Did they try to make this movie confusing?
>>69845079
Absolutely.
The 60s and to a lesser extent the 70s and 80s were filled with books that were about protagonists that were just catalysts for the events to unfurl around. The plot is the main character, Doc is the plot device.
>>69845079
yes
>>69845079
Sure did. And they succeeded admirably.
>>69845140
That's part of the reason I think a detective narrative is difficult to translate to screen without spoonfeeding the audience. When you read, you make your own pictures and diagrams in your head, it's a lot easier to keep everything straight. Films have their own insistent energy and visuals (obviously), and if you can't keep up you're fucked.
I watched it a second time and it made perfect sense, so much so that it almost ruined the movie for me. I liked being just as confused as Doc.
the plot isn't important, it's more about how the film makes you feel
>>69845079
If you've read the book, PTA made one of the most faithful adaptations of book to movie. It wasn't that every scene was directly word for word, but he managed to capture the same haziness as you would feel when reading the book.
>>69845079
probably not. They did try to make it boring though.
The spanking scene was like CPR to me.
>>69847684
interesting viewpoint
From what i've heard its a better adaptation than Naked Lunch was.
>>69845079
>Did they try to make this movie confusing?
Yes. But it's not that confusing.
>>69849335
Absolutely
It was pretty confusing. Did they ever establish how the golden fang got the developer to give away his money. How did the cop know pheonix was going to be at the nazi place? What happened to the bodies?
People complain that the plot is "supposed to confusing" because the main character is confused. This isn't really true though, because the general story is not that confusing, but there are all these side things attached, all connected somehow. I found myself, when trying to decipher the plot, picking out one thing and trying to understand how it fit into the story. Then I realized, THAT is the part of the character the story is trying to emulate, not just general confusion. Doc was high and paranoid, drawing connections that aren't there. It's fun to speculate for yourself and, while understanding overall what's happening, figure what actually connects and what is just extraneous happenings made to look like they matter
>>69845079
Big Libowski was better.
CoenJews>PTA
>>69850283
No. TWBB and Boogie Nights are better than the 2 good movies the coenstien brothers have made
>>69850096
If you got that the golden fang was the CIA, the rest should be obvious.
>>69850096
>the golden fang
Is the CIA. FBI are in cahoots, and the developer's wild ride through the counter-culture underworld was all part of MK-ULTRA. They destabilized his mind so they could take him to their reprogramming safe-house for 'recovery'.
I seriously don't understand how so many people can miss this. Fucking narrator spells out in plain english that the drug counter-culture is one big government honeypot.
I made the mistake of watching this right after reading the book. It was pretty disappointing, but l think it's about time l give it a second try to jusge it by its own merits. It may not be a good adaptation, but l rememeber loving the atmosphere. Plus you have PTA and Walkin, what's not to love?
>>69849335
Naked Lunch is still a fantastic movie though
>>69850430
>in cahoots
Not exactly. Even during the nixon era it was illegal for the CIA to operate within the borders of the united states, but acting as the FBI wasn't an easy way around that.
>>69850517
Breh they illegally operated inside of the united states and COINTELPRO, which they explicitly entice Phoenix into joining, was an illegal operation. The entire thing was a joint effort to establish WASP (amirite goy :^) domination of the vice industry. The conceit of the film was that George Deliieu-St. Croix and the other old english families didn't like the idea of the dagos running Las Vegas alone.
>>69850430
... considering how you missed the CIA was MK-ULTRA'ing wolfman's shit not to get him to give away his money, but BECAUSE he was giving away his money, in order to discover if he was giving away his money because the KGB got to him, also to bring him back into the "healthy" capitalist fold, then going deeper and deeper into the hippie subcultures on the assumption the only reason anyone could reject capitalism (read: the american dream) was soviet influence, and dissolving the hippie subcultures with harder and more addictive (and more expensive) drugs... etc... you ain't got much room to talk.
>>69850611
The entire idea behind the movie/book is the drug industry (read: cocaine, crack, heroin) was essentially created by the CIA to keep the disenfranchised from wanting to band together and figure out a less horrible way to run things than rewarding materialistic greed.
>>69850737
Are you seriously implying a government paranoia about the KGB subtext? Please point out where I missed that. They had a clear non-paranoid interest in making sure he did not start giving out no interest home loans, so they captured him and used him to get involved in Vegas. They are not suffering from some vulcan confusion about why a person would reject capitalism, they are only interested in using him to serve their ends.
Point out where suspicions about the KGB were ever indicated in the film.
I agree with guy below btw
>>69850803
>>69850899
The soviet paranoia was implied by the fact the movie took place during the cold war, when the US literally went to war because they were afraid third world shitholes going communist would cause first world countries to go communist.
>>69851047
Well then we agree with each other in summation, but you think I am generally wrong because I did not mention the KGB.
