Beau Largent

12 March 2016

Phillips

ENGL 101-022

70's Transition

Inherent Vice, a 2014 stoner crime comedy-drama film, follows private detective Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) throughout Los Angeles where he sets out to solve three intertwining cases. The film is a 70's mystery drama directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, based of the book, Inherent Vice, by Thomas Pynchon. The first scene of the film begins with an unconventional shot sequence that creates an instant mystery in a scene. Doc's old girlfriend Shasta Fey (Katherine Waterston) comes to his apartment explaining the details that led to his first case. Paul Anderson was inspired by the 'Master of Suspense' Alfred Hitchcock. He begins each scene with the detail shot and works out the scene slowly. Forcing the audience to ask questions about what they were watching rather than understanding how the story pieces itself together. Inherent Vice has a plot that is practically impenetrable. Following the disappearance of one of the largest Southern California real estate businessman, Mickey Wolfmann (Eric Robert). Interconnected with the murder of one of Wolfmann's neo-Nazi bodyguards, Shasta's suspicions of Wolfmann's wife's plan of kidnapping, Coy the band member gone rogue as a police informant, and the mysterious Golden Fang. As Doc solves the case figuring out the Golden Fang is a heroin smuggling boat and he was set up by the LAPD. The police department used him for the murder he was trying to solve, when they were the ones who set up the murder itself. The film comes to a closing even though not the clearest ending like most Paul Thomas Anderson films, but lets the audience make some of their own judgments. Anderson's adapted screenplay of Pynchon's Inherent Vice uses strong interconnected character relationships, cinematography, and an unexpected narrator to show the division and transition that takes place in the 1970's. 

Starting the movie off with Doc's old girlfriend coming back into his life for business purposes is just the start to the layers of relationship in this film, whether friendly, associate, or lover. Phoenix's character Doc finds himself in an interesting back and forth relationship with Los Angeles Policeman, Bigfoot (Josh Brolin). Bigfoot is introduced in an advertisement for Channel View Estates, where he depicts a hippy almost in a mocking tone. Then the next we see him is arresting Doc at the land for the estates as Doc regains consciousness next to the murdered, Glen Charlock. Bigfoot is the exact opposite of Doc, full of striking energy and promptness with a flat top compared to Doc's laidback hippy style, afro, and muttonchops. The contrast between the two visually is enough to set the tone of their relationship when we hear they already have a blurred past. But throughout the film it seems as no matter what happens or how different their views are, they always get each other. Their relationship is one of the most interesting in the complex story. Their relationship is almost a representation to the divide in the 1970s between the hippies and the establishment. Bigfoot stands for the older generation's 'wisdom' that was passed down to only a few, while Doc is the epitome of the surging hippy generation. We get to see the mix in these generations with Doc's fling at the time, a D.A. deputy who also has a scene with Doc in bed smoking marijuana. This scene expresses the divide between their backgrounds but the transition of coming together in the free love seventies. 

Anderson's use of plain and tight shooting in the film really allows the actors and actresses to succeed. The staging of the scenes is never too cluttered, really focusing in on the actors and their conversations, almost longing us for more. He focuses in on Joaquin Phoenix, with the majority of the movie based on up-close frontal shots capturing Phoenix's facial expression and hippy style gaze; giving the audience confusion on whether he was deep in concentration or just too high to think. The rest of the movie is filled with deep, foggy sun filled scenes given a creamy color grading which just accentuates the blurred stories and memories that are being narrating throughout the story, while the creamy coloring still gives a 70's haze to the picture. One of the most interesting shots is at the cult-band mansion, where we see the band around a table of pizza, set up almost exactly like the Last Supper. While it is a pretty obvious scene and doesn't contribute much, the beauty within the cinematography of the shot really shines throughout that scene and the rest of the movie. 

The addition by Anderson of using Doc's close friend Sortilege as the narrator of the film adds the added elements needed to give the film as a look back on a story. It is almost as if she gives us the story that was told by Doc in a nostalgic matter. The whole stoned feeling the movie has, would be a lot less convincing without the addition of her voice. She brings an element of all-knowing but in the film she is just another hippy friend of Doc who does give him advice, but not in the way you would feel. Anderson bleeds the two characters together, with scenes of Sortilege that end up with her talking leading to the narration of the next scene that she won't be included in. This really shows the advanced and interesting techniques the audience gets out of Anderson's screenplay. 

Full of close-ups, details and clues, Inherent Vice is full of secrecy. Paul Thomas Anderson captures the fear and greed that came with the transition from the 1960s to the 1970s, but he still doesn't overindulge you with the time period. It is almost as Anderson is trying to bring the film to our times, expressing the idea that society might have changes but we are constantly in the same cycle of paranoia and craving for being on top. Inherent Vice gives you the paranoia of any transition period, highlighted in the seventies with the recent events such as the Mansons and the Vietnam War. The Manson paranoia was seen in the movie when a cult is referenced as a group of three or more people. The Vietnam War is expressed by Coy's character and how the establishment is in control, also shown through the hippy culture of that time and the fight against the big boss. This allows Anderson to play off of the two, showing the divide. But in the end, even though the groups dislike each other, they in a way are searching for the same thing. Just like Doc and Bigfoot always get each other even though they are on the different ends of the spectrum. Overall, Inherent Vice is an interesting depiction of the time period giving us a look at human behavior in deep complex relationships but mixes in the lighthearted crude humor to set the tone which allows Anderson to use the abundance of characters, tight film style, and bleeding between character and narrator to express that transition in the seventies in a spot on view. 
