What happens when one of America's greatest, most subversive novelists of the 20th century meets one of America's most subversive and progressive filmmakers of today's generation? Naturally, it would be nothing short of a miracle. However, one should not forget that the writer here in question is no less than Thomas Pynchon, the hard-boiled, relentlessly reclusive and endlessly uncompromising teller of long, winding labyrinths of tales that can be both beautiful and befuddling, complex and creatively liberating and both maddening and mesmerising. From the die-hard lovers of his 1973 magnum opus 'Gravity's Rainbow' (as well his previous and subsequent triumphs of raging, almost terrifying imagination) to the virgins who might wish to dig the relatively lighter 'Inherent Vice' to get a grip on this baffling yet breathless literary universe, there will be the unanimous opinion of the sheer untameable quality of this extraordinary writer's prose.
But then, the director in question is no less of a modern legend: Paul Thomas Anderson, who has built his own reputation for films and narratives that have broken boundaries constantly and are, as evidenced by his last three ambitious outings, more than what intriguing surfaces may offer, making them more hypnotic and worthy of repeated viewings, something akin to Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese and David Lynch. And even before that, the riotously rollicking side-view of 70s pornography in 'Boogie Nights' and the metaphysical, massively powerful force of 'Magnolia' have given proof of this filmmaker's daring ambition to push boundaries to great limits. So, maybe, it is a match made in heaven; like many of Pynchon's own lovably quirky yet utterly believable creations playing off each other in his rambling, dense interlocking storylines and Anderson's own penchant for an almost hate-love chemistry between each pair of protagonists, this too feels like a seductive symbiotic relationship and it pays off in spades when it comes to 'Inherent Vice'.
To understand just how Anderson turns out to be both ardently loyal and ingeniously innovative with the book, let's first consider what 'Inherent Vice' is all about. At the surface, it is a deliriously nutty mystery caper set in a very familiar zone; California, with its sun-kissed boulevards and sexy glitz, with both its sunlight and sordid crime and sleaze, has been the favoured location of many a mystery film or crime novel. From James Elroy to the noir classics of the 1940s, down right to 'Chinatown' and even the films of Robert Altman and Anderson, California has been the stage for both suspense and intrigue and even a reflection of the country's constantly changing cultural scene. 'Inherent Vice' might be indeed more accessible than most of Pynchon's mystifyingly spell-binding work but it is still every bit yet another of his wistful, nostalgic backward glances at times gone long ago and of the struggles of the people to catch up with the present and future. It is there in the helplessly paranoid freaks, losers, megalomaniacs and dames hunting for the V-2 Rocket in 'Gravity's Rainbow'. So, even as the book will be replete with twists, thrills, spills and loose ends and corpses, it is essentially a tale of rebels trying to conform, its dogged private eye hero Doc Sportello coming into a sense of the tragically transformed world around him, of the end of a cultural revolution and of a spirit of freedom and how all the suspects, false leads and evil geniuses are trying to just get used to the change.
Anderson's film, on the other hand, thickens the political subtext even to a greater extent than what the book deals with. Pynchon was concerned, primarily, with the shifts of socio-cultural fabric; Anderson is more explicit in his implication of a possible collusion between a paranoid government and a ruthlessly capitalist industry making its move; the nefarious drug-smuggling outfit 'The Golden Fang' is revealed in the film as more of a political strategy against subversion and it also answers quite a few questions that the book raises. As the film's narration explains, the elusive cartel's activities, from feeding drug addiction to curing its side effects to offering anti-communist gospel was just perfect to restore order to a land going out of control. Pynchon does not quite deal with it directly but basically, both the book and the film are making the same argument.
Apart from being a gifted, anarchic satirist, Pynchon is also known for the kind of side-splitting, broadly outrageous hilarious set-pieces that infuse his wistful, thoughtful perspective with a heady overdose of roaring, ribald slapstick. His stories are crammed with split-second gags, gobsmacking dialogue of unexpected turns of phrase, veering from poetry to profanity, flitting from slang to language. He also has lost none of his penchant for nonsense lyrics and limericks. Anderson may skimp on the songs and the more outrageously cheeky bits of his style (there is no mention, for instance, of marshmallows on pizza) but he has also made the source raunchier and funnier in most unexpected ways, most notably with his own flair for foul-mouthed, fiery dialogue.
