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Philip K. Dick's "Flow My Tears" To Be Filmed
bowman9991 writes "Philip K. Dick's 1974 novel Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said is being adapted for the big screen. A tale of altered reality, drug use, and the meaning of identity, the novel tells the story of TV celebrity Jason Taverner, who wakes up one morning to find that his very existence has been wiped from everyone's memories. Halcyon, the company behind the upcoming Terminator Salvation movie, decided the novel would be the first adaptation under a rights agreement with Philip K. Dick's estate. Hollywood has certainly taken a shine to Dick's work: Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly, Impostor, Screamers and Next have all been based on his short stories or novels. Ubik is in development too. In some cases, as with Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic Blade Runner, the adaptations are loose to say the least."
In some cases, as with Ridley Scott's sci-fi classic Blade Runner, the adaptations are loose to say the least.
Given the nature of most of Dick's work, a direct 1:1 film adaptation of his writing would be at best nonsensical. Adapting the theme of the work, and leaving leeway with the details is generally the best approach.
Hell, even with other author's works it's the best approach. They are completely different media after all, and require completely different approaches to storytelling.
How about "Nowhere Man - The Motion Picture"
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
I think it's important to note why the adaptations are loose: PK Dick wrote short stories. Very, very good stories, but short. The main idea in the story is told in few words, but well.
A movie also has an obligation to fill 90 minutes of screen time, at least. Some of the actual concepts can be described in under a minute. The rest of the time in the short story or movie is spent exploring the concept.
PK Dick is definitely one of my top 5 favorite authors.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Adaptations of Philip K Dick books are notorious for being put in development hell. Scanner Darkly, IIRC, went through several attempted treatments before we got the rotoscoped version. And there's been attempts off and on to bring us Ubik on the big screen, though the last I heard of that was a few years ago and it was just being written.
...not to say that I'm not still cautiously excited!
Total Recall is still relatively good when watching it when you're older. Not many people I know who saw this movie recognized that at the end, you still don't know if it is the virtual vacation you are watching and if he needs to be lobotomized after this, or not; everything that happens in the story is exactly what he wanted from his vacation. With that in mind, the red pill scene is pretty interesting, where the rekall team tries to give him a way out without damaging his brain, but he chooses to remain in his dreams instead.
The good thing of that movie is that it is filmed such that you don't have to think about it and enjoy it as an above average action film, but you _can_, and it makes it a bit more interesting.
I think that there is a hint of PKD's depth in that film if you bother to look for it. I didn't really notice this in Paycheck, for instance.
PKD lover says: screw you. But seriously, have you read more than one of his books or few short stories? Your description of "drivel" seems a very limited view of his works. So many common themes that are beyond just "which reality is real" (which he does very well). Pervasive surveillance/advertising. The meaning of living an authentic life. Effects of modern societies/cultures on lower "cog in the machine" type individuals. Ordinary people fighting struggling whether to accept or fight against large organizations/systems. Mental illness. Alternate history. War. Love/Obsession. Religion.
Belittling his whole body of work as "stoner ramblings" is pretty indefensible in my opinion.
Phillip K. Dick's works were weird and surreal.
Alfred Bester's works were weird and hyper-real. You couldn't get away with hazy camerawork and plot elements that were forgivably nonsensical in a Bester film. You'd need to show how people can jaunt, you'd need to show small-craft space combat, and you'd need to show that glowing guy who shorts out robots near him. In other words, you can paper over many of the images in Dick's work, but with Bester you'd have to show them. And that would cost money. Demolished Man would cost $200 million to produce, and Hollywood isn't desperate enough (yet) to take a chance like that.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
I loved reading Minority Report and Paycheck, and I liked the movies too, but they only really have the overall "in your face" part of the story/idea in common with each other - PKD's subtext and deeper stuff largely gets ignored (which makes sense - it'd be a nightmare to try to make something faithful to PKD's vision without making it unwatchable). They look similar if you read a blurb about them, but when you actually read them / watch them their character is very different.
Especially with the stuff being adapted from older PKD short stories that's probably resulting in better movies anyway. There's too little material in many of them to make a full length movie without changing the stories, and as many other writers of the era he had an obsession with nuclear war and various technological hangups that are now really dated. He also wasn't a particularly good writer early on - his ideas were fantastic, but it took him a while to start expressing them well.
By the time he wrote Flow My Tears..., though, his voice was well developed and it could be turned into something really interesting without changing the story all that much.
That's not, in fact, what was going on. The voice-over wasn't conceived until after the film was shot.
Maybe we can assume that more breathing room was left in the scenes in the theatrical cut to allow for the after-the-fact voice-over, but I think Ridley Scott is an adequately skilled and conscientious director not to leave all that air in the scenes when he re-cut (or in the first cut, before the voice-over) if it wasn't for a purpose beyond the voice-over.
Blade Runner certainly wasn't paced the same way Minority Report was. I think that Blade Runner is the better film. But that's just my opinion. I thought that Benjamin Button would have been twice as good if forty more minutes of it had ended up on the floor. It's all very subjective.
-Peter
I saw Blade Runner when I was young, with voiceovers. I actually prefer it that way. Nowadays it's nearly impossible to find the non-removed voiceover version from my childhood. There's nothing wrong with people liking different versions if you ask me. Personally, I prefer having more info rather than less, and the interior monologue worked for me. Similarly, I would hate to see a version of Dune with the voiceovers removed (thank god it doesn't exist). Dune used the VO's in a different way, as actual 1st person thought, whispered, beautifully done and I wish cinema would do more with it.
"I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist"