A Thomas Pynchon Primer

Two years ago (because time does, indeed, fly) I put together A Wes Anderson Primer as a short resource for those who might be interested in Moonrise Kingdom, or weren’t sure if they’d be interested, because they hadn’t really seen much Anderson yet.

This time around, I’m Primer-ing you on Thomas Pynchon…my favorite author. Inherent Vice comes out in December…the film, that is. The first film he’s ever allowed to be adapted from his writings. Perhaps you’ve seen the trailer. Perhaps you haven’t. Either way, if you’re not already a fan of Pynchon’s, the odds are good that you don’t know what the hubbub is about.

Sure, it looks like a cool, funny movie. But why is it important?

You won’t know — or won’t understand, anyway — unless you read some Pynchon for yourself. That’s an intimidating task, though. Pynchon’s a notoriously and deliberately opaque figure, and while I wholeheartedly feel there’s something in his books for everyone, finding that something can be impossible if you go in unprepared. I’m not exaggerating; I adore the guy, and I still find his books frightening.

But let’s go through each one of them in turn. I’m going to try to help you find a way in. And don’t forget that you can win any one of these books by taking the Noiseless Chatter reader’s survey.

V. (1963)

Length: 507 pages
Overview: Dual protagonists Benny Profane and Herbert Stencil more or less alternate their respective searches for meaning. Benny is described in the novel as an incurable schlemiel, swept along by the forces — and inanimate objects — of the world around him, while Stencil is the opposite and actively seeks an answer to a question he may not fully understand: the identity of a person (or place…or thing…) known to him only as V. Woven throughout their stories are the stories of others, relayed both first-hand and via flashback, painting a larger portrait of a world of isolates, each seeking some kind of reason to carry on. V. is packed with great characters (some of whom we’ll get to know better in later novels), sharp satire, and haunting imagery, but it’s not nearly as tight as Pynchon’s later works. While a chatty aimlessness is one of Pynchon’s greatest tools — and while it absolutely is a theme explored through the lenses of our main characters here — V. feels a lot like it’s padding for time, and the reader doesn’t always return from these bizarre sojourns with the feeling of there having been a purpose to what he was just told. In Gravity’s Rainbow especially Pynchon manages to retain — indeed, amp up — the disorientation, but it always feels purposeful. Here, excellent though the writing is, it often feels like we’re watching a great artist find his footing. The strongest moments in the book are the ones that see the characters identifying a goal for themselves and working toward it, whether that’s the extinction of alligators in the New York City sewer system, the disassembly of a priest, the attempted theft of The Birth of Venus, the cosmetic reconfiguration of a lover’s face, or the quest of father-and-son adventurers to return to a place that may never have existed. Each of these goals — and dozens more — seem to provide as much of a spark for the author as they do for the characters involved, and it’s here that we catch glimpses of the Thomas Pynchon we know today.
Opening Timeframe: 1955
Chronological Sequence: Fourth
Pynchonverse: As Pynchon’s first novel and almost everybody’s introduction to his talents, the entirety of V. can be seen as a framework for what’s to come. The alternating comedy / horror, the meandering expeditions through history, the extreme violence and sexuality, visions of unreachable utopia, a detective figure, the withheld climax, the winking original songs…in fact, one would be hard-pressed to find a single hallmark of Pynchon’s that isn’t on display already here, however rough some of them might be around the edges. Also, being his first novel, there aren’t any real callbacks here. As you’ll see, however, every release that follows takes the opportunity to weave itself into a much larger, even more satisfying framework.

The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)

Length: 183 pages
Overview: Oedipa Maas receives news that not only has her absurdly rich ex-lover passed away, but that he’s appointed her executor (or executrix, she supposes) of his estate. With the help of a former child actor turned attorney, Oedipa disentangles the affairs of the late Pierce Inverarity, and finds an entirely new kind of tangle emerging instead. It involves a (possibly fictional) centuries-old feud between rival postal services, echoes of which seem to be in evidence everywhere she turns. Rare stamps, Jacobean revenge dramas, and even otherwise innocuous children’s songs convince her that either some incredible secret is just waiting to be uncovered, or she’s gone genuinely insane. It’s a hilarious book that pivots into psychological horror on a dime, and is constantly weaving at least two types of tales into the narrative at once. Pynchon himself seemed dismissive of it in his introduction to Slow Learner, but it’s one that I come back to frequently. Admittedly, its brevity is a good reason for that. (Reading the entire book in one day, which I’ve done several times, reveals a whole other level of interconnections, and I recommend doing that at least once.) That brevity, however, doesn’t make it much “easier” than anything else Pynchon has written. In fact, my first memory of The Crying of Lot 49 is a fellow student breaking down in one of my college literature classes because he was supposed to give a presentation on it and, despite reading it multiple times, had no understanding of the book at all. I bought it soon afterward because I was intrigued by the idea of such a slim volume putting up a fight like that. And, sure enough, it took a good long while before I was even barely comfortable talking about it either. Its ending is very instructive to readers of any Pynchon; it feels as though it’s unresolved, and in terms of the book’s central mystery, it is. But while you (and Oedipa) were following one kind of plot, Pynchon was actually developing another. You’ll get to the end looking for an answer, and at the end you’ll get an answer. But the odds are good that you and Pynchon had very different questions in mind, and the fact that such a rich and satisfying experiment in misdirection comes from a seemingly tiny, silly, unassuming text is endlessly impressive to me.
Opening Timeframe: 1964
Chronological Sequence: Fifth
Pynchonverse: Ballistics company Yoyodyne appeared in V., along with Clayton “Bloody” Chiclitz, who himself appears here and again in Gravity’s Rainbow.