From Lt. Detective Bigfoot Bjornsen spelling out the F-word with relish, to the bitter, almost acerbic banter between Sportello and the federal agents grilling him to reveal his motives to even the other admirable little tweaks that he gives to all the rollicking conversations in the book, this is as close as one can be to the inimitable hilarity of Pynchon and it is also innovative and ludicrously inventive in its own way. 'Inherent Vice' is also a film that drips with sleaze in almost every second frame. Pynchon's treatment of the sex in the book is markedly cynical and mostly there for the laughs but Anderson, armed with his superbly juicy musical selections, ratchets up and coats each frame with the sordid yet electric eroticism of a soft-core flick. That rough doggy-style spanking between Sportello and his ex-lady (and the tale's only real femme fatale) Shasta Fey Hepworth loses some of its sarcasm because it turns poignant in his hands, even a touch sentimental and flushed with real, heartbreaking romance.
It is so much of Anderson's focus on this failed romance, this love-lorn feel of the film that makes his adaptation of 'Inherent Vice' so remarkably faithful to the elusive writer's potent intentions. Like much of his work, this book too is like a penultimate, pained yet passionate love letter to another era, to a time of love and bliss. At its heart, it is yet another of those shaggy, utterly hapless love yarns that he loves to tuck in the midst of his super-sized sandwiches of tales. The best precedent for this could be the star-crossed, lusty love that statistician Roger Mexico and his unlikely partner, the free-spirited Jessica Swanlake share in 'Gravity's Rainbow'. There is a war around them, the tumult of a time gone beyond their hands and their own uncertainties about staying together. But at times, nothing matters to them more than just the enthralling feeling of their mutual love which is both tender and torrid in equal measures.
'Inherent Vice' is all about that love, the thrilling yet all-too-brief feeling of something seminal, something special and Anderson understands that perfectly, as much he has gets nearly of Pynchon's twisted character dynamics as well. The most notable here is the repartee between Sportello and his direct and equal opposite Bjornsen. The book sees them, despite their well-known mutual distaste, as something akin to unlikely partners, sharing the kind of love-hate rapport that was also between the historical heroes of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in his epic 'Mason & Dixon'.
Just as Mason's self-doubting seriousness clashed memorably with Dixon's freewheeling nature, here Bjornsen's paranoia and loathing for the hippie culture clashes perfectly with Sportello's jaunty, slippery way of life. One wishes that the film could have delved a bit more on the backstory surrounding their arc; the director skimps totally on the pivotal bit in the book about how these two freaks of nature actually came to meet each other. But credit should go to him for tweaking on this in his own way. In the film, the two characters, in a trademark Anderson flourish, seek solace and acceptance by sparking off each other and become, by the bittersweet end, eerily similar on a number of counts. Bjornsen, bothered by his loneliness, cannot resist the allure of freedom while Sportello, bemused by the changes around him, cannot help but try to fit in with this new world.
Visually and aurally too, Anderson gets so much of the book's whimsical, even wacky Californian landscape perfectly right. And I am not just talking about the bigger pieces but also about the feel, the texture that the book portrays so well. There is actually a carpet of blue angora on the walls of the Chick Planet Massage Parlour and there are actually cops frolicking in the swimming pool while Sloane Wolfmann is decked out in slinky black. Cinematographer Robert Elswit's visuals are stunning, smoky and languid and they also let in both the patchouli scents and the sweaty odours to flow into the frames. It is utterly atmospheric, just like the novel.
One of my favourite songs from John Lennon's penultimate album 'Double Fantasy' is the swelling, rousing love ballad 'Just Like Starting Over'. On Lennon's final interview with Playboy in 1980, Yoko Ono claimed that the song was his message to the people that they could now get back all the freedom and enthusiasm of the 1960s that had burned out in the 70s. Pynchon's book and Anderson's film are both about the aftermath of that burnout and while it may be one goofy, loony caper crammed with weirdos who love cartoons and menus for cunnilingus, it is still filled with a sadness that is irrevocable and exquisite. That also leaves the room open for an exciting possibility. 'The Master' borrowed a few elements from 'V' and even 'There Will Be Blood' has a bit of the same parable of a virgin land divided by conquest which was also subliminally explored in 'Mason & Dixon'. So, now that Christopher Nolan has made 'Dunkirk', can we expect Anderson to give us his own thrilling take on 'Gravity's Rainbow'? Hell, why not?
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