The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick Rating: Release Date: 16 July, 2002 Retail Price: $19.95 OUR Price: $17.96 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: Scott Wilson Paul Williams (III) Jason Williams Scott Anton Complete Cast (7 total)

The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick Reviews

Just about a week before its release on video, I spotted an advertisement for "The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick" and pre-ordered it without having read anything about it. And I was not disappointed.

Although the production values perhaps could have been better, considering the budget, they are not bad. This documentary is an endeavor of love, not profit, much as the entire writing career of PKD was. The interviews are poignant and heartfelt, and personable, which is something that reading transcripts of interviews is not. The care and admiration is evident in the faces and voices of those people remembering the author; from personal friends to fellow authors to notable guerilla ontologist Robert Anton Wilson (whose comments about himself possible being a perfect android created by the CIA alone made this film worth watching).

There are features available which include a "Dicktionary" of reoccurring words and phrases in PKD's writings (what is "kibble"?), and animated pieces showing Phil at his typewriter, as if speaking to us about key elements of his philosophy. The audio tracks to these sequences being culled from interviews with him over the years.

For a newcomer to PKD, this film may be an invaluable resource into the mindset of the author following a deeply personal experience he had in 1974. This experience dominated his last half dozen books and could be defined as a philosophical-religious epiphany, or the result of a complete mental breakdown. Phil himself never satisfactorily came to any firm conclusions about it. And this documentary, instead of attempting to be a biography of his life, focuses on his thoughts and endless theories about this experience. It provides a unique perspective on what lead up to this event and how much its profound influence on his later writings.

For a veteran reader of PKD, this documentary offers a glimpse behind the some of the realities of the master of creating unrealities. Some of those people interviewed include Ray Nelson (author of the story on which "They Live" was based),
Robert Anton Wilson, Paul Williams (journalist/writer and former literary executor of PKD), & Jay Kinney (former editor of Gnosis magazine).

In all, this low-budget documentary is much like the cheap paperbacks of the 1950s & 60s which Phil Dick wrote. The quality could be better, the production level could be flashier, the music could be more diversified, the animation could be smoother. But the subject matter could also be something more shallow than the mind-twisting beliefs of Philip K. Dick. What *is* this documentary? It is like sitting down and reminiscing about an author with his dear friends. It is a funny, tragic, hip, deranged, and darkly delightful film about one of the greatest writers and philosophers in any universe.

World of Philip K. Dick fascinating, but not this DVD
The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick explores some of this fascinating man's life and works, but ultimately fails at being an interesting movie. The interviews are okay, but there's nothing here that can't be found elsewhere where you can learn more. The often repetitious animation of PKD mouthing his actual dialogue gets to be grating and the audio isn't very clear either. An old fan of PKD will be bored watching this, a new fan might get interested enough to pursue other biographies and want to read more of his works.

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