Gravity’s Rainbow (1973)

Length: 760 pages
Overview: Man…an overview of Gravity’s Rainbow. A more daunting exercise does not exist. Period. It’s my favorite novel, as you probably know, but it’s also one that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I remember the first time I read it: I hated it. It was painful to read. At almost no point did I feel as though I had a handle on what was happening, and when I did it didn’t last long. But I pushed through it, and I’m glad I did, because when I revisited it a few years later, it went much better. I was able to pay more attention to certain characters because I knew they would pop up later in the narrative, even if it happened after hundreds of pages had passed. I knew to treat other characters (and passages) as less-important digressions because they didn’t actively factor into anything to come, which freed me up to enjoy them (if not always comprehend them). Gravity’s Rainbow is a book that needs to be re-read, not read, which makes it a serious time commitment, and by no means a good recommendation for the Py-curious. In fact, I may have only been able to make sense of it due to a very superficial guide I found online…one that didn’t seek to interpret the book for me (because fuck that…if I want someone else to do the interpreting why am I reading in the first place?) but one that simply outlined in a sentence what happened in each section. That allowed me to know which scenes were flashbacks, fantasies, hallucinations, monologues delivered by characters who are dead (which the book may or may not make clear before you meet them), and so on. Gravity’s Rainbow is an almost endless exercise in self-orientation, and it’s a breathtakingly beautiful one. The beauty, however, lies beneath a thick layer of frustration. If you are dedicated enough to dig through to it, you’ll be glad you did. If you’re not, and only make it partway through the barricade, you’ll regret that you tried in the first place. Whew. There’s my overview of Gravity’s Rainbow. Unless you want to know something about the plot, which is a sort of loose mosaic of scenes and horrors interlocking their way across the insanity of World War II. The nearest thing to a protagonist we have is Tyrone Slothrop, an American serving in England during the V-2 blitz on London. Slothrop gets roped into a conspiracy — only gradually realizing he’s the central component — when it’s observed that the sites of his professed sexual conquests turn out to be the exact targets of rocket attacks a few days later, without fail. Slothrop is interrogated and studied for any information he might have — consciously or not — about the connection, a process that takes him from being plied with alcohol and sex to being abandoned in “the Zone” without money, identification, or a way home. But Slothrop’s story is only one of many, and it may not even turn out to be the most important to you as a reader. Which is why Gravity’s Rainbow is impossible to summarize; it’s a book that exists in your mind after you read it, not one that exists as words on a page. It’s a work of brutal, repulsive, challenging, brilliant, fearless, unforgettable art. It’s one you should both experience at some point in your life, and avoid at all costs.
Opening Timeframe: 1944
Chronological Sequence: Third
Pynchonverse: This novel reunites us with several of the minor characters we met in V., including Pig Bodine, “Bloody” Chiclitz, Kurt Mondaugen, and Weissmann, all of whom have more important (if not necessarily larger) roles here. Pappy Hod from that same novel also gets a small mention.

Slow Learner (1984)

Length: 208 pages
Overview: A collection of Pynchon’s early short stories, Slow Learner lives up to its self-effacing title. As flawed as I consider V., I absolutely grant that it provides marvelous indication of the talent to come. The stories that comprise Slow Learner, though, won’t seem much different in terms of quality, style, or substance from anything you might have seen from classmates in a college-level writing workshop. That’s not to say they’re bad, but they don’t strike the reader as the work of somebody that was in command of his abilities. (And, in objective fairness, subsequent writings have proven that he certainly was not.) What makes this book worth owning, though, is the introduction, penned by Pynchon himself. If you think I’m hard on these stories, you should read what he has to say about them. The introduction is an older, wiser, respected Pynchon, looking back at the floundering youth who wrote these stories and seeing a different person entirely. It’s a brief memoir, personal reflection, writing instruction, and advice column all in one, and for a man that communicates with the outside world so rarely in any form, the introduction is beyond value. It’s also worth noting that the only editions of this book I’ve ever seen (including the first edition), contain five stories. However a sixth story, “Mortality and Mercy in Vienna,” was apparently included in at least one printing, somewhere, at some point. I’ve yet to confirm this myself, but if I don’t mention it somebody else will. (And if anyone knows which edition(s) contain(s) this story, please do let me know.)
Opening Timeframe: n/a
Chronological Sequence: n/a
Pynchonverse: A reworked version of the story “Under the Rose” eventually became a chapter in Pynchon’s debut novel, V. That novel also features Pig Bodine, who appears in the story “Low-lands” here, as well as in Gravity’s Rainbow. Hogan Slothrop, Jr., from “The Secret Integration” is the nephew of Tyrone Slothrop, the closest thing we get to a hero in Gravity’s Rainbow.