My opinion is that the IRL MK-ULTRA was not about the soviets post-1950s and was entirely about disrupting domestic dissent. They divided their programs according to 'infiltrate socialist groups', 'infiltrate civil rights groups', and 'infiltrate anti-war protesters'. The latter two by the 1960s received far more man-power investment. Even J. Edgar Hoover distinguished between what he believed to be groups directly orchestrated by the commies and groups of authentic home-grown agitators.
This movie had pretty much nothing to do with U.S. vs USSR maneuverings. It is the government against the native dissidents.
>>69851147
>This movie had pretty much nothing to do with U.S. vs USSR maneuverings
You may as well try to say vietnam had nothing to do with the cold war.
The entire purpose behind everything you described, that really happened, was shoring up the US against communist sedition. Which resulted in the unavoidable destruction of every non-WASP sub-culture. Also, in effect, destroying the freedom promised by the american dream. Thus the inexorable destruction of all these things being inherant vice.
>>69851328
aight homie i'm done with this until you point out where the KGB or fear of them was explicitly or implicitly suggested as a motivation for anybody's behavior.
Spoiler alert: the government did many things under the pretense of fighting the soviets that in actuality they knew very well had nothing to do with the soviets.
I suppose the next thing you'll tell me is that the NSA's domestic spying operations are to keep tabs on jihadis in america.
>>69845079
The protagonist is high all the time. You are supposed to be seeing things through his point of view.
>>69851395
>aight homie i'm done with this until you point out where the KGB or fear of them was explicitly or implicitly suggested as a motivation for anybody's behavior.
The fact the movie took place during the nixon era.
I mean, its okay if you don't get this. But its kinda stupid to just ignore the entire cold war because you, personally, are too young to know shit about it.
>>69851456
lol i've made my point about why the actual KGB and actual russian communists are not relevant in this context, if this is the best you can do to evade a simple textual justification of your interpretation then we are done here.
>>69851530
In order to make your point as to why soviet paranoia had nothing to do with the actions of the CIA (in the movie and real life) you remove the entire reason for everything the CIA did (in the movie and real life).
So your interpretation of inherant vice is the CIA were literally twirling their mustaches.
>>69851530
Are you really this fucking stupid? The guy explained his arguments very clearly. Just because the movie didn't have a guy with KGB written on his head doesn't mean the FBI/CIA weren't operating agaist them.
>>69851456
Thats not why it is set in the Nixon years
>>69851582
The FBI and the CIA were obviously operating against the KGB during the 1960s. My point is that they were not doing that in this film. This film is not about everything that happened in the 1960s. It is about a very specific subset of the FBI/CIA's operation.
Just fucking sauce some justification for your head-cannon notion that the FBI and CIA characters in THIS FILM were (in their mind) operating against the KGB and not simply trying to subvert the counter-culture to serving their purposes and infiltrate a growing monied class of foreigners to ensure the continued domination of the north eastern WASPs.
Fucking cite it or GTFO. Inb4 "the IRL cold war and things that happened outside this movie!!!!!'
>>69851588
Welcome to the thread. See >>69850803
The idea the movie puts forth is the drug industry and the war on drugs were the US government playing the american people off each other to prevent organized communist sentiment from taking hold in the US of A.
>>69851662
>a movie about the CIA destroying potentially communist/socialist sub-cultures in the US with drugs has nothing to do with the US' war against communism
pretending or double-think? I can't tell.
>>69845079
they tried to make it shittyand they succeeded
>>69851662
>Cite information about fictional events
Also, what foreigners? Mickey Wolfman was as American as Adrian Prussia. Then Feds locked him up because of his communist ideas that came out of nowhere all of the sudden.
>>69851662
Hey bro, read >>69850737 again.
You were the first person to put forth the idea that KGB agents were literally show/represented in inherant vice.
>>69851731
>Just fucking sauce some justification for your head-cannon notion that the FBI and CIA characters in THIS FILM were (in their mind) operating against the KGB...
>Fucking cite it or GTFO. Inb4 "the IRL cold war and things that happened outside this movie!!!!!'
What a waste of time you have been.
>>69851807
shit dog, I saw that comin and tried to stop it, but I was too late.
You misundestood something basic and ran with it, looking dumber and dumber every post.
>>69851804
No I wasn't, you misunderstand the string. The guy who is talking about the KGB is a retard who cannot distinguish between discussion about a film and the motivations of the characters in that film and discussion about the historical motivations of the FBI and CIA in all theaters of the cold war.
>>69851798
The way you cite information about fiction is by finding some evidence for your claims about the meaning of that fiction actually in the content of that fiction. Cite some dialogue or a scene you mong.
>>69851883
Are you implying the guy was wrong by taking a film's setting into account? Does everything have to be spelled out to you?
