Inherent Vice and its (unfortunate?) adaptation. A question for fans about how the two stack up.
So I just got around to both reading and watching Inherent Vice (reading first) and I had some questions for actual Pynchon fans about the film and what they thought. Brief background. I have only fully read Lot 49 (years ago on a whim) and Inherent Vice. Gravity's Rainbow I read about 200 pages of and quit for whatever reason. In terms of postmodernist literature I have preferred Barth, DFW, and Barthelme (dear god Barthelme especially) over Pynchon, perhaps unfortunately. My interest in the film and book mostly came from a passing interest in Pynchon and a love of PTA films.
Unfortunately I think I prefer any other PTA film and Pynchon's book far above the Inherent Vice film. And I think I prefer the book more than normal "the book was better" bias.
My main question is whether or not you think Anderson accurately captures the themes of the book.
The reason I ask is because I feel like a primary focus of the novel is contradiction: Doc is a hippie ("pacifist vegetarian" according to Bigfoot) who has killed and obliquely admits to Puck he may even on some level be a murderer ("on purpose? Who remembers"); Doc's hippie girlfriends are crazy about some returning Vietnam vets; Bigfoot feels some connection with the hippie world; Shasta represents some contradictory relationship of the flatland and the beach; and others. The book seems to be about the uncomfortable marriage of the subversive and the mainstream in America post-60s.
I feel that this was deemphasized to some extent in the film. Especially with how instead of hardcore prison Nazi Puck is not the one realizing that Doc is a "dangerous hombre" but Coy now is. It is also never revealed that Doc carries a gun himself. I think the fact that Doc carries a gun and has killed people is hugely important to his character.
I also think a big focus of the book is general post-Vietnam stuff. Paramilitary outfits; paranoia (Cold War?); Asian characters and Indochinese plot connections; and various Vietnam veteran characters. But I feel like this was glossed over as well. I think Coy mentions Vietnam once explicitly in the film.
The implication that something paranormal or supernatural may be at work is completely forgotten as well. No Lemuria. No mention of Doc's latent memories of his "bad trip" about being an alien. No surf Jesus.
There is also the feeling of the complications of the coming Information Age. Which in the end of the novel seems to be a major thing Pynchon was focused on. But of course Fritz and the computer stuff is completely absent.
Instead for the film we get; confusion, Shasta, Coy, and Bigfoot (I don't think we really honestly get Doc), and drugs.
So what gives? Do you think Anderson did an even halfway decent job? How do you think they honestly stack up?
Posted May 7, 2016, 7:28 AM UTC
There are definitely things missing that weren't in the novel, and there are big ones, as you mention, like Doc's gun in his boot or all the stuff on DARPAnet. I was definitely disappointed that there was nothing on DARPAnet in there, just because it ties in so much with the final scene of the book.
But as an abridged version of the book, I think the Inherent Vice film is absolutely on point. It captures the heart and soul of Pynchon in a way that I didn't expect it to. No, it doesn't cover every layer of the novel, but to be honest I was relieved that it didn't try to - the film as it stands is confusing and sprawling enough as it is!
As its own thing, I think the film stands tall as part of the Pynchon repetoire. It's fully imbued with the essence of Pynchon, in the characterisation, the atmosphere, the performances, the one-liners. I came out of the cinema feeling like Pynchon had been properly captured on screen.
Yes, it makes a lot of changes, but to me they definitely feel like they're in the Pynchonian spirit - the visual gags, the self-referential jokes, everything really.
It's a different aesthetic object to the book, but I think focusing on the literary bullet-points that it doesn't carry over from the book is a bit of a fool's errand. All the big Pynchon ideas are there, and it explores them in its own way. Every time there is a beat missing from the book, it feels like the film has its own visual alternative.
I guess ultimately, the way the book - and Pynchon in general, I think - is supposed to make you feel is, for me, embodied perfectly in the film. I think this a film about Pynchon as a whole, and not just about its source material - I'm very glad they didn't stick so closely to the book and tried to ram everything in. I'm not sure, say, Doc gaining magical powers during an LSD trip would have sat that well on screen!
edit: so in a more focused answer to your question - no, it doesn't accurately capture the themes of the book, but it does feel like it fully fits into the Pynchon aesthetic. I'm glad it doesn't try to enforce very literary ideas and arguments into a medium that doesn't really support them, and instead makes its own case for the eternal struggle between the hothouse and the street, in a way that makes more sense for cinema. It's got the Pynchon sensibility inside and out.
