Philip K. Dick

[RPG Post]

Philip K. Dick

I watched Paycheck. I did not expect a faithful adaptation of a Dick work, and was surprised to find a story that was closer than many of the adaptations that have graced the screen. That is not to say it is a good movie, but, surprisingly, it is not a bad movie. The story from which it is draws is an early story, full of the paranoia toward authority but lacking the questions of self identity which swirl through later works as motes through an LSD haze. It is an odd story to give to John Woo, who has been greatly misused by Hollywood. Perhaps there was some befuddled executive vaguely aware that a dove played a role in Blade Runner and that Woo has made something of a trademark of doves. A pairing made in heaven.

Whenever adapting a Dick story or novel to the screen, there must be a cabal of gray capped men, an Adjustment Bureau, who decided when to elide paranoia, when to substitute big business for government, when to ramp down the religious mysticism and when to lose the poetry of insanity/amphetamines and replace it with a car chase, a gun battle, or Schwarzenegger dressed as a woman. Paycheck the movie hews closely to its short story, with one major exception: in the story the corporation is fighting against the government, but as the good guy against a repressive regime. I am not sure if any authority is to be trusted in Dick's later works, but the government is never to be trusted. Why make that change?

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Isaac Asimov was a optimistic, hope-filled writer who believed in the power of science to make life better. His fiction and non-fiction works at the very least demonstrate a positive spin and show none of Dick's paranoia and dystopian views. He too wrote a story about viewing in time, only in this case it was the past. "The Dead Past" has a scientist, turned down for time on a government restricted Chronoscope, work to create his own. He is a researcher enamored of ancient Carthage who finds, much too late, that the chronoscopes can only see back 120 years or so, before white noise makes the past unreadable. But everything, including the present, is the past. Humans are, every moment interpreting experiences that happened in the past. And when the technology is available to everyone, no one has any privacy anymore.

Paycheck is not concerned with privacy, even though we see people watching the future of seconds rather than of years. Oddly, the closer we get to the end of the movie, the shorter the future scried. Until we see at the end a man watch his future then turn to meet it, though he was rather aiming for escape. As it passes without notice or observation, it is probably not intentional, but it makes an interesting counterpoint to The Dead Past's ever shrinking definition of "past." Although there are apocalyptic images that propel the protagonist's decisions, it is the ever more banal ability to see what someone will do in the next two seconds that are more interesting and more stable in predictive accuracy. Dick returned to that in Minority Report in some ways.

Ben Affleck does a capable enough job as the hero; he is, as many of Dick's heroes are, somewhat flat. It is interesting that so many of Dick's heroes remind me of Hitchcockian protagonist, tossed into adventures unequipped, uninformed and unready but Jennings has already seen the future. While he does not remember what happened or what he saw, he has complete faith in a package of tchotchkes his past self sent to him. A variation on the theme shows up in Total Recall, in the messages from Quaid to himself, though not in the story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale. The mementos in We Can Remember are confirmations rather than clues.

Paycheck is, ultimately, another failure of Hollywood to understand Dick or Woo. A Scanner Darkly was more successful translation of the paranoia of a Dick story; Screamers, too captured Dick's flat protagonist and paranoia, though the movie is not nearly so pessimistic as the story. Ironically, what is considered a Dick masterpiece, Blade Runner, has so little in common with its source that it may as well have been a Hammett tale. I hope that The Adjustment Bureau will capture the oppressive atmosphere and powerlessness of the main character as he questions his sanity. But I suspect the movie will be focused on Damon as a hero rather than a survivor and become yet another man triumphing over the flawed system film.

Woo, though he has made six or so American films, has never been allowed the freedom to make one of his movies without censorship, starting with Hard Target, a film that supposedly exist in a much more violent director's cut. Woo, an operatic stylist whose aria's of violence breathe life into hardened men, is not a good match for Dick. Dick is about the mindfuck. Woo is about painting pictures in steel and blood.

[Forge]

I went and saw The Adjustment Bureau this weekend, and while it was not a 'to the letter' adaptation of the short story, I found it greatly entertaining. Yes it does, as expected, focus more on trumping the system via Damon, however it does give a sense of hopeless love all the way up until the end of the movie.

I would recommend it it over any other of Dick's adapted works that I have seen, (Blade Runner is hardly Dick's, and really, it doesn't stand up to movies by today's standards).

I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of special effects that they depended on, (not that there is lots of opportunity, mind you.) And instead instilled that sense of suspense through good acting, great musical cues and great sets.

Overall, great movie, both my wife and I both enjoyed it thoroughly.

[Matt]

I am glad to hear that you enjoyed The Adjustment Bureau. I was hoping to see it this weekend but couldn't find the time. Hopefully next weekend.