Reel to Real: Film History in Pynchon's Vineland

That's how it happened. A film. How else? Gravity's Rainbow (p. 398) When you said cuttin' and shootin' I didn't know you were talkin' about film Vineland (p. 52) Introduction Contemporary literature often refers to and comments upon film, emphasizing both its artistic and commercial qualities, and its ability to blur the distinctions between and fiction. This is also the case in the work of Thomas Pynchon. The link between Pynchon and film is not new, nor is it incidental. His novels contain an abundance of references to cultural artifacts in general, and to film in particular. They present movies as interwoven with contemporary culture, as part of the culture they reflect. I In Vineland (1990) however, the nature and purpose of the movies Pynchon cites clearly differ from that in previous novels. Instead of concentrating on highbrow art cinema, or on films that pretend to be historically significant, Vineland is much more concerned with mainstream movies and their popular history. And instead of constructing historical awareness through film, Vineland undermines the reliability of film historiography itself. The novel tells the story of three characters, Sasha Traverse, Frenesi Gates, and Prairie Wheeler (grandmother-mother-daughter), from the point-of-view of the youngest generation (Prairie). Pynchon combines this story with a presentation of the history of popular film. Numerous references to the history of popular film from a well-defined standpoint provide a connection between popular film and the characters' adventures. At the same time, they also give the reader a brief overview of the medium's evolution, and its impact on the everyday life of the people which it is said to change, reflect upon, represent and/or entertain. But there is more. Vineland not only uses references to film to underscore a story that is interwoven with the popular conceptualization of film, the narrative also firmly connects popular culture with the different modes of in film: most of the film references in Vineland end up forming a coherent pattern, imbued with several modes of with regard to film. Pynchon develops three frames of reference encompassing the development of the modes of representation in film, and combines them with different phases in the history of popular film. He links these frames to the three major characters in the novel.2 Sasha Travese reflects the period of the emerging entertainment-history, of attempts to introduce politics in American film, and of the first cracks in the Hollywood hegemony. She has been married to the gaffer Hubbell and was active in Hollywood politics. Sasha interprets politically.3 Frenesi Gates exemplifies the sixties' documentary movement and its attempts to capture true reality through a lens, thus emphasizing observation and interaction. She is a member of a documentary film collective, and views from the underground or counter-culture. Finally, Prairie Wheeler embodies an attitude of reflection, and the blurring of the boundaries between film and television. An eighties television-baby, she grows up on cartoons, television series, and television films. She identifies as constituted by mediatic representation: as known through the media. The strongest possible kinship tie connects Sasha, Frenesi, and Prairie, thus linking the several modes and periods: the thirties-forties-fifties for Sasha, the sixties and part of the seventies for Frenesi, and the eighties for Prairie. The result is a genealogical and qualitative view on the history of popular film, selective but clarifying. Pynchon and Film History: Vineland versus Gravity's Rainbow The historiography of film works with different concepts, each characterized by a different historical attitude toward the medium. Pynchon repeatedly uses them in his treatment of film. The difference in film references in Vineland and Gravity's Rainbow exemplify, for instance, the rough distinction between realism and expressionism in the history of film, designating the obvious difference between films made to imitate and those made to differ from it. …