kleph
05-03-2006, 09:48 AM
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.... All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die. - Batty
It is hard to think of another movie that has had such an important and lasting impact as Blade Runner but was so completely overlooked and disabused upon its release (Seven, maybe, but that film was much more of a financial success).
Released in 1982, it was expected to be a smash if for no other reason than it featured mega-star Harrison Ford fresh off his Star Wars triumph (Raiders of the Lost Ark was still a year away from being released). This film was everything that one wasn’t – dark, confusing, and resisting a linear interpretation. It failed miserably in the North American box office (but later did will internationally)
And being botched by the studio didn’t help either. In 1993, more than a decade after it’s initial release, director Ridley Scott later was able to unleash his version that is even more powerful and important than the original. It was more than simply jettisoning the asinine narration and restoring the more austere finale that raises so many existential questions – Scott reassessed the meaning of the film itself. And, given the import of the themes he undertook to address, that was an astonishingly audacious task.
For those few that are not familiar with the film, it is adapted from Philip K. Dick's book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Ford plays Rick Deckard, a cop in 2019 Los Angeles whose job is to hunt down and “retire” genetically engineered humans known as replicants. These replicants were originally created as slave labor for the planet colonies but were banned from Earth after causing revolts. The movie centers around Ford’s pursuit of four replicants that have commandeered a shuttle to earth. During this effort Ford meets and falls in love with a replicant played by Sean Young.
The most important impact of the film is it’s visual aspect. The film was British director Ridley Scott’s first American film that he took on after bailing out of Dune (later completed and disavowed by David Lynch). Scott brought his strong visual sensibility from his background in commercials. He went on to make what is now considered the most important television advertisement every filmed – Apple’s 1984 (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-715862862672743260&q=Apple+Macintosh+1984) ad.
Scott and designer Syd Mead went counter more utopian and idyllic presentments and drew a gritty urban hellscape derived from Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Edward Hopper's painting Nighthawks and the comic magazine Heavy Metal. The teeming multicultural city Ford’s character prowls through have become so much of a staple of science fiction filmology (see Matrix, The) that it is hard to understand how unique it was when Blade Runner was first released.
Almost single handedly, this film breathed life into the cyberpunk school of science fiction writing that has begat so much of our current perception of high technology as well as its promises and perils. The film plays on paranoia wrought through the abuse of corporate power and the threat of omnipresent police presence – themes that have become disturbingly true in our 2006 present.
But where Blade Runner truly comes into its own is using its unique setting to present philosophical questions that are as applicable in such a fantastic setting as they are in our own mundane lives. Scott doesn’t simply rely on the screenplay either, he deftly uses imagery and semiological reasoning to present his case, giving us a profound impression of the issues he wants to address that stay with us long after we walk back out into the sunlight outside the theatre.
The core question the film address is what, exactly, does it mean to be human? What do we mean when we insist we have a unique personal identity? And how does the brutal fact of our own death affect who we are as individuals?
Deckard: She's a replicant, isn't she?
Tyrell: I'm impressed. How many questions does it usually take to spot them?
Deckard: I don't get it Tyrell.
Tyrell: How many questions?
Deckard: Twenty, thirty, cross-referenced.
Tyrell: It took more than a hundred for Rachael, didn't it?
Deckard: She doesn't know.
Tyrell: She's beginning to suspect, I think.
Deckard: Suspect? How can it not know what it is?
And given the questions already raised about the reliability of eyes suddenly one is faced with some dangerous questions about their own memories and their reliability. Nothing anyone that ever read Bishop Berkley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley) isn’t aware of but a dangerous path to begin to walk down philosophically if you don't know what you are getting into.
Racheal is interesting for another reason. Tyrell implanted the memories of his deceased niece. By relative standards that hold we are the summation of our experiences – and our memories are our record of our experiences - she is the niece now. This idea is exactly the Christian concept of heaven. But, its logical inconsistency is glaring when seen in this light. The niece clearly is getting the short end of the deal.
So then what makes us each individuals needs to be reassessed. But to do that means to pull back a huge tapestry of our own identity and the culture that created that. Not the easiest task to undertake. Which is probably why the replicants seem to be so much more emphatic and sympathetic in the film – they have nothing left to lose, so they have come so much closer to what they actually have lost. The humans, who see it as their birthright, overlook the sublimity of their mortality to a degree that strikes one almost as obscene.
(I have always felt the long running controversy over whether Deckart is a replicant or not is a bit of a red herring to understanding the film and it’s core meaning. It is worth noting that Scott has stated the character is a replicant while the star and author of the screenplay have said otherwise. The simple fact you can continue to raise the question, in my mind, stresses the importance of the film.)
One answer the film provides is a warning that technology will do us little to answer the questions concerning out basic humanity. In fact, it can only do two things; distract us or complicate the matter even worse.
The director’s cut also ends with a wry line by Gatty that presents an interesting coda; “It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?” In any other movie, this could be written off as a wry one liner but given what has transpired in this film it takes on an almost Buddhist significance – you had best get working on enlightenment because it is way fucking later than you think.
