LOST IN AMERICA SURVEYS A MEANER, HARDER WORLD IN A SCANNER DARKLY AND EAST EODD NATION

N EXlKhMELY KA]lill"UI. ADAI'- by Keanu Reeves, has lose both himself and all but the most tenuous of connec- tation of Philip K. Dick's 1977 tions to reality—and whether he'll ever recover remains an t>pen question. A novel, right down to the inclusion You could say that L.lnkLirer's a long way from home with this fitfully comic oT the author's postscript roll-call oi drug- but ultimately bleak and haunting material. But is he? Most of his Hlms are above casualty comrades, A Scanner Darkly finds all attuned to the way consciousness wrestles with questions of authenticity and Richard I.inklater journeying deep into the self-definition—they're driven by the intrinsic sense of possibility contained in peo- spooky, lonesome badlands of the psyche. If ple's ruminations and open-hearted yearnings, in the human urge to question and the similarly animated and interiorized Wak- inquire and connect. [Respite its melancholic conclusion. positively ing Life (01) was a playful, free-associative reioices in the endless permutations of the mind's engagement with the world, exploration of dream logic and an engag- much as Slacker (91) celebrates the overwhelming diversity of individuality to be ingly dialectical survey of the nature of real- found if you spend a day wandering the streets of Austin, Texas, I.inklater's base ity and existence, /\ Scanner Darkly is a bad of operations. And (95) and Before Sttiisct (04) are two ditferetit trip in which the dissolution of a schizoid, takes on restless spirits trying on possible approaches to the world around tbem drug-addled mind refracts ii dystopian and coming to grips with life's Big Questions, hopefully and self-consciously in the American Now. By the end of rhis tale of first film, and with regrets and doubts in its nine-years-on sequel. I.inklater's paranoia and betrayal, set in a spectral movies are grounded in a faith in the freethinking individual's ability to find bis or world where there's a surveillance camera on her own way instead of simply accepting received imperatives. At the same time, every street corner, the film's protagomst, as demonstrates, introspcctit)n is no walk in the park; loss and dis- Bob, a near-future undercover narc played illusionment are never far. A Scantter Darkly, like Linklater's 2001 digital video

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experiment T^ipe, plays out these same fundamental questions, but in a fallen world where life has been hollowed out and the future looks less than bright: INTERVIEW BY GAVIN SMITH "Does a scanner see clearly or darkly? I see only murk," concludes Bob. Entropy and impasse, evidenr from the start in some of Sbcker''s more nihilistic and para- What makes A Scar)r)er Darkly so haunting is noid monologues, have become this film's domain. this sense of an identity gradually dissolving. Back in the day, Slacker was described as a film that posited "persona! refusal Well, it's always, I think, the most interesting instead of politics," Maybe. But as if to refute this, hard on the heels of A question: Who are you? That's the question Scanner Darkly comes Linklater's soon-to-be-released hast Food Nation, with we ask ourselves our whole lives. Obviously, its grim minimum-wage realities and pervasive moral compromises. A fictive your most enduring relation is who you think take on Eric Schlosser's nonfiction expose, it presents a holistic view of the inner you are to who you have been in the past— workings of a corporation that is McDonald's in all but name. Matter-of-fact and and then there's always who you really are, unsensationalized but no less incisive for it, the film delves into the business of which some of us never know. So much of junk food from top to bottom, dividing its time among three narratives that our identity' is wrapped in an illusion. It's just depict working life in the meatpacking plant, in retail outlets, and in the executive a construct of who we want to he rather than suite. Laying bare a structure that effectively embodies an entire socioeconomic who we are. So Scanner totally stacks the system and its values ("the machine that's taken over our country," as one char- deck in that direction. At some point in the acter puts it). Fast Food Nation is Linklater's most ambitious iilm to date in its past he has taken a job as an undercover nar- reach and scope. Here, for once, questions of identity and the meaning of life cotics officer, so that's kind of interesting, to must take a backseat to putting food on the table and making a living. be play-acting someone you're not. And Linklater's films have always been, in part, an implicit ongoing reflection on then, when he's assigned to observe himself, American life and values, from Dazed and Confttsed (93) to (03). it gets surreal. And when you throw Into the Taken together, Fast Food Nation and A Scanner Darkly constitute a comprehen- cocktail that his brain is actually splitting in sive political vision of today's gtoves-off, No More Mr. Nice Guy America, where two due to his own drug addiction from his dissent isn't tolerated and exploitation is the name of the game. job, it results in bis actually forgetting who he is altogether. It's a twisted Philip K. Dick world that was kind of impossible to resist— Nightmare nation (clockwise from left): Keanu Reeves (drinking), Robert Downey Jr. so rich, so many layers in that area. It's seen (smoking), Keanu again (glowing), Winona Ryder (driving), and Rory Cochrane (busted)

July-August 2006 FILM COMMENT I 27 as a kind of nightmarish scenario, but I would ask the question. Is it really so bad to forget who you are.^ I think a big part of the human spirit's struggle is trying to transcend yourself, whether it's through religion or some mystical means or through drugs, to forget yourself, to become egoless, to lose yourself in some- thing bigger than yourself. It's an inter- esting tightrope we all walk, and I've felt it my whole life—forging an identity or a strong sense of yourself. And yet it can be really unhealthy depending on what's attached to that. In your case you found or lost yourself by joining the cult of cinema. Yeah, the cult of art in general, and cin- ema would be the subculture within They drive by night: Fred/Bob Arctor (Reeves) and Donna (Ryder) that. I always felt cinema was a parallel life that I preferred to the real world. It forgetting Bob. Wbat we do so well as wanted to run away ... I saw it more in probably goes back to something as people is proceed in what, at least to our- tragic, sad terms. I'm still very in touch childlike as sitting in a movie theater selves, is a consensual reality. We might with myself at a younger age when I and forgetting yourself completely as be the only person consenting, but we might have said, "Cool, fuck that. I don't you watch this dream on the big screen. think this is reality. I've met people who ever want to be married in a three-bed- Obviously, that's why film has always are pretty far gone with Alzheimer's, room, two-batbroom house with 2.3 been so successful. It's a physical mani- who've forgotten so much of their life, children." I totally relate to tbat guy, too, festation of what we all do every night, and yet they seem pretty content and in but a guy rejecting his kids is very sad to which is to dream. the moment. That's how we had to work me at this point in my life. And film infiltrates your nervous sys- Keanu. Scsme impulse is firing when Bob What were you going after in terms of tem. Watching a movie is an experience walks up to his house and he's forgotten tone? that lives on within you aftervi/ards. that it's his house—"There's something To me, the narrative challenge was to It's still in you in a similar way a per- going on in this house." Your body capture both the fun, exuberant, and sonal memory would be. Some of your doesn't care about that. It's functioning. ridiculous bilariry of the drug world, and most intense emotions or experiences That's our main motivation, just to stay the tragedy, the paranoia, and the sad- come through secondary sources. Eor alive, function, and keep going. ness tbat comes in the wake of it. There's me, it was intense moments watching Did you have a backstory, a sense of an up and a down tbat are often very movies. Not that my life is devoid of vi/hat Bob was like before? We do get a close together, not just in the drug world, intense moments, I have plenty of them, flashback. If vi^e can believe it. but in this world in general. The drug but some of the most profound, because Yeah, there's a wife, kids, all that. We world only accentuates and accelerates they're so perfectly clean, because you're didn't dwell too much on rhe past, and it. The tonal shifts required are really not directly involved, are in films. When we even left it open that maybe that's not amazing. And it's not just comic relief; it's your own life, you have so much real either. that's the world they're living in, that's baggage attached. Bur there's something Bob's old life is one of conformity, and the way their brains are working, the clean about a moment in cinema that then something causes him to reject it. way they're synchronized witb each you're purely moved by. Yeah, I found that fascinating. We play it other on a certain high. And then it slides In adapting the book, what did you like, "Yes, he did have a wife and kids, into paranoia, isolation, despair. decide about who the protagonist really and they did live in that house." But that Why did you return to the rotoscope is or was—is he Bob or Fred? whole sentiment, that you could turn animation used in Waking Life? There were many times Keanu and I your back on that life of conformity—in 1 always saw the film that way for the would look at each other and say, "Well, my twenties I would have thought same reason that I thought it worked in who is this guy at this moment?" You maybe that was a cool thing or liberat- Waking Life: that it challenges the viewer chart out where he's losing himself and ing. Now 1 find it just incredibly sad. in the area of realism—you have to ques- to what degree, what percentage is he Having a few kids myself, I think that if tion the reality of it. It's obviously a Fred at this moment, how much is he you couldn't find any joy in that and human construct, but it seems real, too.

28 I FILM COMMENT ! July-August 2006 It puts your brain into an interesting Motion Picture Arts Gaiiery arena. Film puts your brain in that place an^'ay, but I think this particular ani- EXPERIENCED IN THE ART OF THE MOVIES mation technique, because it does have a reality basis, really tweaks that knob one more notch. 90 Oak Street, East Rutherford, New Jersey 07073 How did the approach to animation PHONE 201-635-1444 FAX 201-635-1445 shift? Waking Life was all about individual characters being drawn different ways, in their own way. And it kind oi pulsed., a product of drawing 12 frames per second instead of 24, and then the com- puter interpolating the extra frames, so you get this kind of doubling. It con- tributed to a slightly floaty', breathing The Motion Picture Arts Gallery was effect. This time we drew all 24 frames. founded in 1982, on the belief that motion We were going for a ver>' specific, con- sistent look: the look of this movie is picture art —especiaily fiim and movie more like a graphic novel. posters —is timeiess and enduring. Our And the cinematic correlatives are less inventory consists of more thon 20,000 sci-fi movies than gritty Seventies original movie posters and lobby cards street films. spanning 100 years of cinema. Yeah, that's true. It was fun to be in the realm of science fiction, but my jumping-off point was more Alphaville than anything else. People always think science fiction is about the future, but I always thought, "No, we're going to play it just like it is right now." Just because it's the future doesn't mean they take all the old cars off the street. Look at Cuba. And the animation is now about the nuances and subtleties of the actor's face. Design and detail, detail, detail. It just about killed us. It took so much more f TYRONi time. You want to capture a perfor- POWER mance and do justice to these actors, and you want people to forget they're watching an animated film. We only iOUt C31EEH HEItN had a few scenes in Waking Life that BLDHDEll GBAY WALKK had similar detail. None of your movies buy into the idea of Please visit our website with its heroism. But here the ending raises the Monthly Feotures, Collecting and possibility of Bob making a difference. Film Noir sections. I've never wanted to do that before. It doesn't seem real to me. Bob's gone, and New acquisitions are added daiiy, we don't know if he's ever coming back. so visit us today at: It's as if Nicholson at the end of One Plew Over the Cuckoo's Nest had been www.mpagallery.com programmed to do something to put the hospital out of business. Bob has been

