson Winona Ryder Rory Cochrane |
| Music by | Graham Reynolds |
| Cinematography | Shane F. Kelly |
| Editing by | Sandra Adair |
| Distributed by | Warner Independent |
| Release date(s) | July 7, 2006 (Limited) July 28, 2006 (Wide) |
| Running time | 100 Mins. |
| Country | USA  |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $6 million [1] |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
A Scanner Darkly is a 2006 film by Richard Linklater based on the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name. The film tells the story of a dystopic society in the near future which uses an invasive high-technology surveillance system to try to combat a huge drug addiction epidemic. The movie was filmed digitally and then animated using cel-shading with an interpolated rotoscope.
The film was written and directed by Richard Linklater, and it stars Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey, Jr., and Rory Cochrane. Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney are among the film's executive producers. A Scanner Darkly was released in July 2006 in limited release, and then widely released later that month. The movie was screened at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and the 2006 Seattle International Film Festival.
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[edit] Plot
In the near future (seven years from now), America has lost the war on drugs. A highly addictive and debilitating illegal drug called Substance D, distilled from small blue flowers, has swept across the country. In response, the government develops an invasive, high-tech surveillance system and puts in place a network of informants and police narcotics agents.
The main character, Bob Arctor (Reeves), is a drug user who lives in an unkempt suburban tract house in a poor neighborhood (Anaheim, CA) littered with garbage. Arctor lives with several house mates, who are heavy drug users, and they pass their days by taking drugs and having long, bizarre, drug-induced conversations. Unbeknownst to the other drug users, Arctor is also an undercover police agent, codenamed Fred, who has been assigned to spy on them. Arctor shields his true identity from the people in the drug subculture by living in a poor neighborhood, adopting a grungy, unshaven look, and using drugs.
At the same time, as the undercover officer Fred, Arctor also hides his identity from his fellow police officers by wearing a high-tech "scramble suit" that changes his voice and appearance. Arctor meets his superior officer, Hank, at the police station every day. Like Arctor, the superior officer wears a "scramble suit" that changes his voice and appearance. Arctor doesn't know his superior officer's true appearance or age or even if the officer is a man or a woman.
While posing as a deadbeat drug user, Arctor becomes addicted to Substance D (often known simply as Death), a powerful psychoactive drug which causes a dreamy state of intoxication and bizarre hallucinations; chronic users may develop a split personality, cognitive problems, and severe paranoia. Arctor falls in love with an attractive young woman named Donna Hawthorne (Ryder), a user of Substance D and cocaine, who is part of the drug scene.
Due to Arctor's chronic and heavy use of Substance D, he develops cognitive problems which stop the two hemispheres of his brain from communicating. As a result, Arctor is no longer able to distinguish between his roles as a drug user and a policeman, which makes him incapable of performing his job as a narcotics agent. Arctor's superior officer, Hank, reprimands Arctor for becoming addicted to Substance D while undercover, and warns him that he will be disciplined.
Hank turns out to be Donna, the woman whom Arctor was in love with. Arctor, of course, could not recognize Donna at the police station because she was wearing the "scramble suit." After Donna reveals to Arctor that she knows his identity, she takes Arctor to "New Path," a corporation that runs a series of rehabilitation clinics. Arctor begins to experience the severe symptoms of Substance D withdrawal. It turns out Donna was part of a greater police operation to infiltrate New Path, and Arctor had been selected, without his knowledge or consent, to carry out the sting.
As part of the rehabilitation program at New Path, Arctor is renamed "Bruce" and put through psychological reconditioning treatments. Arctor has serious neurocognitive deficits (i.e., brain damage) from his withdrawal from Substance D, which has turned him into a mentally retarded, childlike automaton. To continue his rehabilitation, New Path sends Arctor to work at an isolated New Path corn farming commune. Through the haze of his cognitive deficits, Arctor spots rows of blue flowers hidden between rows of corn; these blue flowers are the plant source of Substance D. As the film ends, Arctor hides one of the blue flowers in his boot, so that, when he returns to the city New Path clinic during Thanksgiving, he can give it to his "friends"--people who are undercover police agents (i.e. Donna).
