Blade Runner

Plot

In a cyberpunk vision of the future, man has developed the technology to create replicants, human clones used to serve in the colonies outside Earth but with fixed lifespans. In Los Angeles, 2019, Deckard is a Blade Runner, a cop who specialises in terminating replicants. Originally in retirement, he is forced to re-enter the force when six replicants escape from an offworld colony to Earth.

Cast List

Rick Deckard- Harrison Ford

Rutger Hauer- Roy Batty

Sean Young- Rachael

Edward James Olmos- Gaff

M. Emmet Walsh- Bryant

Notes from readings

Bladerunner is known as being one of the biggest postmodern films because:

• Potential idea that are minds are artificial. Links to the idea of replicants
• Post-modernity is wary of the future and seeks shelter in the past. This is why there are signifiers of the past in Blade Runner

• Focus on mediation
• Compression of time and space. Focuses on the idea of a lack of time
• The idea of the replicants not knowing that they are not humans. The film uses this as a metaphor for the postmodern condition in general
• The film-noir voiceover of the original release is juxtaposed with the futuristic, dystopian images.
• The city Los Angeles in the future in itself is an example of Pastiche in the film of our ideas of the future.
• Hyperidentities: the difference between human and machine are unclear
• Compression of time and space: the film highlights the importance of time and how we are lacking it
• One of the key themes of the film is the 'blurring' of the differences betweenthe real and the artificial, between the humans and the replicants. Increasingly it is no longer possible to be clear about what it means to be 'human'.
• According to Connor (1989:178) post-modern films quite often consist of more than one genre, and ‘refuse’ to be categorised easily. This is apparent in Blade Runner which is “part dark science fiction and [part] detective film noir.” (McOran-Campbell:1999.) However the film covers vast territory “from film noir to cyberpunk
• Nostalgia-  Remnants of the past are used to represent the ‘safe’ and the ‘unsafe’. In one scene Rachel talks of a spider who gives birth to many baby spiders who then eat her. This can also be linked in to the utopian versus distopian theories
• The terror that is found in this film is the future. It nostalgically refers to the past while showing a distopian view of the future. Which is a very important issue in post-modern cinema. Films that portray the future seem determined to warn us of the dangers around the corner

Blade Runner as a postmodern film

Postmodernism is a general and wide-ranging term which is applied to many disciplines, including literature, art, economics, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and literary criticism. More specifically, film postmodernity is when the characteristics of postmodernism are conveyed through the medium of film.

A key postmodern text is the film Blade Runner (Ridley Scott 1982).It has the theme of postmodernism throughout and is clear through many different features. Firstly, it’s postmodern because it both represents and employs elements of the postmodern condition to texture its narrative.  Also explored and utilised in Blade Runner are the strategies of quotation, pastiche, recycling, hyper reality and identity crisis. It’s apparent that the film is set in the future and this is because of the mise en scene such as the buildings and the new technology within the city. This is also clear because of the recycling in the film. This is a very modern idea that has now been introduced today so the film has predicted what will be around in the future.

                Secondly, Blade Runner is an excellent example of pastiche with the layout of the city being the most dramatically visible and the connection of postmodernism to post industrialism is evident. There is also the concept that even though it seems to be set in the future, it could also be seen as going backwards in time even thought its meant to be set in 2019 Los Angeles. This thought explains that the city could be anywhere at any time. Hyper reality is another key feature of postmodernism in films and in Blade Runner as it is how the media dominate our perception of the world and how it’s more real than we can experience. This links with the distinction between human and machine and the Void-comp test to work out who is a replicant and who is human which also comes under identity crisis. Also in the opening scene we can identify virtual adverts persuading the humans to move to other planets, suggesting they will have a better life away from earth and have better experiences than earth can offer.

Baudrillard states that: "Another film often cited as 'postmodern' is Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), in which science, technology and progress are all questioned and shown in some way to have 'failed'. The world in Blade Runner is polluted by industry and overcrowding; only the rich escape to the 'off-worlds'. One of the key themes of the film is the 'blurring' of the differences between the real and the artificial, between the humans and the replicants. Increasingly it is no longer possible to be clear about what it means to be 'human'". This summarises all the main ideas as to why this film is postmodern as the storyline itself includes features of hyper reality and the mise en scene links to pastiche.

                Textually, Blade Runner uses quotes from many different film genres and film movements/periods. For example it lifts scenes directly out of older classics such as Metropolis (science fiction) and Mild red Pierce (film noir). This shows how the different genres are working together to create a new mixed genre that is postmodern in its own way for doing this. Also other pop culture references are used such as the New York skyline, the Pulp Fiction of Raymond Charles.

On the other hand, some people believe that Blade Runner is far from being postmodern and that in fact Ridley Scott tried to shy away from a postmodern view in the film and instead Blade Runner was ‘a production of mainstream cinema only films with an independent sensibility are able to fully represent the disturbing post human . This is because the ideals of romantic love are central to patriarchal society’s needs’. This quote from Nick  Lacey suggests that the film  completely fails to represent postmodernism in the form of  the human condition.

Another feature of postmodernism is ‘the openness of the truly postmodern text’. However this does not apply to Blade runner as we are only shown the negative and ‘bad’ side of the upper class people in the future. An example of this in the film is the character Tyrell who owns large companies as we see throughout the film that even with his high status and power, he is not necessarily a good character. Even though Blade Runner gives us an insight into the future and what Ridley Scott’s image of it is like, it does only present a few features of postmodernism in films. It is apparent in the film that the city is based on the future and the idea of the ‘future that extrapolate contemporary trends’ in order for us to picture the city better.

Overall, I think that Blade Runner is the perfect example of a postmodern film as it follows all the conventions that make it fit into this theme. In my opinion, Ridley Scott knew exactly what he wanted to do with this film and how to deliberately make it postmodern. Therefore he managed to include all the typical features within this one film to make it a phenomenon amongst postmodernists.