Vineland (1990)

Length: 385 pages
Overview: In the almost twenty years that passed between this and Gravity’s Rainbow, expectations soared. Whatever was taking Pynchon this long to deliver his next sermon, it was bound to be worth the wait. And then, like a wet thud, Vineland hit shelves, disappointing idiots everywhere. Vineland is one of my favorite Pynchon novels, and probably the one I recommend most often to readers looking to experience him for the first time. And, frankly, the “It’s not what I wanted it to be” backlash that the book received is insulting. Yes, it was Pynchon’s easiest novel to date, but that doesn’t mean it’s of a lower quality. With Vineland, Pynchon’s sharp social criticisms are as biting as ever; the fact that they’re couched in some of his most overtly comic (and comically effective) writing yet should have been a cause for celebration…but I’m digressing. The story takes place with an Orwellian hat-tip in 1984, where unemployed ex-hippie Zoyd Wheeler finds his life of quiet dreaminess shattered by the re-emergence — in a way — of his ex-wife, Frenesi…as well as her old suitor, government man Brock Vond. In order to keep his daughter Prairie safe from the fallout, he sets her out on an adventure of her own, and the bulk of the novel drifts backward through time as we and Prairie weave together — via newsreels, newspapers, hearsay — an understanding of exactly who her mother was, and of everything America lost, destroyed, and gambled away between the mid 60s and the mid 80s. It’s a great book with warmth found in the most unexpected places, such as between Zoyd and his police department counterpart Hector Zuniga (which, in retrospect, plays like a dry run for the relationship between Doc and Bigfoot in Inherent Vice), or the one which develops between a hired assassin and the diminutive Japanese man she accidentally kills. (It makes more sense when you read it, I promise.) Pynchon is as insightful as ever, if not necessarily as deep, and this relatively surface-level approach allows him, I feel, to explore the outer sadnesses and flashes of desperation as impressively as he’s explored the internal emptiness and quiet panic of his characters in the past. Vineland is a lush and memorable narrative, with some of his best-defined characters and most impressively catchy songs. Its ending, as well, stood as the final chronological sequence in any of his novels before the release of Bleeding Edge, and it serves as such perfect punctuation that I kind of wish it still was.
Opening Timeframe: 1984
Chronological Sequence: Seventh
Pynchonverse: Mucho Maas from The Crying of Lot 49 appears here, providing just a little bit of a clue — but still no answer — as to what happened after the end of that novel.

Mason & Dixon (1997)

Length: 773 pages
Overview: Astronomer Charles Mason and surveyor Jeremiah Dixon carve their famous line into a young America, an action itself that seems to draw a line between generations of hopeful superstition and the colder, more measurable Age of Reason. It’s also Pynchon’s most difficult text, which is saying something. The entire thing is written in, for lack of a better term, mid-Colonial American. What that means for you as a reader is that the words on the page — in sentences, in paragraphs — don’t necessarily behave by the rules you seek to impose upon them. Long-forgotten slang and obsolete terminology abound, meaning that everything you read gets read twice: first to find out what’s written on the page, and second to translate it internally into something you can understand. As a result, Mason & Dixon is both tiring and off-putting…at first. Much like Gravity’s Rainbow, this is a book that necessitates multiple readings. You cannot read it once; that’s a waste of time for everybody. You should commit either to reading it twice, or not at all. The second time, at least, you’ll understand what’s happening, as you’ll be in tune with the textual approach. And every time beyond that, you’ll fall in love a little bit more. The relationship that blooms between our dual protagonists is one of the richest in Pynchon’s arsenal, and there’s an amazingly touching undercurrent of record and measurement beating back, and eventually supplanting, legend itself. The world of Mason & Dixon seems to grow along with its characters, itself adapting to technological advancements and provable science. This means that legends — whether talking dogs, giant worms, hollow Earths, glowing Indians, or golems — do exist…until they’re disproven, anyway, at which point they never existed, and they shift permanently into the realm of fancy. It’s a neat trick, and Pynchon handles it beautifully, turning the dawn of the Age of Reason into a kind of unspoken tragedy as much as it is an advancement, and forging strong bonds between all those who witnessed it together. It’s an absolutely beautiful experiment, which might stumble and fall along the way, but which ultimately brings us the most rawly emotional moments to leave Pynchon’s pen, including Dixon standing up to a slaver, and Mason confronting the ghost of his deceased wife. When I first read this book, I was disappointed. I think I expected it to be funnier. The joke, I’m pleased to admit, was on me.
Opening Timeframe: 1786
Chronological Sequence: First
Pynchonverse: The Reverend Wicks Cherrycoke shares a last name with a character in Gravity’s Rainbow, and Fenderbelly Bodine is the earliest known ancestor of the Bodines we meet (and have met) in V., Gravity’s Rainbow, Slow Learner, and Against the Day.

