Customer Reviews

Flicker

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

First off, I should concede that it's been some time since I last read this book. The operative word here would be "last," since, in general, I don't re-read books of any sort. I have too many. And too many stacked up waiting to be read.

This is the sort of novel of dark designs and subterranean intrigue that Eco was aiming for (and conspicuously missed) with _Foucault's Pendulum_. In the grand, useless tradition of people who describe bands as being "like Lou Reed crossed with Enya," I'll expose this off-the-cuff critique to ridicule by saying that this book is like Pynchon's _Crying Of Lot 49_ minus the humorous names plus a good dose of David Lynch and with a little of the tone of _Dark Secret of Harvest Home_ tossed in to maximize the creepiness. Gee, I think that's officially a rebus. Or a recipe. Take your pick.

I first skimmed this book in a bookstore in 1991, on the recommendation of a friend's boss. Several years later I found a copy and bothered to read it through. This book will pull you in, no doubt about it. I've read it several times since, and there's a sort of network of friends and associates who, having all read it, refer knowingly, with a dark ironic nod and nervous laugh, to "the flicker" or "the Orphans" after seeing a movie like Kubrick's last.

I've lent out three paperback copies. All went missing. I have a hardback copy a friend found at a library's book sale, marked as remaindered from K Mart, of all places. That copy has a Must Return policy attached to it. So far four people have managed to return it. But grudgingly, in some cases.

I intend to start re-reading it this weekend.

Warning: In the first 100 pages or so, Roszak does a lot of scene-setting (in a way that reminded me of Conrad's _Nostromo_), but it's essential scene-setting. This is one (horror?) novel that doesn't bog down.

You read it, you won't look at a movie the same way again. Hackneyed-sounding, but true. I don't know of anyone who has read it who didn't then make nervous jokes about wanting to use Roszak's fictive "sallyrand" on _Dark City_ or _Eraserhead_. And as a paen to the age of actual moviehouses, no Smithsonian article can touch what Roszak's put on paper here.

Join the cult. Get a copy and read it.

FLICKER is a book that combines a love of film with a thrilling plot to unravel a global conspiracy. The book is told from the first person perspective of Jonathan Gates, a premier film critic and scholar. Early in his life as a connoisseur of film, Gates discovers a missing movie of the infamous and enigmatic Max Castle. The movie haunts Gates and burns an aura of mystery into his mind. While watching the film he feels fascinated and repulsed simultaneously. The movie is both a work of genius and something that is pure evil. He is warned by his mentor and lover, Clarissa Swan to stay away from Castle because Castle's films do the opposite of what movies are supposed to do; movies should be works of art, enlightenment, amusement or a combination of the three, but Castle's films are none of those things. Despite, Clare's (Clarissa) warnings Gates becomes hooked and begins his life as the foremost scholar of Max Castle films. After that first night of viewing a Castle film, Gates begins a twenty-year crusade to uncover the mystery surrounding Max Castle and his life. His search takes him across the country and the world revealing one disturbing detail after another.

I enjoyed reading FLICKER. I found it to be a page turner. I was kind of let down by the ending, but as a whole the book was well written and had enough plot twists to keep me interested from one section to the next. Granted, there is a lot of subtext and background information between the major points of action, but I enjoyed that. Also, the book is easier to understand if one has an interest in film and is able to pick up many of the allusions the story refers to. Overall, the book is a thrilling and entertaining tale of love for the art of cinema, but a warning of how that art can be abused. It's much better than THE DA VINCI CODE.

Indeed, Flicker is my favorite novel of the past twenty years or so. An extremely rich and multi-layered text awaits those who yearn to learn a little more about film as art (and just how pervasive an art it can be) and our treasured persistence of vision. Expertly plotted, with a wonderful sonority to the prose, Roszak has taken on everything from Pope Innocent to Orson Welles - and done so with such conviction and honesty that you truly BELIEVE. I am CURRENTLY (I'm 34) pursuing my Doctorate in Cinema studies - just like our trusty hero Jonny Gates. Now, when I first read this over a decade ago (and have read it since a dozen times over) I was just out of College having received a B.A. in Film. This many years later, I still hold this amazing novel as my favorite in recent memory. Having a background in production, I ALWAYS wanted to make the film myself someday - but alas, my secret is out and Mr. Aronofsky is bringing his vision of this text to the screen. I hope the adaption is one of great skill as FLICKER demands a gifted hand to refine the necessary elements and do away with what won't translate (as with any adaption) but, with such a self-reflexive text - and one that superbly incorporates mystery, romance, theology, history, horror, social melodrama - etc. etc - an ispired adaption and exellent casting are of prime importance. PLEASE, if you love movies and are not afraid of their metaphysical aspects - READ FLICKER! If theory and criticism disgust you - steer clear. AMAZING BOOK MR. ROSZAK, you get me every time and I'm going for my 15th or 16th reading as the film draws near. Cheers mates.

This is the first and only book by Roszak that I have read, but it may be one of the most enjoyable and disturbing tales I've ever taken the time to experience. Roszak slowly builds our relationship to every character, then watches us wince as things go horribly wrong. As a movie-fanatic it was impossible for me not to love how he stiches real movie lore with his unreal concoctions. You too will find yourself drawn, as if hypnotically entranced by the flickering play of light, down into the murky depths of film legends and our own perverted psyches. His characters are both engaging and impressively human to a fault, whether they be his own creations, or film legends. I found myself wanting to go rent movies that did exsist (Maltese Falcion, Citizen Kane) to find the Max Castle touches of darkness and shadow-play. After reading this book, it will give you a new respect for the movies you watch. If you can find this book, read it and pass it on to as many people as possible. I cry to the ears that will probably not hear to reprint this book, and have it made into one hell of a film.

