Do you know Dick?
I had expected A Scanner Darkly to be my ‘film of the summer’, but unfortunately didn’t get to see it until well after Labor Day. I wasn’t disappointed, but coming from such a solid novel and in the hands of a compitent director, there was no surprise there. My only minor complaints are hair related - first of all, Woody H. in that wig, and secondly why have Winona blonde when she could already be Philip’s classic, nefarious ‘dark haried girl’? Anyway, the film speaks for itself. I assume the clip here will be included in the DVD extras, a rare PK Dick interview where he talks about a home invasion in the 70’s where much of his archives where stolen. And this act upon a guy who already had enough paranoia in his life.
I sort of thought Scanner would have been a bigger film, but don’t mind that it wasn’t. Spielberg and Cruise doing an adaptation of one of Dick’s stories was a bit too close for comfort. I don’t necessarily want to see one of my favorite SF writers become Hollywood fodder, and he has dozens and dozens of brilliant short stories, surely more films adaptations are to come. May they all be done as tastefully as Blade Runner. The biggest I’d say still to look for, and I could handle an animated version, is The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
