THOMAS PYNCHON

American Novelist

  • News
  • “Inherent Vice” Film
  • Cover Art
    • Pynchon Early Stories Pirate Editions
    • V. (1963)
    • The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)
    • Gravity’s Rainbow (1973)
    • Slow Learner (1984)
    • Vineland (1990)
    • Mason & Dixon (1997)
    • Against the Day (2006)
    • Inherent Vice (2009)
    • Bleeding Edge (2013)
  • Video
  • Pynchonalia
  • Newbies
  • Contact

Chryskylodon Blues – Behind the Scenes of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice

November 9, 2015 by TPmaster Leave a Comment

Paul Thomas Anderson“Chryskylodon Blues,” a 12-minute film by Laura Colella that captures behind the scenes filming of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice, is shot in grainy Super-8 color. Its name comes from the place in the Thomas Pynchon novel called Chryskylodon Institute (“from an ancient Indian word meaning ‘serenity’), an upscale rehabilitation facility in Ojai, where Micky Wolfmann is being kept.

Chryskylodon Blues from Laura Colella on Vimeo.

The narration, by Theo Green, is a selection of readings from the Thomas Pynchon novel and is similar in tone and spirit to Pynchon’s narration on the trailer for the novel Inherent Vice. The accompanying surf music — with period-enhancing ticks and pops — is by a group identified in the credits as The Growlers. They are the guys who play the Boards, a surf band in Pynchon’s novel.

From Ben Sach’s informative article on the short film:

The movie, in short, is a gift that keeps on giving—naturally, it inspired a superior making-of documentary that’s now available to watch online. Chryskylodon Blues, directed by the gifted underground filmmaker Laura Colella (Tax Day, Breakfast With Curtis), is as novel in its approach to the behind-the-scenes doc as Inherent Vice is to the literary adaptation. Shot on Super-8, it looks like it could have been made in 1970, when Vice takes place. Colella recently explained to me that Anderson, an old friend, originally intended for her to play an amateur filmmaker during the scene set at the surf-rock band’s party that Sportello crashes midway through the film, and that she’d shoot Super-8 footage onscreen. She ended up using the Super-8 camera to film Chryskylodon, rather than shooting it digitally. (When asked why Warner Bros. decided not to include her film on the Inherent Vice DVD, she declined to comment.)

It’s definitely worth checking out.

Filed Under: Inherent Vice Film, Pynchon General News

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Visit the Pynchon Wikis…

Highly detailed guides to each of Pynchon's novels, including page-by-page annotations, alphabetical indexes, reviews, and a whole lot more ...

PynchonWiki.com
Inherent ViceBleeding Edge
Mason & DixonAgainst the Day
Gravity's RainbowVineland
V.The Crying of Lot 49

Share

  • 66Facebook
  • 5Twitter
  • 2Email

Subscribe by Email


 

About ThomasPynchon.com

ThomasPynchon.com (formerly the HyperArts Pynchon Pages) came online in 1997. With the publication of Against the Day in 2007, the alphabetical guides to Pynchon's novels were migrated to the Pynchon Wikis.

This website is affiliated with neither Mr Pynchon nor his representatives; rather, it's aligned with the community of folks who enjoy reading Pynchon's work — and digging deeper.

About the Webmaster

ThomasPynchon.com was designed and developed, and is maintained, by Tim Ware, a musician and composer, fan of great literature, owner of HyperArts, lover of all things tiki, and an Oakland, California, resident. You can reach him via the contact form on this website.

Credits

Many have contributed to the content of ThomasPynchon.com and, ultimately, it's a team effort. Special thanks go to the folks at Pynchon-l at Waste.org, the long-standing list-serve dedicated to the ongoing discussion of Pynchon's works, with a shoutout to Allen "the Quail" Ruch and his seminal but, alas, departed theModernWord.com website

WordPress Design & Development by HyperArts
© 1997 - 2018

Copyright © 2025 · ThomasPynchon on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in