[edit] Reception
A Scanner Darkly opened on July 7, 2006 to mixed reviews, with critics disagreeing over the film's merits. Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times found the film "engrossing" and wrote that "the brilliance of [the film] is how it suggests, without bombast or fanfare, the ways in which the real world has come to resemble the dark world of comic books."[2] Similarly, Matthew Turner of of ViewLondon, believing the film to be "engaging" and "beautifully animated," also praised the film for its "superb performances" and original, thought-provoking screenplay.[3]
However, several critics were distanced by the film's content and thematic elements. James Berardinelli awarded the film two stars (out of four), noting that the film suffers from an "inability to draw in the viewer." He also noted that the film "is not involving on an emotional level" and that the general theme of the film is "well-trodden." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly was also unimpressed, awarding the film a final rating of "C-," writing that the film is "more fun to think about than [it] is to experience." He also found the film to follow a confusing narrative and that the storyline "goes nowhere."[4] Overall, the film holds a 66% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes, with an average critical rating of 6.5/10.[5]
Having never been intended for mainstream audiences, the film opened in seventeen theaters and grossed $391,672 for a per-theater average of $23,039. The film saw some expansion in later weeks and ultimately grossed $5.5 million domestically and $7.6 million worldwide, earning back its $6 million production budget.[6] While this was far from a smash hit (and was a small gross compared to several of the starring actors' past releases), the film fared quite well in limited release, especially considering the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest[7] in the same weekend, and fared much better than director Richard Linklater's other feature, Fast Food Nation, released the same year.[8]
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Keanu Reeves | Bob Arctor / Fred |
| Rory Cochrane | Freck |
| Robert Downey, Jr. | Barris |
| Woody Harrelson | Luckman |
| Winona Ryder | Donna |
[edit] End credits
The end credits list people who have suffered serious permanent physical or mental damage (brain damage, psychosis, pancreatic trauma, etc.) or death as a result of massive drug use. The names are found in the afterword ("Author's Note") of the novel. The note that Dick wrote to accompany this list is also faithfully reproduced in these end credits, in which he mourns the list members' deaths and destruction. Dick includes his own name on the list, as a victim of pancreatic failure.
Linklater himself adds another name to the end credits and dedicates the film to the memory of Louis Mackey. Mackey was an influential philosophy professor at the University of Texas at Austin; he had appeared in two of Linklater's previous films and who died in 2004.
[edit] Differences between the novel and the film
Though the film is mostly a faithful adaptation, it differs in several ways from the novel:
- The film was updated in several ways to be more contemporary than the novel. The novel, published in 1977, takes place in 1994. The film opens with a "seven years from now" text; this would place it in 2013, assuming the setting is in relation to the film's 2006 release date, but Linklater stated in the DVD commentary that he intended to keep the year vague so that the film doesn't have a fixed "expiration date." Also, despite taking place in 1994, the dialogue in the novel is rife with the 1970s hippie slang that was prevalent when it was written; none of the slang is featured in the film. Finally, some of the technology has been updated, e.g. cell phones replace pay phones.
- The film reveals blue flowers as the source of Substance D in the first few minutes, while this revelation is part of the ending in the novel.
- The novel's characters of Jerry Fabin and Charles Freck are combined into Freck.
- In the film, "Hank" is revealed to be Donna. In the novel, Hank's identity is never explicity revealed, only hinted at.
- The depiction of the scramble suit is slightly different than its description in the novel. The novel describes the images on the suit being "projected at any nanosecond and then switched to the next." In the film, the images on the suit are projected and switched at a slower rate because director Richard Linklater asked that the faces be visible as they changed. [1]
- All references to the "cephalochromoscope" (or "cephscope"), a recreational device that displays brain patterns, have been removed.
- As with most film adaptations of novels, numerous scenes and subplots were not included in the film, such as Arctor visiting a female friend trapped in an abusive relationship, Donna's hostility toward Coca-Cola delivery trucks, and Arctor's attempt to admit himself to New Path in hopes of tracking down a drug smuggler believed to be hiding there.