>>69851883
Look into Pynchon, his novels have A LOT of historical context and often may as well be non fiction
>>69851883
The point (you missed) of inherent vice is the US government (on behalf of the bourgeoisie) destroyed everything beautiful about american culture on nothing but the fear (justified or simply paranoid) that the ruskies would infiltrate the US through that beauty and turn it communist from the inside out.
You are the only person in this thread screaming about literal KGB agents.
>>69851984
To elaborate: the fact that he doesnt writ about the cold war means it wasnt what he wanted to talk about in the book, but he almost certainly considered the effects of the cold war on his characters motivations when writing
>>69851997
You know perfectly well that you and I are the only people ITT.
You can restate what you want your point to be all you want and you can pretend to be other people all you want, but until you cite any specific evidence from the film's script that the soviets were believed by any of the government characters to be involved in turning Wolfman into a free-shelter-for-all hippie freak.
Until you do that this conversation is just you railing about how I should believe you because *extraneous detail not from the film A B and C*
>>69851883
PTA is praised round hea' (or used to be, /tv/ has fallen far) because everything he puts on the screen matters. Was chosen for a specific purpose to represent or reinforces some aspect of the narrative.
Pychon writes the same way, almost to a fault.
PTA adapted a pychon novel and now you're trying to claim the historical suxbext of the setting in a PTA adaption of a pychon novel doesn't matter.
>>69852027
Fucking this, but the guy's too much of an idiot to get it.
>WHERE'S THE KGB?
>CITE
>CITE
>CITE
>>69852109
>wow, talking about the governments actions against domestic dissenters without acknowledging their justifiable excuse of suspecting 'soviet infiltration' is NOT OKAY shitlord! It was the year 19xx ffs!!!! I am literally shaking right now
>>69852074
Dog, seriously, I know it gets you flustered because its implying you're stupid, but seriously, read >>69850737 again.
You misread it. You thought it said the KGB were literally all up in wolfman's and the hippie's shit. It doesn't. You've been flinging shit like a monkey in heat for an hour because you had trouble reading a long-run-on sentence.
>>69852190
>liek omg, you need to accept my opinion even though my specific assertion has no precedence in the film and never will!!@!!@ i was speaking GENERALLY, my specific claim about plot motivation for government characters was meant to be taken METAPHORICALLY!!!!!11111
>in order to discover if he was giving away his money because the KGB got to him,
CITATION NEEDED
CITATION NEEDED
CITATION NEEDED
SHOW WHERE YOU GOT THE IDEA THAT THIS WAS ACTUALLY PART OF THE FILM'S PLOT AND NOT JUST YOUR HEAD CANNON
>>69852251
Because its a movie about the unavoidable destruction of beauty at the hands of a large powerful entity fighting ghosts of it's own paranoid delusions set during 1970.
Also you got inb4'd so hard its just sad.
We really should stop replying to him. He can't really be that stupid, can he? And if he is, what's the point?
>>69852400
Well, its giving me an excuse to wax poetic about pychon and PTA.
>>69852417
So when is PTA going to adapt Lot 49? That was some good shit, especially the play. I don't understand why Pynch thinks so little about it.
>>69852552
I am with pynchon on that, it was my first book of his and made me think he was shit because the prose is very awkward in places with a lot of annoying navel gazing that isnt in his other books. It is also a novel that really really beats you over the head with its central theme (moreso than even V and with a much less versatile or interesting subject) and in general i found it very shallow for a Pynchon book.
>>69847684
>
I liked being just as confused as Doc
This is the right attitude for both the movie and the book
>>69852805
Sure, l agree with you for the most part, but he didn't have enough time to play around as he usually would, considering Lot 49 is just a fifth of the length of V.
Still a pretty decent book, l think. And it's also one of the few that can actually be adapted.
>>69852916
Props to PTA for being able to adapt that part well. It seems to me that it would be much harder to do it in a two hour film than in a 400+ page book.
>>69853079
well, pychon does tend to navel-gaze a lot. Doc getting out of the handcuffs was several chapters in the book, for a sequence that could have only taken a few minutes real itme.
>hating on Lot 49
Don't fall for the old memester's tricks, the book is great
The final words of the book are so beautiful.
Can someone post them?
It went something along the lines of a magical joint appearing and about the comfy night on the freeway.
Ps: internet machine a best part.
>D'ya think I can buy dope with this thing or what?
Also, amazing audio book.
>>69845079
the film was about the industrial revolution. this made sense to me after second time watching
>>69854502
shits playskool's my first pychon.
>>69850430
>Fucking narrator spells out in plain english that the drug counter-culture is one big government honeypot.
When?
>>69845079
They did. And it was beautifully done.
>>69855093
just before the last supper scene