Against the Day (2006)

Length: 1,085 pages
Overview: The lives of several major character sets are traced from the World’s Fair in Chicago all the way through — and past — The Great War. I’ve read Against the Day several times, but have rarely finished it. It’s in competition with V. for being my least favorite novel of Pynchon’s…and yet, there’s so much good in it that I find myself thinking about it, meditating on it, wishing to revisit it. I think the problem with Against the Day is that there’s simply too much going on. Unlike Gravity’s Rainbow, which utilized “too much” as a successful method of piecing together a global nightmare, Against the Day wants to be both human and cosmic at once, which means we find it doing great things that feel incompatible with the other great things it does. It’s a fractured experience, but one worth having at least once. While I’m fully aware that I fall into Pynchon’s trap when I read the first few chapters of the novel and get amped up for an exciting saga of Western revenge, the fact is that the stories that follow are, on the whole, not quite as interesting. Overlong passages and seemingly meaningless sequences of events in which characters are shuffled all over the world for the sake of shuffling them make this feel like Pynchon at his least focused and most frustrating. That’s not to say it’s without its merits: an extended sequence in which an arctic expedition finds a malicious figure buried in the ice leads to some of Pynchon’s most chilling writing yet, and the various uses / implications of the double-refracting mineral known as Iceland Spar lead to moments of both effective comedy and tantalizing philosophy. It also introduces us to Dally Rideout, my favorite female character in any of Pynchon’s books, and a firm candidate for favorite overall. (Merle Rideout probably wins the award for Best Pynchon Dad as well…and it probably says something that he’s not actually related to Dally.) Frank Traverse, the universal runner-up, also has a particularly affecting character arc. In short, Against the Day would have been better had Pynchon dedicated more focus to almost any of his ideas. As it stands, too much adds up to too little.
Opening Timeframe: 1893
Chronological Sequence: Second
Pynchonverse: We witness the birth of Jesse Traverse, grandfather of Frenesi Gates in Vineland. We also tag along for a first-hand exploration of the “hollow Earth,” a theory floated in Mason & Dixon. This book features O.I.C. Bodine, a relatively minor — but still welcome — link in the Bodine lineage. The skyship Inconvenience shares a name with a more traditional ship in Mason & Dixon. We also check back in with La Jarretière (Melanie l’Heuremaudit’s stage name in V.) to find that Pynchon revised — perhaps for reasons known only to him — her grisly ending from that book.

Inherent Vice (2009)

Length: 369 pages
Overview: With the exception of Mason & Dixon, I think each of Pynchon’s novels features a detective figure in a major role. Inherent Vice is the only one, though, that features an actual detective as its protagonist. Doc Sportello is that protagonist, a smarter-than-he-looks hippie being washed unhappily into the 70s, while the Charles Manson trial unfolding in the background serves as a sad reminder that 60s idealism is gone for good. The case he’s working on is one he isn’t even getting paid for: his ex-girlfriend informs him of a plot to kidnap her real-estate mogul beau, Mickey Wolfmann. This being Pynchon, of course, a dozen other stories get woven into and spun out of what should be a relatively straight-forward investigation, and I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by saying that making it to the end of the book doesn’t necessarily imply that you’ll find any kind of resolution. At least, not that resolution. The fog-heavy coda plays like a sustained chord. Some eternal, melancholy echo that hangs in the air long after you’ve placed Inherent Vice back on the shelf, and part of me wishes that scene — that moment — could stand as the last thing Pynchon ever gave us. But, whoops, I’ve gone and skipped over the whole novel. That might be because the best things about Inherent Vice are the exchanges, the way the characters interact and intersect. This is probably Pynchon’s most realistic novel, in that regard, as every friendship and every antagonism feels natural. These are people who both need and needle each other, and are trying, in their own ways, to find meaning in the significant cultural shift happening around them. Most of them find nothing, but none of them stop searching. And every so often Pynchon gives these poor folks a break. The announcement of a pregnancy. A grudging admission of respect. An unexpected payout from a forgotten casino. Throughout Inherent Vice things go from bad to worse, but not at a steady clip. There are moments of respite. There are chances to catch your breath. And there are opportunities to be thankful for what you have, even though — or perhaps because — you know you can’t have it forever.
Opening Timeframe: 1970
Chronological Sequence: Sixth
Pynchonverse: Doc is the cousin of Scott Oof, a young musician we met in Vineland. He’s also done some work for Sledge Poteet, another character from that book. What’s more, we visit Kahuna Airlines here, which played a big role in Vineland, and the two novels also share a fictional location (Gordita Beach). At one point in the book we get a mild hallucination in which Doc has a conversation with Thomas Jefferson, whose dialogue reprises the textual stylization of Mason & Dixon.