- The Lions Clubs, where Fred gives a speech early in the novel, was changed to the fictional Brown Bear Lodge for the film. Also, McDonald's was changed to the fictional General Burgers.
[edit] Animation
[edit] Rotoscoping
A Scanner Darkly was filmed digitally using the Panasonic AG-DVX100 and then animated with Rotoshop, a proprietary graphics editing program created by Bob Sabiston. Rotoshop uses an animation technique called interpolated rotoscope, which was previously used in Linklater's film Waking Life. Linklater discussed the ideas and inspiration behind his use of rotoscoping in a UK documentary about him in 2004, linking it to his personal experiences of lucid dreaming. Rotoscoping in traditional cel animation originally involved tracing over film frame-by-frame. This is similar in some respects to the rotoscope style of filmmaker Ralph Bakshi. Rotoshop animation, however, makes use of vector keyframes, and interpolates the in-between frames automatically. Sabiston and his team initially managed this unprecedented animation pipeline, but at the time of his departure, art direction in the studio was still not established and the film's production process was extended well past its initial September 2005 release date target.[9] Each minute of animation required 500 hours of work.[10]
[edit] Score
[edit] Music
The score (more than an hour's worth is in the film) was provided by Austin, Texas-based composer Graham Reynolds. Linklater approached Reynolds in 2003 after a club performance and suggested Reynolds create the score for A Scanner Darkly. Linklater and Reynolds had worked previously on Live from Shiva's Dance Floor, a 20 minute short featuring Timothy "Speed" Levitch.
The composition and recording process took over one and a half years (the unusual time allotment was due to the film's time-consuming animation process) and was done in Reynolds' east Austin home, in his bedroom. This is not a synthesized score; all the instruments except electric guitar and bass were acoustic, though many were transformed through effects. The film also includes clips of four previously released Radiohead songs ("Fog","pulk/pull revolving doors" "Skttrbrain" (Four Tet Remix), "The Amazing Sounds of Orgy") and one new Thom Yorke song, Black Swan.
[edit] Soundtrack
The album is available from Lakeshore Records and includes the score by Graham Reynolds featuring the Golden Arm Trio. Additionally, the CD includes exclusive remixes of Graham's music by DJ Spooky and Jack Dangers (Meat Beat Manifesto). After finishing the film, Reynolds set to work on remixing the surround sound music into stereo. He then selected 44 minutes out of the film score in order to craft a listening CD while attempting to retain some feel of the arc of the film. Some of the shorter cues were assembled into longer CD tracks.
[edit] Trivia
- During the trailer, a quick shot of a woman wearing Philips headphones shows the words "Phil D." for a logo; this would seem to be an abbreviation for Philip (K.) Dick. The words streaming across the screen she's looking at are from the Blade Runner script.
- In the novel, Philip K. Dick mentions that the scramble suit was invented by a man named S. A. Powers and that he would appear every so often, for a fraction of a second, as one of its faces. In the film, Dick appears for a split second on the scramble suit, and close inspection shows that he wears an identification tag with the name S. A. Powers.
- During the scene in which Arctor, Barris, and Luckman discuss the possibility of their house being broken into, Luckman says, "What if they come in through the back door or the bathroom window like that infamous Beatles song?" The song referenced is "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window." This line is also in the novel but does not reference the song.
- Though several popular films based on Philip K. Dick's writing have been released since the first, 1982's Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly is the first American-made adaptation since Blade Runner to be based on one of Dick's full novels instead of a short story. 1992 saw the release of Confessions d'un Barjo, based on the novel Confessions of a Crap Artist.
- During the tow truck scene, the crew is going north on Highway 5 through Irvine and passing by the Tustin Market Place.
- During the grease monkey scene, the names "Philip" and "Scott Sale" can be seen on Barris's watch.
- Alex Jones makes a cameo appearance in the film. The director, Richard Linklater, has been interviewed by Jones regarding how he associates real life with the movie, and how he was inspired by some of Jones' core ideologies.
- Also, at one point towards the beginning of the film, the screen 'fast forwards' as Jim Barris and Freck enter a gas station shop. Very briefly a police officer can be seen reading a magazine that quotes "Alex Jones Runs for Office" on the cover.
