MovieChat Forums > A Scanner Darkly (2006) Discussion > The credits dedication...

The credits dedication...

posted 12 years ago by sarfield800
7 replies | jump to latest

What the dedication says about "friends who have been punished too much for their crimes" (can't remember the exact wording).

Was he referring to these friends getting in trouble with the law over drug abuse, or was he saying that the physical damage caused to their bodies by simply doing something that made them feel good was unfair?

Personally i like the second point better... it seems that everything pleasurable in life comes at a high cost/risk. It doesn't seem right, why would nature punish us for feeling good? This is probably my biggest frustration in life, yet i seldom hear this point talked about.

[–] Heretic_Of_Jeff_Bezos 12 years ago

or was he saying that the physical damage caused to their bodies by simply doing something that made them feel good was unfair?

Yes. It's people Phillip k Dick knew in real life. The last part really sums it up nicely. phillip K Dick even includes himself as 'Phil'.

“This has been a story about people who were punished entirely too much for what they did.
I loved them all. Here is a list, to whom I dedicate my love:
To Gaylene, deceased
To Ray, deceased
To Francy, permanent psychosis
To Kathy, permanent brain damage
To Jim, deceased
To Val, massive permanent brain damage
To Nancy, permanent psychosis
To Joanne, permanent brain damage
To Maren, deceased
To Nick, deceased
To Terry, deceased
To Dennis, deceased
To Phil, permanent pancreatic damage
To Sue, permanent vascular damage
To Jerri, permanent psychosis and vascular damage
…and so forth

In memoriam. These were comrades whom I had; there are no better. They remain in my mind, and the enemy will never be forgiven. The “enemy” was their mistake in playing. Let them play again, in some other way, and let them be happy.

Philip K. Dick

I am eyesbick-1. Prophet of the IMDb Moderator Gods.

[–] Tin24k 9 years ago

That last quote is so chilling. People like to see drug addicts as scum, as "an other" who they have nothing in common with, rather than seeing those behaviors rooted in the same motivations and unfulfilled needs everyone has--only manifested differently. I worked in an ER and felt so much empathy for the wretches in miserable shape who were looking for help. The tragedy that that quote describes nearly brings me to tears everytime I read it. Punished too much for what they did indeed.

[–] amd90123 12 years ago

This was the one part of the movie I didn't like. Dick makes it seem like those people were unfairly paying for drug abuse when they knew the risks and did it anyway. He's trying to convince us that somehow what happened to them wasn't their fault and was the drugs' fault instead.

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] amd90123 12 years ago

That's not always the case. Drug problems are not indicative of a harsh upbringing. Not everybody grows up in a perfect home and those of us that don't find other ways to cope with it. Anybody with half a brain knows drugs are addictive and dangerous which is why they're illegal to begin with. People who get addicted know this and use anyway. In the words of Frank, "nobody put a gun to your head and forced you to take it". They pay the consequences for their actions. It's very sad, but it's reality.

[–] razlakh 12 years ago

The actual book goes into it a little more and Dick acknowledges this point

"Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgment. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is “Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying,” but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory. It is, then, only a speeding up, an intensifying, of the ordinary human existence. It is not different from your life-style, it is only faster. It all takes place in days or weeks or months instead of years. “Take the cash and let the credit go,” as Villon said in 1460. But that is a mistake if the cash is a penny and the credit a whole lifetime.
...
If there was any “sin,” it was that these people wanted to keep on having a good time forever, and were punished for that, but, as I say, I feel that, if so, the punishment was far too great, and I prefer to think of it only in a Greek or morally neutral way, as mere science, as deterministic impartial cause-and-effect."

[–] Petronius Arbiter II 10 years ago

I think it's both.

IMAO it's a serious mistake to see either the novel or the film as simply "a satire on drug users," as one poster put it on another thread.

Just as importantly, perhaps more so, it's a hard-hitting satire on America's 100+ year-old "War on Drugs," an abysmal failure back when the target was alcohol, and the so-called war was called Prohibition, and an ever-increasingly abysmal failure ever since.

"I don't deduce, I observe."