Bleeding Edge (2013)

Length: 477 pages
Overview: Maxine Tarnow, a decertified fraud investigator, finds herself set by various interested parties on long, complicated, dangerous trail, similar to the one on which Doc found himself in Inherent Vice, but here the backdrop is entirely different. Technology allows freer and faster access to information, but it brings with it the “Deep Web,” which might not be an inherently bad thing but certainly provides a platform for the bad to grow worse. This symmetrical advancement, both positive and negative in roughly equal measures, serves as a big theme; technology allows us to spread word of injustice, but it also makes it easier for professional silencers to track us down. It’s a terrifying, all-too-recognizable landscape that he paints, and yet it feels like Pynchon’s most personal novel to date. Sure, he’s not a female detective, but there’s an unexpected warmth and openness in what drives Maxine, in how she interprets the world, and in what she allows to break down her barriers. I’ve warmed up to it quite a bit since I reviewed it, and though I do still recognize its flaws, I’ve come to be disarmed by just how fragile he allowed this small sliver of his world to remain. When the towers come down in September — as we know they must — the things that matter to these people will get reprioritized, which itself is both a positive and negative advancement. The good times (and good people) will be gone, but the bad times begin to heal in the wake of larger tragedy. Lives lost on the surface continue to exist in echoes of technology. Fears and frustrations are borne out in video game behavior and a child’s choice of Halloween costume. Maxine’s lesson is daunting in its complexity, as she’s punished (along with everyone else) for both caring too much and not caring enough. Incorporating such a relatively recent event into one of his narratives was a gamble — especially 9/11, considering how often it’s been used for the sake of cheap manipulation — but it leaves the modern-day reader with an innate understanding of what Maxine feels at the end of the novel, which resolves with perhaps the most poignant, affecting, simple image Pynchon will ever create.
Opening Timeframe: 2001
Chronological Sequence: Eighth
Pynchonverse: Misha and Grisha, a pair of Russian revolutionaries from Against the Day are reborn here in an updated (and arguably more threatening) context. There’s also a reprise of “Soul Gidget,” a Pynchon song we learned the lyrics to in Inherent Vice.

Steve Zissou Saturdays #9: A Little Too Much Water

Last month we left Steve, Ned, and new crewmember Bill Ubell in an elevator, all set to…

…wait. Let me just check the date of that last installment and…

…oh.

Oh.

That was fourteen months ago. God, I’m terrible at this series. And I genuinely apologize to anyone following it with interest. That’s frustrating, and there’s no excuse for it. But I do have to mention, before we move on, that something significant happened in that time: The Grand Budapest Hotel. It’s a brilliant film, and it may have actually unseated The Life Aquatic as my favorite.

That doesn’t imply that The Life Aquatic has diminished in any way in my eyes…it instead speaks to how strong, affecting, and remarkable The Grand Budapest Hotel is. But we’re not here to talk about that. (Yet.) For now, let’s finally free those three members of Team Zissou from an awkward elevator ride, and plunge ahead into the next section of the film: a montage set to Devo’s “Gut Feeling.”

There’s no dialogue in this section until the end, and even though “Gut Feeling” is not an instrumental,* we only hear the intro…cutting out before any of the lyrics kick in.

This is Anderson taking the time to tell his story without words, and while montages are a fairly common way of doing just that, we’ve seen plenty of sequences in his other films — in which dialogue and exposition is replaced by score and a flood of visual details — that let us know that he uses this as a flourish, and not a crutch.

Specifically, see the heartbreaking NOVEMBER sequence from Rushmore, the shaving sequence in The Royal Tenenbaums, and, most overtly, the night the Whitmans spend with their mother in The Darjeeling Limited.

Loaded visual details are layered on fast and thick in this sequence, as we cut immediately from the elevator to a view from the chopper as it approaches the Belafonte. Pele, the safety expert, waves them in, which is a nice touch. Things like that can take an audience member many viewings to even notice, so the fact that Anderson sweats of all of them goes a long way toward making him my favorite director. He makes digging worth it.

From there we get a lovely shot of a small shuttle boat taking the boys back to Pescespada Island. Ogata, it seems, is with the chopper now, but in this case I don’t know if there’s any particular significance to that, and it may just be a way of keeping the Belafonte visually alive while it’s still in frame.

In the image above you can see each of the characters reacting to this early leg of the journey in a way that tells you a lot about their personality. Newcomer Bill is awkward and uneasy, gripping his briefcase and hat (and the side of the boat) tightly against the wind. Ned is excited, facing the breeze head on. Pele, having done this hundreds of times at least, is disinterested. Steve is wearing literal blinders.

So much characterization in a single, silent frame.

Next we see Steve planning something, and speaking to somebody just off camera, whom we don’t see. It could be Jane, as part of the ongoing interview, or it could be one of his own documentarians. However since we see Vikram standing in the background of this very scene, that’s a little less likely.