Agree 100%. I think you have to separate the book and the film to fully appreciate the latter
I definitely sympathize with the need to condense. That comes with the territory. And there's a lot of things which come with the condensation that I didn't particularly miss like no trip to Vegas. And some characters being missing or the wrinkles of some characters (like Sauncho or Puck) being sort of glossed over or only hinted at is fine and understandable.
To me I guess I just get the nagging feeling that some of the things I mentioned might have more to do with the "point" of the book than what we got in the film. And that's basically what I'm wondering other people think.
Anderson definitely captured the sprawling and ridiculously convoluted workings of the plot with the resources he had. And I liked that, but it felt like he devoted all of the "there's more of a point here" entirely to relationships between Doc, Shasta, Bigfoot, and Coy. Which makes sense. I think the film justifiably shines its light on them. But still I feel like there could be something big missing. Maybe I need another viewing to get a sense (I've seen all of his other movies more than once and besides maybe Punch-Drunk Love and Boogie Nights the movies seem better a second time) of what big theme is getting the attention.
And when it comes to the feeling. I don't know. I actually think that the movie is muted in places.
I'll give the climax of Doc killing Puck and Adrian as the main example. When Doc kills Puck, if I remember correctly, it says something like that Doc slammed his head down until "everything was wet." Which is kind of a big tonal shift or spike that is hinted at in Doc's character beforehand. Something that in movie form would be a bit like James Gunn's Super. Where the movie hints at or gradually builds itself to a situation that is hyper violent and full of gore and it feels like a sudden and sickening shift in tone. This would be difficult to stomach maybe in Inherent Vice but Pynchon sort of does something like that in the book.
Also in that whole thing, there's one of the funniest bits. "Did I hit you?" Which makes it into the movie in a different form. In the book Adrian answers Doc and they have a brief exchange. Which is funny. But one little thing that could have been a gag in the movie in an obvious spot (and even funnier on film) was absent. Which just ties into me feeling like the book is actually a lot funnier than the film in general.
So I don't know. For me the hazy confused feeling is there. But the scary and very "ungroovy" vibes or parts of the book are muted as is the humor.
Anyway I'm rambling. It's cool to hear what you think!
On another note: I'm reading some early Barth right now but I'm considering giving another Pynchon besides Gravity's Rainbow another spin. Any suggestions?
If you like The Sot-Weed Factor then Mason & Dixon might be up your alley.
V is the best Pynchon intro, in my opinion, and it really helps prep a reader for GR.
His book that's most similar to Inherent Vice would be Vineland, if you find that you prefer his west coast pot-boilers.
I do think that in regards to there being bigger, overarching themes in the novel, the film works a lot harder to convey that stuff visually (and in the soundtrack), and it mostly pays off. It's in the set design, the subtle visual gags, even just the casting of the characters. I can't imagine a better representation of the early 70's hippie-hating establishment than Josh Brolin. So I'd probably disagree that the film's really just trying to get through the plot. If anything, the film's trying really hard to get you to forget about the hows and whats of the plot beats, to focus on the sociology of it all - the church/state relationship between the police and hippie cultures, the slow death of the liberal ideals of the 60's, the nature of human beings to ignore ideological boundaries when choosing their friends/lovers/associates and thus end up utterly complicit in everything, the way capitalist and industrial markets create a throughline from organised crime through to government through to healthcare with - you know, all that good Pynchon stuff. I guess in a film you can only really convey all that through how characters interact with one another, and I found myself really impressed by the nuance in the performances (ESPECIALLY between Doc and Bigfoot).
Having watched the film with people who had never read the books before - Doc just straight up murdering a guy, injecting PCP into another guy is still really shocking on screen :)
I think maybe one of the reasons why it might seem like the big themes are missing, is that in any Pynchon novel - especially the West Coast novels - he writes with a huge affection for his cast of characters, on both sides of any given conflict. He'd equate the 'authorities' with the forces of darkness, but really, any given individual in his novels is always given a lot of love (Blicero is probably the exception). So I can see everything feeling less serious on film.
I guess that means on-screen, there's less of a sense of antagonism, because the Pynchon always goes out of his way to find something to like about a character.
He injects heroin into Puck, not PCP. PCP is what Puck gives Doc to disorient and imprison him. The heroin would be to kill him.