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Philip K. Dick's Hollywood Afterlife
HarryLeBlanc writes "Wired has a long thoughtful article about Philip K Dick's posthumous Hollywood career. It has some interesting tidbits in it (imagine Total Recall directed by Cronenburg and starring William Hurt!), and does a good job of covering his Hollywood history (though it overlooks Barjo), and it doesn't gloss over how PKD would have hated what Hollywood has done to much of his work."
Hollywood is a nothingness that eats people. (See Terry Pratchett, "Moving Pictures"
it's been rumored for years that A Scanner Darkly has been in production - by the same team that did GATTACA. i've been looking quite forward to it, but seems to have gone the way of chris cunningham doing Neuromancer... vaporware...
Phillip K. Dick has been one of my favorite authors for a long time now. My mind bends along the same tunnels he trodded. The pink light, the red curtains, the overlapping of realities.
I hope that we can some day see his notes on the Owl in Daylight (the novel he never finished/or pretty much even began) because from what exists in his thought patterns in What if our world is their Heaven? -- it was to be a classic work.
Valis is required reading, but it must come to someone at the right time. If at the wrong time they may never touch it again. Ubik would make a fantastic film, as would A Scanner Darkly.
I had read awhile back that Richard Linklater was interested in doing an animated Scanner Darkly, and I think that would have worked out really well. Still, Soderberg would be able to pick up on the needed subtleties in that novel. George Clooney as Bob Arctor could definitley work out well.
The Man in the High Castle also would make a great movie. Hollywood needs to focus on his novels. His short stories just barely scratched the surface of what he was trying to reveal. Perhaps that is why they have been used mostly to date, because they are more skeletal and can be mutated into a product easily.
d. Taylor Singletary,
reality technician techra.el
I think that's being unfair. "The psychological effects and costs of ambition have been done since the Greeks -- they certainly are not Shakespeare's themes." Hmmm. Reads a bit off, doesn't it? The Wired author probably is a little breahtless (in Wired? Really?) But these are "Dick's themes" in that they are themes he explored exhaustively. While it would be hyperbole to trace all such stories back to Dick, it would be a disservice to pretend he has not had a major impact on stories with such themes. In fact, I do not believe it too gross an exaggeration to claim that he has more impact in this subgenre than any other single person.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
David Lynch has a movie called Lost Highway that deals with multiple/parallel realities. I actually didn't understand it, does anyone here know what I'm talking about? I've watched it about 5 times and can't figure it out!
I don't know how PKD felt about Total Recall, but according to the documentary On The Edge Of Blade Runner:
...it was left to me to go in with a few of my key people and [Dick] and his friend go down and sit in the screening room and uh ...and he said very little and I said, "Roll it." And it went dark. The ten minutes of optical takes ran, the lights came up, Philip turned around, looked me right in the eyes and he says, "How is this possible? I don't understand this." He says, "This feels exactly like what I had in my head when I was writing it. How does this happen?" At that moment it was probably the best moment in my career because I said (making fist), "We nailed it."
Philip K. Dick was reasonably unhappy. Katie Haber gave me a call and said, "put together the best of the best in a reel," and
- David Dryer, Visual Effects Supervisor ("Blade Runner")
My
Limekiller
I recently ran across two articles about the strong links between creativity and insanity, and thought them relevant to any discussion of PKD -- his methamphetamine abuse left him more or less permanently schizophrenic, but the quality of his work did not suffer: quite the contrary.
Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.
In defence of Total Recall 2070, that "movie" is just the first two episodes of the series welded together. I thought it was a bit cheesy at first, but continued watching anyway. It turned out that the series itself is really good as a whole, one of the best SciFi series I've seen. It has virtually nothing to do with the Arnie film, apart from the fact that there is a company called Rekall. It deals with some really interesting ideas to do with mind control, religion, androids, drug use, and all kinds of stuff in later episodes. It's a shame it got killed after one season, but at least the end ties up quite nicely.
"Much as Wired writers like to sensationalize everything nowadays, it is too much of a stretch to attribute all 'false realities' stories to Dick. Philosophers going back to Plato and Descartes have explored doubt of their external realities. They are certainly NOT Dick's themes."
I think you're reading the sentence wrong -- the claim isn't that PKD "owns" the themes of paranoia, memory and alternate realities -- the claim is that paranoia, memory and alternate realities were the themes that underlay his writing. And it's also pretty obvious that PKD's work was a massive influence on writers that followed him. And given how obsessively he dwelt on those themes, even though he didn't invent them, they've become "his".
As a side note, it left out Confessions d'un Barjo.
And just 'cause I can, a few cool PKD lines:
"This was what happened to all the things that came out of the wet earth, out of the filthy slime and mold. All things that lived, big and little. They appeared, struggling out of the sticky wetness. And then, after a time, they died."
"I mean, after all; you have to consider, we're only made out of dust. That's admittedly not much to go on and we shouldn't forget that. But even considering, I mean it's a sort of bad beginning, we're not doing to bad. So I personally have faith that even in this lousy situation we're faced with we can make it. You get me?"
"Can we consider the universe real, and if so, in what way?"
"I hear voices from another star. (I clocked it once, and reception is best between 3:00 A.M. and 4:45 A.M.). Of course, I don't usually tell people this when they ask, 'Say where do you get your ideas?' I just say I don't know. It's safer."
