In a play called Rosencrantz and Guilderstern Are Dead, two of Shakespeare's littlest characters wander around the edges of one of the most aesthetically sound "systems" of all time, Hamlet. But they don't know what to make of it. Ophelia runs around and Hamlet endlessly rants on. It all looks so stupid and pointless.

Rosencrantz and Guilderstern play games and tell jokes to survive. They feel that their surroundings are beyond understanding. They cannot revolt against it all: they are going to die anyway Why bother to understand?

Robert Downey wanders around a system, too. The Advertising World America. He does not wander around with a motorcycle, but he has a camera. He records things as he sees them. It doesn't have to make sense. It shouldn't make sense. Like Rosencrantz and Guilderstern. Downey has developed a sensibility for chaos.

A system is a poor attempt on someone's part to make chaos look plausible. Not everyone sees that, and those who don't get trapped in its fraudulent logic. But we are safe as long as we see everything the way Downey does: crazy and illogical, funny and tragic.

If you throw out one system, you get another system. Is there such a thing as a better system?

Maybe better that we just avoid systems altogether and live.

You might ask: Is Putney Swope any way to make a movie? You bet your sweet ass.