Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014)

[therewillbeblus]

Another (fifth, sixth?) viewing and the film is just getting better and better, to the point where it’s vying for my favorite PTA. The term “atmospheric” gets thrown around a lot, but this film just doses its audience with a buzz laced with humor and fear, an amalgamation that works on a surface level of eclectic sensory enjoyment and a deeper level of existential disturbance. The political angle strikes at both very real Anglo-conspiring segregations of power and a joke of flip flopping loyalty to institutional mirages, just as sobering flashes of clarity pierce through the surrealistic haze. The meshing of all the colors flooding the screen (has PTA ever made a more diverse film, using every single cinematic tool to evoke such multitudes of mood?) forces a feeling of being stoned, and the outrageous subtle and slapstick visual gags are only bested occasionally by the auditory ones. For all the dense thematic strengths, this is simply one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, often because of the contrast of humor with serious experience. The verbal gags add to the confusion and paranoia wonderfully, my favorite being

Spoiler

“Would you like the use the facilities... use the bathroom... use the bathroom before you take a tour of the facilities?”

[flyonthewall2983]

Viewed on an edible.

This has grown on me like moss since I saw it for the first time at its NYFF premiere and didn't like it so much, squinting my ears at the often mumbled dialogue and feeling as though it just went on and on.

It is a mysterious masterpiece, beautifully existing in the space of its characters - understanding as much as they do, but still much more than we do. Awash in regret and melancholy.

Squinting isn’t good for your eyesight

[Drucker]

Fourth viewing for me last night at Lincoln Center in 70 (the original release print, as evidenced by the Warner logo). My first viewing did nothing for me, a bad experience at the downstairs Angelika theater when it was first released. My first viewing on home video improved it slightly. Two years ago finally caught it in 35 and enjoyed it greatly, finding myself swept away from the atmosphere, not quite following the plot all the way but enjoying the mood of the film greatly. Yesterday was my first time viewing it where I could clearly follow (most of) the plot, and I came away with yet another different feeling. This was the first time watching it where it actually felt the most like a PTA film. I read Sportello's character, for the first hour at least, as a guy mostly sad about his girlfriend leaving. It seems no matter the ridiculous circumstances he finds himself in, he's interjecting most of the conversations he has with questions about Shasta. When his receptionist brings her up, you can tell how wounded he is. The initial trigger for the plot itself is just Shasta asking for help.

In my last viewing, I viewed Shasta's return towards the end of the film as almost empty and hollow, this idea that maybe Sportello realizes he's been chasing a ghost. I viewed it differently last night.

Spoiler

Doc is floating through life, and maybe they'll never be together, no matter how together they are. Shasta even brings up their memory of running through the rain after the Ouija board, a memory that Doc recalled earlier in the film.

There are many people in the film who are living "together" but separated. There is a through line of people searching for other people. Doc the most clear example. Obviously the Harlingen family as another example, but even Bigfoot, Khalil, and the Fenway families are all living searching for someone but not being with them at the same time. All these lives are intersecting, coming together and then pulling apart from each other. Not unlike so many other PTA films.

Rather than viewing the film as an impossible to follow dive down a rabbit hole, it seems like a lovely but very, very bizarrely told story of people coming in and out of each other's lives.

[mfunk9786]

My first impressions from the NYFF premiere are still up on here, but I'm with Drucker on this one - richer with each revisit, a movie that goes on and on in some respects but has a seriously strong emotional center. It also helps to be able to hear the dialogue, which is easier every time I watch it too.

[therewillbeblus]

Same, this has slowly graduated in my esteem and has become one of my favorite films. Potentially my favorite. Drucker gets at part of why, as did HDTS upthread, but more than anything I just feel the ache of trying to make sense of all worldly things, and connect with people so strongly, that it instills feelings of Antonioni as much as it does Altman, Demme et al. It takes the "You're fucked" Muller description of noir and makes that complex and even provides doses of optimism to that idea as a kind of Sisyphean struggle. I don't know, it's hard for me to talk about my favorite films sometimes. But the scene where Doc is standing alone at Chick Planet with the red flags blowing in the wind, staring out at the desert, gives me chills that are both devastating and comforting, lonely and funny. I find that the film carries this complicated tone throughout, buried in a thematically-appropriate haze that's never been accomplished before or since. I love films that make me both happy and sad and allow me to react to moments differently each time. PTA gives that space here - he issues so much material but withholds clear definition by design.

It's also just one of the funniest and most entertaining movies I've ever seen. Fires on all cylinders.

[Wigs by Leonard]

I saw this for the first time a few months ago, on 70mm, as the last PTA I hadn't seen. I was holding out to read the novel first and never getting around to it, but I didn't want to pass up the chance for a 70mm screening. I had a blast, obviously, which didn't surprise me, since I went in with Boogie Nights as one of my favorite films and The Crying of Lot 49 one of my favorite novels. I surrendered to the haze of not knowing exactly what was going on, which was the right move, and also a direct emulation of what Doc's feeling throughout most of this. I wasn't stoned, but I walked out craving a thick joint more than I ever have before.

Then I read the novel, which I just finished this week, and it's unsurprisingly even more delightful than the film, though PTA very truly translates the zip and flair of the Pynchon sentence and style. it's pretty faithful, plot-wise, with a half-dozen unfilmed excursions (a chapterlong jaunt to Vegas it's a shame wasn't filmed --most of its important events make it into the film but there are a few extra characters). One of the more redolent atmospheric elements of the book is its precise timespan -- between Manson's arrest and the trial, March-May 1970 -- which perfumes the action without becoming heavy-handed intertext. The Aunt Reet character also shows up a bit more -- Jeannie Berlin's cameo was one of my favorites, and would have most wished for her to become a minor character in the film rather than a walk-on. (She also, perversely, narrated the audiobook of Bleeding Edge!)

Suffice it to say that I'm a total Pynchon freak now, barreling into Bleeding Edge, backtracking to Vineland before September, and cozying up with Mason & Dixon come fall, which I can't wait to absorb, given the praise folks on this forum have given it -- thanks for that!

[therewillbeblus]

I think Mason & Dixon and DeLillo's Underworld are the Greatest American Novels, so enjoy!

[Mr Sausage]

I wouldn’t go as far as blus, but Mason & Dixon is my favourite Pynchon, not least because it was the first time I felt he let himself form rounded characters.