©2006 C.J. Schexnayder
It is hard to think of another movie that has had such an important and lasting impact as Blade Runner but was so completely overlooked and disabused upon its release (Seven, maybe, but that film was much more of a financial success).
Released in 1982, it was expected to be a smash if for no other reason than it featured mega-star Harrison Ford fresh off his Star Wars triumph (Raiders of the Lost Ark was still a year away from being released). This film was everything that one wasn’t – dark, confusing, and resisting a linear interpretation. It failed miserably in the North American box office (but later did will internationally)
And being botched by the studio didn’t help either. In 1993, more than a decade after it’s initial release, director Ridley Scott later was able to unleash his version that is even more powerful and important than the original. It was more than simply jettisoning the asinine narration and restoring the more austere finale that raises so many existential questions – Scott reassessed the meaning of the film itself. And, given the import of the themes he undertook to address, that was an astonishingly audacious task.
For those few that are not familiar with the film, it is adapted from Philip K. Dick's book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Ford plays Rick Deckard, a cop in 2019 Los Angeles whose job is to hunt down and “retire” genetically engineered humans known as replicants. These replicants were originally created as slave labor for the planet colonies but were banned from Earth after causing revolts. The movie centers around Ford’s pursuit of four replicants that have commandeered a shuttle to earth. During this effort Ford meets and falls in love with a replicant played by Sean Young.
The most important impact of the film is it’s visual aspect. The film was British director Ridley Scott’s first American film that he took on after bailing out of Dune (later completed and disavowed by David Lynch). Scott brought his strong visual sensibility from his background in commercials. He went on to make what is now considered the most important television advertisement every filmed – Apple’s 1984 (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-715862862672743260&q=Apple+Macintosh+1984) ad.
Scott and designer Syd Mead went counter more utopian and idyllic presentments and drew a gritty urban hellscape derived from Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Edward Hopper's painting Nighthawks and the comic magazine Heavy Metal. The teeming multicultural city Ford’s character prowls through have become so much of a staple of science fiction filmology (see Matrix, The) that it is hard to understand how unique it was when Blade Runner was first released.
Almost single handedly, this film breathed life into the cyberpunk school of science fiction writing that has begat so much of our current perception of high technology as well as its promises and perils. The film plays on paranoia wrought through the abuse of corporate power and the threat of omnipresent police presence – themes that have become disturbingly true in our 2006 present.
But where Blade Runner truly comes into its own is using its unique setting to present philosophical questions that are as applicable in such a fantastic setting as they are in our own mundane lives. Scott doesn’t simply rely on the screenplay either, he deftly uses imagery and semiological reasoning to present his case, giving us a profound impression of the issues he wants to address that stay with us long after we walk back out into the sunlight outside the theatre.
The core question the film address is what, exactly, does it mean to be human? What do we mean when we insist we have a unique personal identity? And how does the brutal fact of our own death affect who we are as individuals?
Deckard: She's a replicant, isn't she?
Tyrell: I'm impressed. How many questions does it usually take to spot them?
Deckard: I don't get it Tyrell.
Tyrell: How many questions?
Deckard: Twenty, thirty, cross-referenced.
Tyrell: It took more than a hundred for Rachael, didn't it?
Deckard: She doesn't know.
Tyrell: She's beginning to suspect, I think.
Deckard: Suspect? How can it not know what it is?
And given the questions already raised about the reliability of eyes suddenly one is faced with some dangerous questions about their own memories and their reliability. Nothing anyone that ever read Bishop Berkley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley) isn’t aware of but a dangerous path to begin to walk down philosophically if you don't know what you are getting into.
Racheal is interesting for another reason. Tyrell implanted the memories of his deceased niece. By relative standards that hold we are the summation of our experiences – and our memories are our record of our experiences - she is the niece now. This idea is exactly the Christian concept of heaven. But, its logical inconsistency is glaring when seen in this light. The niece clearly is getting the short end of the deal.
So then what makes us each individuals needs to be reassessed. But to do that means to pull back a huge tapestry of our own identity and the culture that created that. Not the easiest task to undertake. Which is probably why the replicants seem to be so much more emphatic and sympathetic in the film – they have nothing left to lose, so they have come so much closer to what they actually have lost. The humans, who see it as their birthright, overlook the sublimity of their mortality to a degree that strikes one almost as obscene.
(I have always felt the long running controversy over whether Deckart is a replicant or not is a bit of a red herring to understanding the film and it’s core meaning. It is worth noting that Scott has stated the character is a replicant while the star and author of the screenplay have said otherwise. The simple fact you can continue to raise the question, in my mind, stresses the importance of the film.)
One answer the film provides is a warning that technology will do us little to answer the questions concerning out basic humanity. In fact, it can only do two things; distract us or complicate the matter even worse.
The director’s cut also ends with a wry line by Gatty that presents an interesting coda; “It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?” In any other movie, this could be written off as a wry one liner but given what has transpired in this film it takes on an almost Buddhist significance – you had best get working on enlightenment because it is way fucking later than you think.
©2006 C.J. Schexnayder