...

Being a fan of films of all kinds, i was attracted to this book that calls itself "a secret history of the movies".

I was looking forward to a clever tale of subliminal persuasion and hooded figures lurking in the shadows behind the scenes in the studios. What I got was so much more. This is a fascinating read on so many levels. What starts out as a detailed memoir of one man's love of films, quickly turns into a study of the technology that makes the films possible, and then into a tale about what can happen when that technology is used to its fullest potential by those who understand the mesmerising effect that movies can produce. We travel with Jonathan Gates as he uncovers secret techniques used by an early pioneer in film, Max Castle, to "enhance" the impact of his films. We watch as he goes deeper and deeper and deeper still into a conspiracy that seems to stretch back as far as Christianity and earlier. We learn about how, in skilled hands, a thing as seemingly innocent as a Shirley Temple dance number can be transformed into an instrument of evil. We learn how fascination for the morbid can open doors for more of such things in the future; and most of all, as we find ourselves just as mesmerised and fascinated with the story as Jonathan is with Castle, how each of us is just as guilty as the characters that we have grown to dislike within the story.

This is much much more than "a secret history of the movies". This is a documentary on the degradation of standards, values, taste, and life itself. This book raises some very interesting questions about things that many of us take for granted, such as the process of making a film, and the quality of the art we are willing to accept. It raises interesting questions about where the line should be drawn between art and trash, and how where we choose to draw that line can potentially mean the choice between life or death for our entire species.

Sound crazy? It is.. but it might be just crazy enough to be true.

This is one of the best books I've ever read. It's such a shame that it's been out of print for so long.

Having been given this book as an 'interesting read' by my sister I could not put it down until the end. And dreaded the end's coming.

But after finishing Roszak's 'Flicker' for the first time I realised that it could be read again, like going to see a favourite film again, and more could be found. This is a book of light, and dark, of texts and subtexts and may be one of the most profoundly 'dark' novels I have ever read. To read of the 'Sad Sewer Babies' still makes me suffer.

Very few regrets about this wondrous book - that Max Castle didn't 'really' exist, that the films made are only screened within these pages, that there was not, nor could there be, a sequel.

And for the rest? The rest is silence, broken by the flicker of some taped together 16mm celluloid, threaded through rusted sprockets, spooling past our blinking eyes, showing dark and light and finally running to The End.

To add to the "me too" chorus, I should say that I bought this from the remainder bin one afternoon, expecting relatively little. I got to sleep at five the next morning.

Like William Boyd's "The New Confessions" (a remarkably mature work from a frequently irritating writer), this is a truly majestic novel which weaves fact and fantasy about the film business together in a way which is utterly compelling.

Why is it out of print? Why has Wim Wenders not made the movie?

Every time I thought I had drawn a bead on where Flicker was going, Theodore Roszak surprised me. It was recommended as a cross between Sunset Boulevard and The Da Vinci Code, but that comparison isn't fair. Where an insightful reader can see the plot points of The Da Vinci Code 200 pages in advance, Flicker continually surprises. There was only one point where I saw what was coming, and I noticed it only one page in advance of its occurrence.

Jonathan Gates begins a study of the films of Max Castle, a mysterious talent who disappeared in 1941. As he is drawn deeper and deeper into film and world history, we are, too. Jonathan tours the world visiting people who once knew Herr Castle, and every answer he finds raises two more questions, until he's in danger of getting in too deep to extricate himself.

Flicker started off a bit slow, and I think that may be because I was trying to second-guess where it was headed. I've read so much predictable fiction that I was unprepared for its originality and for its insistence on making me rise to its level, rather than talking down to me. Once I made that adjustment, I found it to be brilliantly paced and very interesting.

A friend of mine said, when I told her I was reading Flicker, that when she read it, she turned the pages saying to herself "this could really happen." I understand what she meant now, and that journey was quite suspenseful. I was sorry to see the story end.

At the heart of this novel is the quest for the holy grail of cinema: the capacity to work on the audience in a purely cinematic way, that has nothing to do with literature or photography (i.e. nothing to do with plot or mise en scene). How is this allegedly possible? First and foremost by making use of the capacity to manipulate sequences of images through editing. But at its most basic level it is just the condition of film: that movement is an illusion created by stringing images together, each of which is screened for a split second (1/24th). To render this illusion possible, there must be an imperceptible gap between each image: a flicker. What if there was a way of employing the flicker to "say" something? To speak to the audience without words or story or even images (which of course have something in common with photography)?

But this "holy grail" of cinema is only the pretense for what is in part a great story about what it was like to live as a movie buff before video, when it was an exclusive almost underground enterprise to watch films that weren't mainstream or big budget. It conveys some of the enthusiasm for film during the sixties in America, when European films were just beginning to be seen on college campuses and arthouses, when the American underground and avant-garde cinema had its heyday. It is also a mystery novel and in the end a grand conspiracy novel almost worthy of Phillip K. Dick.

The story drags a bit here and there -- not when they are talking cinema, but because the grand conspiracy takes too much exposition to set up and then finishes in a less than satisfying and perhaps too predictable way. Still, these are not really complaints. It is not a perfect novel, but I couldn't put it down for the three or four days worth of free time and late nights that it took to read it.

While it's curretnly out-of-print, this well-written novel about a film fan's obsession with the long lost movies of direcotr Max Castle is a real gem. What does our hero find? Darkness lies behind the light on the screen...