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, does not go away."
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
"Anything you think may be held against you."
You get the idea...
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Here's the entire reference to PKD. It's very cool. Go to http://www.powells.com/authors/powers.html to read the entire interview...
Powers: I met him in '72, when he flew down to Orange County, California. His house had been blown up by unknown evil powers - which really had happened; I've seen photos. He was really just homeless. He flew down to stay with two young ladies who had just lost a roommate and needed somebody to make up the rent, and I knew the two young ladies.
Luckily, I hadn't read more than maybe a couple short stories of his at the time because I would have been just choked with awe. I got to know him, and my wife met him when we started going, which would have been the late seventies. We were there when the paramedics took him out of his apartment in '82.
He was a great guy to hang around. If you just read his biographies, you could get the idea that he was just a doper visionary, a crazy man - and if you just read the biographies, yes, that's the conclusion you'd come to - but actually, he was totally sane and just the funniest guy you'd ever hope to meet. Also the nicest guy. At a crowded party, if he saw some ill-at-ease person who didn't know anybody just kind of hanging by the punch bowl, he'd go over and strike up a conversation. He was always very unaffectedly interested in what you were doing.
I don't know to what extent his work has influenced mine. I've now read all his stuff. He was a natural genius. He could sit down and in twelve days turn out an absolutely brilliant book. He wouldn't sleep or eat, but he could do it in twelve days - almost as if he'd got his fingers stuck in a light socket. It would be hard to emulate that. You can just admire it.
Dave: Is there a book of his that you find above and beyond the rest? Do you have a favorite?
Powers: I think my favorite of his is Martian Time-Slip. It's just a dazzling book. I'm glad his books have started to be published by Vintage. It's fun to see such dignified heavyweight F. Scott Fitzgerald-type books with titles likeMartian Time-Slip. It's nice that he's got himself into that hallowed venue.
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George Orwell's 1984 had a pessimistic view of the future, and it predates Phillip Dick. Its Ministry of Truth is an agency that makes you question what you believe . Sound like a familiar theme? Orwell's book was published in 1949. That same year
Dick has been quoted as saying "I love Blade Runner; it has nothing to do with my story, but it's a great movie." The director's cut certainly took the mindbending part correctly.
We'll Rember it for you Wholesale (Total Recall) ended with a joke. The Mars trip was never in doubt. As different from the source as any Paul Verhoeven film.
Minority Report took things in the right direction for the first 2/3rds. But that stupid "echo murder" crap leading upto the happy ending bit it.
Paycheck is a sacriledge. The short story didn't have action, it was a man thinking his way out of tense situations in a police state as he tries to unravel the mystery of his past from a few bizarre clues. John Woo hasn't made single good flick in the US.
Through a Scanner Darkly is a dark movie about drug abuse, insanity, and a cartell conspiracy involving a Synanon like organization. No way in hell is that going to be produced correctly.
The King of The Elves is about an old farmer who kills his friend of decades because some elves show him that he's the king of ogres. You never are sure at the end whether the elves were real or not. Now way is that going to survive Disney.
They might make something out of Time Out of Joint.
Haven't seen Screamers but I hear it's an okay adaption of "The Second Variety".
Oh yeah, my point. Good stuff is getting washed with mud. That article sucked.
I've long held an interest of reading accounts of what (extraordinary) schizophrenics go through in their own worlds in their own words. IMO PKD's Valis and Pirsig's Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance are seminal works in this peculiar field. So far, his writings that have been turned into film really just skim upon his twisted view of reality.
Valis has creativity that makes you gasp (well, me anyway): there's a great discourse between Dr. Stone and Horselover Fat that should be mandatory instruction for anyone working in mental health. Horselover Fat is the alter-ego of Philip K Dick. You'd have to read the book to find out why he's such an odd name...
You're referring to Burroughs' novel Blade Runner: A Movie, I assume?
"You'd have to kill me and prop me up in the seat of my car with a smile painted on my face to get me to go near Hollywood."
Hollywood is not ready for this: what if Minority Report ended on the fade to black when Tom Cruise confront his boss and a gunshot is heard ? That would be IMHO a quite dickian ending.
Even worse, Hollywood seems to be right regarding the audience: just look at the comments on the Matrix. We have here movies exploring ideas quite close to Dick's favorites, and a last movie that close nicely the series, leaving many open questions, as most of his novel do. The net result: the audience does not like it. How sad.
It seems to me that Philip K. Dick was sort of science fiction's anti-George Lucas. Dick's stories got better as he got older. He wasn't satisfied with looking at the surface of reality, he wanted to dig deeper. He never got rich, so he never had a chance to have his creativity ruined by a lot of money. Hollywood was only starting to catch on to his ideas when he died, so his ego never became a bloated gas-bag, ruined by fame. I think if Phil Dick and George Lucas had ever met in real life, they would have mutually annihilated each other.
It was in "Starlog" magazine. One of the last interviews PKD ever gave, and he talks enthusiastically about the parts of the movie he had seen up to that point, and how he thought that Ford was "just perfect" as Deckard.
:)
I bought the magazine when it came out because of the big cover story on "Big Trouble In Little China," but was subsequently blown away by the inclusion of the PKD interview, 3 years after his death. It was a nice surprise. Still have the damn thing too.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.