July-August 2006 I ULM COMMENT I 29 programmed to maybe, mayhe do feel natural to me. some good in the war that's going on. I Was there a point where getting the could live with it in this case because at movie made became compelting? the end he's a pawn in someone else's 1 actually felt for the first time that I game. You can't really look at it and was doing something that's just bigger say that's a traditional hero. than me. I've always felt 1 was doing The America you're visualizing here and something that was immediate and in Fast Food Nation is a bit more bleak made sense to me, but with this one, I than the one in . was kind of aware that the subject Things have gotten a little darker. That matter was taking me to a much feels real to me now, whereas it didn't bigger place. But I didn't want to get feel real to me 10 years ago. It's a dif- precious about it. I almost had to fight ferent vibe out there. That's what made that feeling, because that's where you me think Scannefs time had come. end up being really full of shit. So the paranoid gestalt that comes up How did you shoot the kill-floor scene in parts of Slacker has become a reality? at the end? Yeah. So many conspiracy theories are Many times we couldn't light or had just your garden-variety paranoia, but very limited time. They might let us conspiracy theory plus a generation Servitude with a smile: Fast Food Nation in for an hour or two. We just had to quite often equals reality. What people shoot around reality, and many times thought was crackpot thinking in some don't want to make a piece of propa- what you see in the plant, it's people of Dick's books wasn't that far off: ganda, but I am interested in workers. actually working. We just insinuated unwinnable wars on drugs and terror- I am interested in all these issues. fictional people into real situations. ism, the idea of a surveillance state— Why the structural device of dropping But I was equipped for it. iMany a those are all ver\' real things. We treated the Greg Kinnear character's narrative time the crew would say, "There's New Path as if it were Halliburton. The thread halfway through? just no way we can do that in three government has outsourced the drug Boy, that met with a lot of opposition. hours. That's a day and a half, two war to this company, and they're not It was like, "Unless you're Hitchcock days' work." And my AD Vince going to unemploy themselves; they've doing Psycho, you're not supposed to Palmo and myself, we'd say, "Hey, got stockholders to answer to. There start the film with somebody and then anybody could film in a day and a are no human bad guys. The bad guy is have them leave the movie halfway half, artyhody. We are the only peo- this quasi-governmental corporation through." But that's our metaphor. ple who can get it and get out in two that's there to help. Downey says it all We've seen Nnrma Rae and Silk- hours. That's why we're doing this." in the first scene in the cafe. wood, we recognize we're in that kind This was definitely my most difficult Given that the book Fast Food Nation is of genre—but it's not going to be one shoot since Dazed and Confused, in nonfiction, what was your initial model? person coming in and changing it, it's the similar way that the scope and Eric and I just decided we had to so much bigger than that. In Shane the ambition of the film so far out- throw out the book altogether—but the hero comes in and takes out a distanced our budget and schedule. keep the name and the atmosphere, town and that's the story. So it's like, But I was up for that challenge. and the focus on one town in Col- "Not this time. That's not going to How many days was it? orado. Traffic would be a precedent in work here." So it was fun to have Oh gosh, we had like thirtyish days. that it's a good example of that narra- him just drift away, and you don't Hell, Dazed and Confused, I needed tive device where you take a subject miss him, because his effectiveness 42 days, and I got 36. I could have and you attack it from various angles. has run its course. used an extra week or two here. I had We don't have as many angles. We everything I could probably ever get— really only have three. By the end of Did you consider a more satiric. Dr. but it was just the limitations of the the movie we only have two. Our orig- Strangelove tone? environmerrts we were shooting in. No inal jumping-off point was Sherwood Wow—you know, it started going there matter what budget or schedule, we Anderson's Wineshurg, Ohio—to do a lot, and at times I felt like maybe that still would have had only two hours to the story of a place and see it from a was the best way to go. Didn't Kuhrick shoot. But, hey, I'm not really com- lot of different people's points of view. start making Strangelove pretty plaining. It adds its own feel. IZI Eric suggested that, and that's when it straight, and the jokes kept coming clicked for me. That's what I do, and and they realized they were in the that would he my point of entry—I middle of a big satire? I looked for The interview continues online at that a few times, hut then that didn't www.fiimlinc.com.

30 I FILM COMMEN"^ July-August2006