There’s a lot of detail in this moment as well, including Steve holding a ping-pong paddle (though he isn’t playing…perhaps Jane interrupted a game to ask about the actual voyage?) to his placing a very small Belafonte toy on the map to indicate where they are. (Or, perhaps, where they are going.)

Something excellent revealed itself to me while writing this. He has a paper map spread out on top of a ping-pong table. Right? Yes…but the ping-pong table is itself made of a (much sturdier) map of the world. There’s something massively appealing to me there. Maybe it’s the fact that Team Zissou built their own ping-pong table instead of buying one. Or maybe it’s just the continuous echo of Team Zissou taking for granted what they should be taking seriously.

Either way, I love it. And I feel compelled to mention that ping-pong appears in a few other Anderson films as well. In Bottle Rocket it took the form of a test of character (at least seemingly so), and in The Grand Budapest Hotel the Nazi analogues are seen carrying a table to their room. I feel as though I’m forgetting at least one other appearance; feel free to fill me in on that.

We then see Anne-Marie, doing something I can’t really identify. Any help on this? She seems to be loading something on her lap, and when she’s done she clicks a stopwatch. Once she does we get a great 90-degree pan to Klaus, who is organizing their shooting schedule, but I have absolutely no idea what Anne-Marie is meant to be doing.

The long plastic strips presumably indicate scenes that need to be filmed. As far as the coloring goes, I’m not sure. It could mean anything, from the time of day that the shot needs to happen to how expensive the shot might get.

This is Team Zissou’s chance to pre-edit, but, in their defense, it’s something that any production unit with even a minor sense of how to make a movie would do. My personal theory is that the colors keep the scenes grouped by location. Being as we’ve already seen Steve discuss the importance of continuity, I don’t think it’s unlikely that he’d have Klaus arrange the shooting schedule so that, say, all of the scenes of the crew at the compound can be shot together, whether or not they will be anywhere near each other in the final film.

There is something to be said for the financial aspect, however, and we’ll get to that in a moment.

We then pan right past Bill’s room, just as Steve himself would if he were making this film, but if we pay attention on the way we can see our bond-company stooge in the act of triple tasking. He’s working figures with his left hand, writing something with his right, and reading (or consulting) something else with his field of vision.

Pretty impressive. And I also like the detail that Bill sits his coffee (or tea) in a saucer. I think we can safely say he’s the only member of Team Zissou — temporary or not — who does that.

We keep panning past Wolodarsky in the recording booth, listening to one of his compositions and conducting along. The hand-lettered DO NOT ENTER – – RECORDING sign is pretty lovely, as in order to see it you’d have to be looking at the very window that gives you a very clear view of that happening. It’s also nice that Wolodarsky wrote in two short dashes instead of one longer one. A very Anderson touch.

A lot of pictures on the wall pass by during this sequence, but I can’t make many of them out. On the left in the grab above we have one of Steve above one of Ogata, but beyond that I’m lost. Regardless of who is in which picture where, however, it’s another pretty obvious way that Steve surrounds himself with his past.

Further down the hallway we pass Vikram and Pele color-balancing a camera. Not much to say about this except that having Pele hold it (instead of, say, propping it up against a wall or hanging it somewhere) says a lot about Team Zissou’s interest in efficiency. (As well as Anderson’s dedication to world building. This is one continuous shot, remember, which means he needed his entire cast on set for this. Not a cheap proposition.)

Then we pass Pietro in the shower room (which is fitting, as he’s Zissou’s soundman and showers have famously good acoustics), but I can’t tell what he’s up to. He seems to be listening to something, but he’s also toying with what looks like a hamburger bun. It’s fully possible he just ducked in there to have some privacy while he eats his lunch, but I can’t tell for sure.

Just outside that room, Eleanor is reviewing some potential ideas for stunt work. She crosses off SKYDIVE INTO VOLCANO, and I get the sense this is more due to financial restriction that safety concern, especially with Bill crunching numbers right up the hall.

It’s also interesting that Steve keeps this STUNT WORK corkboard in common space, as though everyone is welcome to contribute ideas as they think them up. And that may well be the case. If some member of Team Zissou wants to skydive into a volcano, why not give them the chance to request it?

Furthermore, all of this pre-planning (especially in terms of what should otherwise be unexpected “stunts” required of the crew) casts further doubt on Steve’s insistence that all they do is film what happens.

For the record, some other ideas on the board include BOTTLE-SHOOTING, CLIFF-JUMPING, and one that looks like ZODIAC SPEED-RAMP OVER ROCKS. No idea what that last one means, but being as Eleanor crossed that one off, too, I don’t think that matters. (Still, if you know what it is, speak up!)

Needless to say, this stuff is all in a day’s work for a team of oceanographers…

Then we glance outside, where the interns are jogging in place. In the background one of them, seemingly with an injured knee, has ice applied to his leg. But more interesting is what happens in the foreground.

