What a different aesthetic than Linklater's adaptation; I really dig it.
Much more surreal and genre inspired.
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
dir. Richard Linklater
Although I have respect for Linklater,
and I think he did a commendable job with Scanner,
the visual style I always was always unsure about.
Why the choice to rotoscope?
And why rotoscope so closely to the real?
I suppose it gives a slightly "unreal" quality to the image all the way across the board, but, at the same time, I wished it were either more real or more stylized. That might be strange to say, since A Scanner Darkly is one of those Dick novels which avoids planting both feet on the same plane, but I do feel it's the case.
Animation is quite versatile and expressive because each frame can be produced without regard to limitation, save for the trace of the human eye; to confine it to what a human body is capable of is to work against the craft. At the same time, we never really get to witness the genuine acting or emotions of the actors on screen... which is also unfortunate, because that's what animation doesn't produce: human faces.
Still, the animation in Linklater's Scanner is not quite trying to be real.
It's uncanny, but also not.
It's life trying to be a drawing, which is stranger than a cartoon trying to be real.
Now I'm just babbling.
I'm glad a film was made; it exposed more people to one of PKD's better stories, and did so in a respectful manner.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~EDIT / UPDATE * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
I had meant to cross link to my other post about the CGI Audrey Hepburn ad, but forgot.
