Through the Haze: Fidelity of Adaptation in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice
Travis Merchant
Publication: Volume 2 Issue 4
Abstract
Many directors and writers struggle with adaptations of novels. However, Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation, Inherent Vice, acts as a commentary on the original work by emphasizing characters and images to embody the voice of the original author, Thomas Pynchon. This voice is accomplished through Sortilège, a character who appears briefly in the novel and is expanded to take on Pynchon’s narratorial voice. The paper
engages with the use of faded imagery in the adaptation to embody drug-induced scenes and the voice of Sortilège as Pynchon, and explores how Anderson’s adaptation preserves the intoxicating haze and struggles to discover correlation and meaning.
Keywords: Adaptation, Fidelity Discourse, Embodied Voice, Intoxication, Thomas Pynchon, Paul Thomas Anderson.
Travis Merchant (travismerchant@gmail.com) is an MA student with a concentration in film and media studies in the English department at North Carolina State University, USA. He is a Film Studies Teaching Assistant at North Carolina State University, Image Editor for Film International, and Adjunct Instructor at Wake Technical Community College. His interest in film and media studies includes phenomenology, speculative realism, sound design and music, and how media embody dialogism and intertextuality.