Tagged: Inherent Vice

Inherent Vice: Doc’s Blue Denim Western Shirts

Joaquin Phoenix as Doc Sportello in Inherent Vice (2014)

Vitals

Joaquin Phoenix as Larry “Doc” Sportello, hippie private investigator

Los Angeles County, Fall 1970

Film: Inherent Vice
Release Date: December 12, 2014
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Costume Designer: Mark Bridges

Background

Adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s novel of the same name, Inherent Vice premiered as the centerpiece of the New York Film Festival ten years ago today on October 4, 2014, two months before its initial public release.

“Doc may not be a do-gooder, but he’s done good,” the trailer describes of the protagonist Larry “Doc” Sportello, the stoner sleuth played by Joaquin Pheonix who reprised his Oscar-winning role of Arthur Fleck in Joker: Folie à Deux, released in theaters today.

Five years before he first donned Joker’s clown makeup, Phoenix framed his face in mutton chops as the scraggly beach-dwelling private eye spurned into action by visits from his estranged ex-girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston), first to ask his help in protecting the real estate developer she’s been seeing. Continue reading

Inherent Vice: Doc’s Jungle Jacket

Joaquin Phoenix as Doc Sportello in Inherent Vice (2014)

Joaquin Phoenix as Doc Sportello in Inherent Vice (2014)

Vitals

Joaquin Phoenix as Larry “Doc” Sportello, hippie private investigator

Los Angeles County, Fall 1970

Film: Inherent Vice
Release Date: December 12, 2014
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Costume Designer: Mark Bridges

Background

One of my favorite “new watches” over the last year was Inherent Vice, adapted from the Thomas Pynchon novel of the same name. Inherent Vice follows “Doc” Sportello, a stoner private eye dwelling in the fictional hippie enclave of Gordita Beach in southern California at the end of the ’60s. Like the best of P.I. pulp fiction, Doc’s case begins with a late visit from a young woman, in this case his ex-girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston) seeking his help investigating land developer Mickey Wolfmann. When another client’s request also intersects with Wolfmann, Doc’s “paranoia alert” is triggered as he’s set on a path that intersects him with an aggressive detective, a plum-suited dentist, and a drug counselor who “[tries] to talk kids into sensible drug use.”

Continue reading