- A long-running rumor suggested that Radiohead was composing the score for this film. This turned out to be incorrect; however, the song "Black Swan" by Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke and other songs such as the Radiohead B-side "Fog" and "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" from the album Amnesiac are featured in the film. The song featured in the original theatrical trailer is "Teen Angst" by electronica band M83.
- Both Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr play drug addicts. In real life, Downey has been arrested on multiple occasions for drug possession, and Harrelson is a marijuana/hemp activist.
- The first 24 minutes of the film are available for free viewing at IGN Filmforce.[11]
- The title of the book/movie is a reference to a verse in the Christian Bible, 1 Corinthians: 13:12: "For now we see through a glass, darkly."
- The animators rotoscoped themselves into the movie on several occasions, including quick frames of faces on the scramble suit as well as background pictures in photo frames and in the scanner sequence where the girl is trying to identify Arctor in the system. They would also put random references with their names on background materials.
- A June of 44 poster is visible in Bob/Fred's house.
- Extensive on-set footage of the filming of A Scanner Darkly was featured in a UK documentary about Richard Linklater directed by Irshad Ashraf and broadcast on Channel 4 in December 2004.
- This is the second film in which Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder have worked together, and portrayed lovers. The pair portrayed Jonathan Harker and Mina Harker respectively in the 1992 movie, Bram Stoker's Dracula.
[edit] DVD
The DVD was released in North America on December 19, 2006 and in the UK on January 22, 2007. The following extras are included: the theatrical trailer; "Weight of the Line," an animation tales feature; "One Summer in Austin," a short documentary on the filming of the movie; and audio commentary from actor Keanu Reeves, director Richard Linklater, producer Tommy Pallotta, author Jonathan Lethem, and Phillip K. Dick's daughter, Isa Dick Hackett.
[edit] See also
- List of animated feature films
- Rotoshop - the program used for animating this film
[edit] References
- ^ Macaulay, Scott. (Winter, 2006). "The Schizoid Man". Filmmaker Magazine. Retrieved on Jul. 26, 2006.
- ^ http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-scannerdarkly7jul07,0,5662926.story
- ^ http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/review_2911.html
- ^ http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1210208,00.html
- ^ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/scanner_darkly/?sortby=rating&critic=columns
- ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=scannerdarkly.htm
- ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2006&wknd=27&p=.htm
- ^ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=fastfoodnation.htm
- ^ La Franco, Robert. (Mar. 2006). "Trouble in Toontown". Wired magazine. Retrieved on Jul. 26, 2006.
- ^ Howell, Peter. "Linklater's dark place", The Toronto Star, 2006-07-05. Retrieved on 2007-01-26.
- ^ "24 minute preview of A Scanner Darkly", IGN Filmforce, 13 July 2006.
[edit] External links
- A Scanner Darkly at the Internet Movie Database
- Official site
- First 24 minutes of A Scanner Darkly (Hosted by ign.com)
- A Scanner Darkly Movie details
- Trailer in streamed Windows Media Video format
- High Resolution Extended Trailer QuickTime format
- A Scanner Darkly at Rotten Tomatoes
- St Richard of Austin UK documentary about Richard Linklater featuring extensive on set footage of A Scanner Darkly
- 'A Scanner Darkly': Reality Bites Interview with Richard Linklater on "A Scanner Darkly", MTV Overdrive.
- A Scanner Darkly Production Notes
- Interview with Richard Linklater
- Austin Chronicle interview with Linklater
- Austin Chronicle interview with composer Graham Reynolds
- Radio Interview withRichard Linklater from FBi 94.5 Sydney Australia
- initial screenplay by Charlie Kaufman - 1st draft (Dec. 20, 1997) (pdf)
- Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly -- interview on NPR
- Mansized A Scanner Darkly review
- A Scanner Darkly: video interview, exclusive photos, Richard Linklater interview, and more at Premiere.com
| Films directed by Richard Linklater |
|---|
| It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books • Slacker • Dazed and Confused • Before Sunrise • subUrbia • The Newton Boys • Waking Life • Tape • School of Rock • Before Sunset • Bad News Bears • A Scanner Darkly • Fast Food Nation |
