What the fuck?
what the fuck did i just watch /tv/
>>64495540
It's called kino, kiddo
>>64495642
>kino
what does this even mean
>>64495397
>>64495540
it's not really that obtuse tbvh
by the end of the film it's explained itself
the book's terrific and i recommend it, fleshes it out
>>64495734
>it's not really that obtuse tbvh
yea of course it isn't
it's completely incomprehensible
>>64495816
Wiseau voice: I'm sorry but I disagree with you on your statement.
It's presented quickly, names, allegiances or alliances, and hazily as if to mimic Doc's constant high, but again, it's wrapped up in something of a bow at the end. Some questions remain, up to interpretation, whatever, but as far as narrative films go, it's not that tough.
PTA's best film, the work of a director in full control.
>>64496053
For me it wasn't about understanding what happened, but that the film is so purposefully vague and unclear that I had no emotional investment in the story at all.
>>64496094
And it's total crap.
>>64496148
>emotional investment
looking for/assuming you'd be given that may be your problem
>>64496053
>as far as narrative films go, it's not that tough.
Go ahead and explain it then
>>64496148
>emotional investment
I don't know about that man, I went into this with the expectation that I was going to laugh my ass off. Which I did.
It was once again that FUCKING HACK PTA copying Directors of the 1970's. IV was meant to be his version of Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye!!!FACT!!!
>>64496197
PI Doc Sportello stumbles his way into a scheme in which the feds are propping up a jewish land magnate to own a casino on the strip to gain back control over the mafia stronghold. Said magnate has also seduced Doc's ex. The Golden Fang is both a boat and a global or at least pacific heroin outfit which hooks hippies then "treats them." Bigfoot, local celebrity cop gets doc involved as a patsy of sorts to sniff out the guy that killed his partner, also affiliated with the fang.
It's about the death of 60s hippie idealism through harder drugs, police state, its own ineffectuality, capitalism, etc. It's also very funny.
>>64496148
>wanting emotional investment in a film based on a book where everyone is written to be a completely unlikable asshole
i don't know about you but i did care about the Harlingen's getting back together, i felt rewardedby their reunion, and the way in which Docrejects the money offered him by the Golden Fang's wider establishment of associates for the favour of releasing Coywas a lovely heartwarming moment in an otherwise entertaining and funny flick. the closest thing to what is conventionally seen as 'emotional investment' i had when it came to the main 'plot' and the protagonist's dilemmas was sympathising with Doc whenever anyone killed his buzz or weirded him out. The only reason he ever gets involved in the mystery is because he's doing a favour for his ex old lady, and from there on in it gets more twisted and turned and disturbing and he can't give up because he's a PI and he doesn't just give up.
the point of the movie is to be entertained by its irreverence and drawn in by its worship of the era, as well as enjoy each scene and each little story it tells without having to deal with such loose terms as 'emotional investment'. it's a comedy, remember, and it's very funny.
>>64496265
Cuuute, you've heard of the Long Goodbye, likely saw someone post the same sentiment here and are aping it for your own :)
It's certainly partially inspired by it, but that's about it. Spaz out and correct me.
>>64496493
>about the Harlingen's getting back together, i felt rewarded
Agreed, the goodness in Doc to help them so was an emotional cornerstone, as well as his and Bigfoot's begrudging reverence for one another.
>>64496265
THANK YOU AHAHA AI FUCKING HATE PTA THAT DAMN NIGGER HACKITY HACK HAHAHA
>>64496423
Ok you googled that
>>64496423
And all the glaring plotholes?
tried to hard to hit that "cult classic" status
>>64496423
The plot is actually explained at several points and pieced together fairly easily if you just think about it, it's only the fact that the direction and dialogue is deliberately obfuscating in order to mimic the protagonist's confusion and stoner haze. imagine trying to solve a mystery this dense and being blazed.
every so often golden nuggets of memorable plot importance slip through, like 'Heroin sucks the calcium out of your body like a vampire'.
I still maintain the whole sequence in the Vietnamese restaurant where Bigfoot demands PANNAKEKKU and him and Doc discuss the Golden Fang is the nicest, most subtle in the film, because it completely mainlines the strongest message directly to the audience - that both the establishment and the hippies were flawed and ineffectual because they bicker and tussle with one another when, beneath them, the real struggle is going on.
>BIGFOOT: I shouldn't think there'd be much
trace. Gold is all but chemically
inactive, as you might have
learned in chemistry class if you
hadn't been ditching all the time
to score dope.
couple lines later:
>DOC: And have the lab look for traces
of copper. Not the kind that goes
stumbling all over the crime scene
contaminating evidence -- more
like copper, the metal? See, gold
teeth are never pure gold,
dentists like to alloy it with
copper? If you hadn't ditched
forensics class to go steal
hubcaps to plant on some
innocent hippie, you might have
known that.
>BIGFOOT: Bet you almost feel like a cop
now, Doc.
It's a 'not so different' situation in action. Each side, who are supposed to be helping one another (hippies helping police to improve themselves, treat citizens better, reform etc., vs police helping hippies to live safely and not throw away their lives, protecting and serving etc.), makes negative assumptions about the other.
There's also the fact it's super fun and I love The Long Goodbye.
>>64496756
Name them
Gravity's Rainbow flick when
>>64496756
>And all the glaring plotholes?
Oh boy Such as....?
>>64496869
Terrific post, thoroughly agree
Dead on about the pancake scene.
>>64495706
"A gum obtained from certain tropical trees by tapping, used locally as an astringent in medicine and in tanning."
>>64496915
>Doc getting set up for Charlock's death
>Doc getting set up by big foot with drugs
>everything to do with the dentist
>the whole purpose/function of Reese Witherspoon
>The actual truth of Coy's activities
>Why Shasta suddenly returned
The conversation near the end with the FBI guy also completely baffled me. I had no clue what they were talking about.
>>64495706
It's the word for movie theater in German
>>64495397
you arent supposed to keep up with the plot
it wraps up too nicely at the end though
>>64496869
>both the establishment and the hippies were flawed and ineffectual because they bicker and tussle with one another when, beneath them, the real struggle is going on.
This is basically one of the underlying themes of the book. It's not one of Pynchon's densest or most maximalist, because it's more about fun and entertainment and rompiness, but there is a definite message about the real villainy being in the undetectable systems and establishments (with links to politics) that initiate horrible social ills rather than 'muh lazy hippies' or 'muh evil cops'.
'Under the paving stones, the beach.' This is a graffiti tagline from the May 1968 Paris revolts and it's referenced in the book, though not in the film. The original intention of the graffiti artist is presumably the notion that if you tear away all the stifling, crushing constructs and mores of this society and establishment or whatever you will get the beauty of nature - ignoring that, of course, the paving stones are just more of the same beach, if formed by the hand of man to be more pleasant to walk on. This argument is age-old hippie-flatfoot dialectics, but Pynchon has used the quote differently - the police and the dopers and cats and the squabbling masses of unknowing groovers and squares are the paving stones, and the beach is all the secret societies and clandestine drug-running organisations with ties to the federal government (IV heavily implies that the reason the Golden Fang are getting heroin so easily out of Indochina is thanks to US military presence there) that have all these complex power structures and pull all the strings. It's similar to The Crying of Lot 49, in a way, in that it's basically a conspiracy book.
>>64497090
>>Doc getting set up for Charlock's death
>>Doc getting set up by big foot with drugs
Patsy, bro. He was set up, the perfect weed stinking foil.
>>64497090
>>everything to do with the dentist
He was a flamboyant character working with the Fang to fix the teeth of the hippies whose teeth their wares rotted. I think he was killed for fucking rich Fang affiliates daughter.
>>64497090
>>the whole purpose/function of Reese Witherspoon
She was Doc's in on government intel but also highlighted the dynamics this anon spoke about
>>64496869
She took herself seriously as a square on the right side of the law, but showed it was a blurred line as she actually cared for doc and his quest, smoked weed with him, etc.
>>64497090
>>The actual truth of Coy's activities
It's been a few months, he was coerced by the fang into playing the role of a hippie fool on tv, i forget for what exact purpose besides making them/thier culture and generation look bad. But he was a simple junkie in way over his head, in some kind of indentured servitude, and doc worked to spring him at great personal cost.
>>64497090
>>Why Shasta suddenly returned
Not sure how it's a plothole. She just did. She was used by the Wolf Man and his associates for a time, at sea, then came back.
>>64497435
>He was set up, the perfect weed stinking foil.
Yea but why?
I watched this a few weeks ago. I had a really good time watching it. To me it seemed like you weren't really supposed to know what was going on the whole movie. That was part of the enjoyment and humor of it.
Anyway I thought it was great.
>>64497090
>Doc getting set up for Charlock's death
Puck Beaverton, the Swastika guy who ties Doc up later, is the one who killed Charlock and the one who knocks Doc out. They're found together in the Chick Planet brothel (after Jade and Bambi scram) by Bigfoot and his LAPD goons. Basic police investigation techniques frame Doc as a suspect for Charlock's murder, even though he's unconscious, and Bigfoot basically knows Doc didn't do it, but he wants to fuck around with him a bit because he's Bigfoot. Same as when he eats his weed later (though that's also cos Bigfoot's got sever issues).
>Doc getting set up by big foot with drugs
Adrian Prussia works for the Golden Fang, along with Puck Beaverton. He therefore has a whole load of dope hidden in the garage of his establishment. Bigfoot needs a patsy so he can find out who was commanding Prussia and getting him to hold such outrageous amounts of heroin, ie who's one step up the ladder in the Golden Fang (he also wants to find out why his partner was killed). Doc is the patsy. Doc is contacted by Crocker Fenway (a rich and influential businessman from North California) who secretly works for the Golden Fang and organises for the heroin to be picked up. The punchline is that the next step up in the ladder, the people who collect the heroin, are a straight-laced-looking nuclear family straight outta some Nixonite's wet dream.
>everything to do with the dentist
One of the Golden Fang's side enterprises in Southern California is getting people like Hope Harlingen hooked on dope, then fixing their mashed up teeth. So they basically dominate the dentistry trade in their main dope dispersal areas. Blatnoyd is payed in cocaine and easy secretaries. He is later killed by the Golden Fang because of his relationship with Japonica Fenway, the daughter of Golden Fang bigwig Crocker Fenway.
tbc
>>64497641
Because
>>64497240
>the real villainy being in the undetectable systems and establishments (with links to politics) that initiate horrible social ills rather than 'muh lazy hippies'
Why would rich drug lords or well respected cops admit to a crime when they can blame some hippie?
>>64497777
>the whole purpose/function of Reese Witherspoon
In terms of plot, allows Doc to follow threads that lead into the usually-hermetic FBI, allows him intel inside the federal government (she's how he finds out about Adrian Prussia and Bigfoot's old partner). In terms of wider themes, illustrates tetchy love-hate relationship between the feds and the freaks.
>The actual truth of Coy's activities
Doper who was drawn into the smaller operations of the Fang. Used by them as one of many in their 'Vigilant California' setup - a false-flag organisation which was used at rallies and presidential speeches to make hippies look like uneducated dumbos and undermine them so that none of their passive, addicted hippie clients would at all waver in their allegiance to the good stuff.
>Why Shasta suddenly returned
Golden Fang let her go. She was on their yacht, after all. She says something about them saying she is an object with 'inherent vice' - maritime terminology for perishable - so maybe they were planning to get rid of her in a more jammy way, but Doc silently squared it with Fenway that she'd be released when Coy was. There's also the fact she probably became disillusioned with Wolfmann after the fact he's being propped up by the corrupt feds and is himself thoroughly confused probably lessens her image of him as this powerful magnate in her eyes.
An aspect that we haven't really touched upon is that Wolfmann is also a pawn of the Golden Fang as well as the federal government because the two of them are very subtly interrelated. The Fang don't want the Italians (think Michael Corleone in the second Godfather) dominating Vegas, because that's a potential market of sadsack fucks they could be exploiting as they push in from the West coast, and the feds are happier want to get rid of the Mafia's presence there too. There's always gonna be crime in Vegas, but if it's invisible crime you can control, then that's a bit more peachy.
>>64498164
>>64497777
>>64497435
all rly well explained lads, and i dont wanna detract from your efforts when i say these really should've been obvious. it's that the majority of modern hollywood films are all so terribly plotted that they have to spoonfeed everything to the audience, even 'complex' 'cerebral' shit like nolan movies. it's easier to spoonfeed when in a contemporary setting, because you don't have to make as many links for the audience, they're aware of the social setting and scenarios and stereotypes. they know the situation of their time and place, so they automatically make more assumptions and understand things more easily. if IV was adapted with conventional neo-hollywood plotting, we'd be spoonfed all this wider information about crime and social groups and drugs and rallies and the feds and the cops and the hippies and whatever in late 60s/early 70s california. but Pynchon didn't do that when he wrote it, and PTA doesn't either. it allows you to make assumptions without explicitly explaining everything, for various reasons. it feels almost like a movie set in 1970, but also made for viewers from 1970.
>>64498411
agreed
>>64497945
Ok? but still *why?*
is the book/movie as good as the crying of lot 49? because I fucking loved that book
And wait.. didn't this book come out in like 2009? How is there already a movie?
>>64498974
see >>64497777
>Bigfoot needs a patsy so he can find out who was commanding Prussia and getting him to hold such outrageous amounts of heroin, ie who's one step up the ladder in the Golden Fang (he also wants to find out why his partner was killed). Doc is the patsy. Doc is contacted by Crocker Fenway (a rich and influential businessman from North California) who secretly works for the Golden Fang and organises for the heroin to be picked up. The punchline is that the next step up in the ladder, the people who collect the heroin, are a straight-laced-looking nuclear family straight outta some Nixonite's wet dream.
>>64495397
I was glad denis made it in.
Doc barely says "and so forth" in the film but so much in the book.
My fav line didn't even make it:
"You are one crazy white motherfucker." "How can you tell?" "I counted."
>>64499232
>I was glad denis made it in.
Pretty funny to hear Doc say it
Apparently they filmed Doc walking in on Omar and Belladonna fucking but it didnt make it.
Why did Bigfoot go crazy at the end and eat Doc's weed and shit? Is there even a reason?
>>64499020
>And wait.. didn't this book come out in like 2009? How is there already a movie?
these days books/graphic novels/comics get optioned before they're even released
it's the only Pynchon I've read so far but it's a terrific adaptation, not perfect, as it'd have to be like 5 hours, but impressive
>>64499415
I don't know but it somehow works for me
the slapstick nature but also a sort of, release for such a frustrated, disillusioned character, desperatly holding onto changing times, passed by and derided by his colleagues. Capping off his and Doc's contentious yet somehow sentimental relationship it's as if he's saying, fuck it, and going whole hog. Rather than a couple puffs he ingests a disgusting amount. There's also probably some thematic resonance with him representing police/the man gobbling up the love drug of the 60s. The awe on Doc's face makes it.
>>64496423
Also the Golden Fang has a "vertical integration" model of business: the control the production, smuggling and distribution of heroin, but also they expand through detox and even dental reconstruction because heroin destroy the teeth. I'm such a nerd teehee
>>64499415
Forgiveness and underlying respect.
>>64499768
way to old to be a milf, that there is a gilf
you officially have shit taste. That's your label, anon.
Wear it.
>you're not supposed to understand the plot! It's like Doc's high
>you're not supposed to understand Inception; it's supposed to be dreamlike
>you're not supposed to understand 2001; it's a psychedelic look into humanity and it's evolution
>>64500691
Millennial faggot pls go back to Selina Gomez or something
>>64500745
>not understanding Incepction
>>64500745
>Inception
Yea totally deep and out there man wow. You're doing great.
>>64500745
people in this thread have explained the plot
>>64499509
I think you nailed it. That scene was great.
>>64501017
Anyone can explain a plot after reading the book and watching the film a couple of times.
>>64500745
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc7-HbYvD9I
>>64495397
You must be the epitome of 'entry-level'
>>64501924
Not sure which way your point is going. but yes. Anyone can explain it, or should be able to, after seeing it and considering it a bit. The book is not a requirement but is excellent.
>>64496265
IV (the book) was pretty thoroughly influenced by The Long Goodbye