Steve enters stage left, and walks across to stage right. As he does so, one of the interns (whom we will later learn is named Nico) stumbles and falls.

I heard or read somewhere that this was unplanned; the actor (Matthew Gray Gubler) actually just fell, and that take made it into the film. I’m glad it did, though, because it makes for an interesting suggestion that Steve and Ned are indeed related.

See the very next shot:

Ned passes by Ogata, and offers him a drink. This causes Ogata to lose the ball he was playing.

In this shot and the one that immediately preceded it (which was a continuous take, remember), we have some neat, silent symmetry: a crewman is doing just fine on his own, a Zissou enters the frame, and the crewman — by sheer virtue of the Zissou’s appearance — stumbles.

Like father, like son.

We then leave the compound for a quick moment back on shore, where Pele and Wolodarsky are testing out the dynamite Steve successfully negotiated out of Oseary.

It’s a silly little moment, but one I love, simply due to its unexpectedness and its humorous framing.

They aren’t doing anything significant, but remember that every stick of dynamite that the team uses contributes to the fact that there’s none left by the end of the film.

This I find interesting because it leaves the climax somewhat open-ended. While Steve doesn’t follow through on his promise to “fight” the Jaguar Shark, we can’t be entirely sure of why. Did he change his mind, or was he just out of dynamite? If Anderson didn’t have the character confirm that they had no more explosives, the answer would have clearly been the former.

I still believe the answer to be the former…but I like the fact that being out of dynamite makes it just a little less clear.

Then we have Team Zissou running along the beach. In Steve’s case he’s biking, but since I’ve never biked on the beach I don’t know if this is an example of Steve taking it easy. I feel like that’s the intention, but at the same time I’d have to imagine that riding a bike through loose sand is pretty damned tough. Anyone out there know?

Speaking of a million questions I’m asking readers instead of answering for them, Anne-Marie is jogging topless. That’s not surprising for two reasons: everyone is topless, and she’s usually topless anyway. But at the same time…wouldn’t it hurt to jog without any kind of support for the breasts? I’ve always assumed that’s why sports bras existed. But never having needed one I can’t really confirm.

It’s less a question about the character than about the actress. If that’s as uncomfortable as I imagine it to be, I feel bad for Robyn Cohen.

Ned breaks formation to go talk to Jane. Ned, being Ned, continues to jog in place as he does so, which is such a perfect little character detail.

He gives her a sand dollar he found, and we’ll see that again later. For now it’s the sort of thing a little boy (ahem) would give to his mother (ahem ahem), and we’ll leave it at that.

Steve wheels over, and though we don’t hear him it’s clear that he tells Ned to get going. Considering what follows, this is the first time that Steve scolds Ned right before physical tragedy strikes the boy.

It’s not the last, however. Something similar happens when the ship is taken by pirates, and then, of course, we have their scene just before that final ride in the helicopter.

For now, though, Ned’s tragedy is a minor one. (Relatively minor, anyway; we do learn later that his heart stopped beating.) He is prepping for the journey in the dive pool. Pele is swimming in the background, Pietro is casually observing and enjoying the sun. Ogata, the frogman, is presumably training Ned, but he bites into a banana as soon as the boy goes under, unaware of what’s about to happen.

Ned told Steve earlier that he wasn’t a strong swimmer, and we see now that he wasn’t exaggerating. This is another ill omen for Ned, considering that he’s about spend an extended period at sea.

This isn’t something I think we can blame on Ogata or Pele; these are people who have been diving for years. It’s second nature to them, and I don’t think they really believed that Ned could be in need of that much attention.

It’s routine. It’s nothing to worry about.

…until, suddenly, it is.

One thing that I think is worth noting is that whenever I watch this film with somebody — starting way back when it was in theaters, and continuing up through a few weeks ago when my girlfriend saw it for the first time — they laugh at this moment.

What’s funny about it?

Well, if you know what’s coming, nothing.

But if you don’t, it’s not so much that it’s funny as the fact that it has the cadence of a joke. Anderson pushes his camera in on Ned, who falls backward into the pool and disappears. “Gut Feeling” reaches its climax on the soundtrack, and then…cut. Ned is prostrate. He’s being given CPR. No music.

Expectations are subverted so quickly that it feels like a visual punchline, even though what we’ve seen is a man almost drown.

Of course, at this point in the film we don’t know all of the rules for what we’re seeing. We don’t know if this is a silly comedy in which all of the characters are safe, or a film in which the time left to them is determined by the choices they make. Watching this movie a second time makes this scene a little harder to get through, but the first time it gets a big laugh. I’m sure I laughed, too.

Anderson’s using our willingness to engage with him playfully against us. We’ve just finished a nice little montage with silly music and funny visuals, so we’re primed to laugh. When we suddenly cut from one thing to another, we expect that it must be a punchline, and so we treat it as one.

