# Roland Taverner | Attributes | | | --------------- | ------------------------------- | | Name | Roland Taverner | | 2005 Draft Name | David Clark | | Age | 32 ([[1975-10-03]]) | | Actor | Seann William Scott | | Profession | Police Officer | | Affiliations | [[UPU2]], [[Military Veterans]] | | Parents | [[Tab Taverner]] | | Siblings | [[Ronald]] (Future Self) | Drugged. Seems to remember everything, implying that he is the Past Self. But it is never outright stated. Discharged from the military after an incident of friendly fire where he accidentally disfigured his friend [[Pilot]] and possibly others. Afterwards he became a cop. # Prequel Saga ## Age Roland's birthday is shown on [[Pilot]]'s laptop as October 3rd, 1975 making him 32 years old, although the graphic novels say he is 33, it is a few months too early. ## Fluid Karma Tests Roland and [[Pilot]] bribe [[Simon]] to let them join the [[Fluid Karma]] testing program with a solid brick of opium they found in the hopes of getting to go home early from the war. During a training exercise, where they were both drugged with [[Fluid Karma]] by [[Simon]] as part of [[Baron]]'s tests, [[Roland]] throws a grenade and some of the shrapnel hits his friend [[Pilot]]. These details are never mentioned by the characters in the film, though it is referenced during the intro [[Doomsday Scenario Interface]] sequence and in a later newsreel, both of which are easy to miss. # 2005 Draft At the end, when David Clark and Terrance Clark grab each other's hands the fourth dimension collapses "extinguishing all existence". # Background ## Pimps Don't Commit Suicide > there’s also the greater meaning at the end of the movie with Roland and Ronald not committing suicide and denying the world the resurrection and the magical handshake that saved the world. It gives the human race, potentially, a lifeline of some kind at the end. \- [[Richard Kelly]] in an interview[^1] with AVClub So, Kelly has this interesting perspective on what happens here. Since Christianity "won" (as shown by [[Boxer]]'s Jesis tatto bleeding) but the Messiah refuses to sacrifice himself to extinguish sin, does that mean that sin forever dooms humanity? Or that the nature of sin changes? The theology here is pretty wild. > Well, who are the pimps, you know? Is America the pimp nation? Is America flirting with suicide? Is the American dream flirting with self-destruction? ## What's in a name? Taverner is the name of the main character in [[Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said]] by [[Phillip K. Dick]], which is referenced multiple times in [[Southland Tales]]. ## Age of Messianic Figures The biblical Jesus is estimated to have been between 30-33 years old when he died. And while throughout the film [[Boxer]] carries most of the messianic symbolism, Roland is the one that reached divinity. ## One and the Same > I think Seann was the first actor to get on board the film, to play the twins. I knew that the twins were somehow the key to the whole movie, and there needed to be a bigger twist to the twins at the end, a bigger payoff. > I remember that the idea popped in my head during a conversation we had [about the script]. I’m like, “Wait a minute, what if they’re actually the same person?” And he was like, “What?!” “What if they’re the same person? That’s the twist.” > And so, from there I had to reverse-engineer that twist into the story. And tie it back to Boxer Santaros. And then that kind of tied everything together, with the time rift in the energy system of this alternative fuel system, and the whole thing started to kind of make sense in my mind, this big, sprawling, interconnected story, that tied in religion and politics, and Orwellian surveillance and the impending election of 2008. > It all started to sort of make sense as this big grand systemic narrative in my mind. Once I solved the mystery of the twins, everything fell into place. \- [[Richard Kelly]] in an interview[^1] with AVClub # References [^1]: [[Southland Tales - Bibliography#AVClub Interview]]