POV: Flicker

Flicker (1991)
by Theodore Roszak

If you are a lover of movies, movie history and a shadow history of film that casts a dark, ominous shadow over the light of celluloid, then this book is for you.

I first picked up a paperback copy back around 1996. Like most things, I was first attracted by the cover. I'm known to pick up any book that features sprocket holes as part of the artwork. I assume it has something to do with movies, though most of the time, it doesn't. This time though, I hit pay dirt. It took about fifty pages for me to find the rhythm, but suddenly I was engrossed. It's so well written and thought out that I'm shocked it hasn't caught on to be a bigger work than it is.

This sucker is an onion, you keep pulling back layers and layers, idea upon metaphor upon theme. I'm always fascinated how I find new and deeper meanings with each read. It makes me wonder if it has to do with me growing older, learning more about film, or both. I'll say both.

The main thread is about Jonathan Gates, a young college bound kid in the late fifties who stumbles upon a small movie theater run by cineaste Clare and her stoned out projectionist, Sharkey. Gates and Clare begin an affair that will lead to the discovery and appreciation of a lost filmmaker named Max Castle. But Castle's films are much more than just b-movies, there is an under-hold, a flicker, a mysterious something that hides underneath his images.

The book is a gothic thriller that uses real movie history as the building blocks for a religious cult that is out to destroy the world. However cheesy it sounds, the book works incredibly well.

I remember trying to track down the rights to it and there was a big legal battle at the time. They ended up at Regency Productions and for a while Darren Aronofsky was attached. The only outcome of that was the most recent printing in 2005 which states Aronofsky's involvement. He has since left the project.

Only time will tell if a great movie will be made from this. There is a great movie in the book, it just depends on who ends up making it. But for now we have the perfection that is the novel and as soon as you've finished the latest political biography, or Stephen King paperback, pick this up and give it a read. You wont be disappointed.