But it wasn’t. It was a man nearly dying. It’s a bait and switch handled so effortlessly that it takes us another minute after the cut to realize that we’ve been tricked.

Once Ned is resuscitated, Vikram reaches into shot with a light meter. Steve confirms with him that he’s capturing this on film. Pietro has vanished as well, presumably because he’s also off-camera, handling the sound for the scene.

All of that happens, it has to be noted, before any of them know if Ned is going to be okay. Team Zissou correctly assumes that getting the shot will be more important to Steve than anything that happens in it. Just as when Esteban was eaten, Steve’s first concern is the camera.

This is the “relationship subplot” Steve talks about later in the film. You know. The one in which his son almost dies and he expresses open concern about the moment is being recorded properly. Touching, isn’t it?

Steve also refers to the incident as Ned drinking “a little too much water,” which is the kind of euphemism that someone might actually use in such a situation — particularly after the speaker knows the victim will be okay — but for Steve it’s just one of many examples of his disregarding the actual and avoidable danger in which he places his crew.

Omen after omen after omen. We see them where Team Zissou does not. And though we’ve yet to take to the sea, we have enough darkness cast over Ned’s fate that we know he won’t be coming back.

Next: Even in the most challenging circumstances, the members of Team Zissou find ways to keep morale high.

—–
* …and man was I disappointed to learn this. Not being familiar with Devo, I didn’t realize that this fantastic piece wasn’t written for the film specifically. Hearing the full version on the soundtrack album was a nasty surprise, because the huffing way in which the lyrics are delivered undercut the rollicking majesty of what I heard in the film. Or so I thought then. As of now I appreciate the song, but at the time the unedited track was a rude awakening. (For the sake of contrast, I’ll say right now that I had no such disappointment hearing the full version of “Staralfur,” which to this day chokes me up.)

Please Please Me: Take the 2015 Noiseless Chatter Reader’s Survey

A couple of years ago I posted a reader’s survey, and though the changes I made were slow in coming, every response helped me to turn this into a better site. (A suspicion that seems to be borne out by the increased number of visitors and the growing community.)

I’d like to ask you to take another one.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V7RHBHK

It’s quick. Nine questions, many of which are multiple choice, and a few that require only a short answer. All replies are anonymous in the sense that Survey Monkey scrambles them up so that I won’t be able to see which string of responses were given by which respondent.

I do ask for your email address at the end. That’s entirely optional, and providing it will not link you to any of the other answers you’ve provided.

The reason I ask is that I’ll sweeten the deal for you by selecting one survey respondent and sending them a copy of the Thomas Pynchon novel of their choice. (DID YOU KNOW INHERENT VICE IS COMING OUT SOON)

It doesn’t matter where you live; as long as Amazon can deliver to you, you’re eligible. And Pynchon is awesome. Allow me to prove it.

Not sure which Pynchon novel to choose? Stay tuned, reader…

Again, the email address is not required, but since I benefit so much from every survey response, I want to do anything I can to encourage participation.

Thank you in advance for answering these nine quick questions.

Help make this site everything it can be.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V7RHBHK

…and a Happy New Year!

Just a quick post to wish everyone out there a happy new year. The holidays have been a pretty nice rest for me. After the Xmas stream, I’ve spent the time getting around to books, games, and movies that I’d been promising myself for all of 2014 that I’d get around to. I’ve also been enjoying my awesome gifts, including an awesome tea set from an awesome girlfriend.

So it’s been quiet around here, but not because that’s the new normal. I’m just recharging a bit.

Next week will be the season two ALFies, and then we dive into season three. I’m going to try to stockpile a few episode reviews so that I won’t fall behind again…apologies for that.

I’ve also made my new year’s resolution (in terms of this site anyway) to post at least one other article every week. I hope that’ll keep both the ALF fans and the ALF skeptics happy.

Otherwise plenty to come. Thanks for sticking with me through one hell of an odd year. Whoever you are, whatever you’re looking for, I hope you find it.

Merry Christmas, friends!

I hope everyone out there is having a great Christmas. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, then I hope you’re having a great Thursday.

Last night’s stream was great…I’m going to post some wrap-up thoughts on it within the next few days most likely, but I want to thank everyone who joined the chat, everyone who viewed the stream embedded here (which seemed to be a surprisingly high number…I’ll discuss that later, though), and, especially, everybody who gave to The Trevor Project.

Having it on Christmas Eve prevented a lot of folks from making it out, though. My bad, and admittedly poor planning. However, the fundraising page will be open until Sunday, the 28th, so here’s a little extra:

If you donate any amount at all before Sunday, I’ll send you a download link for the entire Xmas stream. All five hours of Christmas specials, music, magic, and more.

Just donate and then contact me at this address and I’ll shoot you the link. No minimum or maximum donation limits, and whatever you give, it’s for a good cause.

If you donate anonymously, be sure to attach the receipt (or take a screenshot of the thank-you page) so that I know who you are.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Thanks for helping to make this a great year, and thanks for being the best audience I’ve ever had.