i was watching 'dangerous days', a documentary on the making of Blade
Runner. as such dvd specials go, it was pretty good and informative.
but, it was also distressing to find out that the principal writers,
designers, and technicians behind the mooie were mostly a bunch of
dorks.
for a making-of-documentary, it was pretty long--3 hrs and 30 minutes.
it was mostly talking head interviews, outtakes, and footage of the
filmmaking process itself.
it's a fascinating story about various peoples, ideas, and interests
coming and working together. for a fuller investigation of this story,
there is the book Future Noir.
blade runner is important for its impact on not only future of sci-fi
but much of pop cultural iconography. indeed, one of the greatest
artworks of the 20th century--bubblegum crisis 2032-2033--was inspired
largely by scott's movie. but, the influence hasn't been all good.
just as peckinpah's slo-mo action scenes became tiresome cliches in
the hands of action directors all over the world, much of sci-fi has
become soaked with blade-runnerisms. (this is also true with Alien
mooies). of course, mixing sci-fi and noir wasn't exactly original
when blade runner was made. also, there is more than noirishness in
blade runner. there is a heavy dose of gothicism--which also defined
much of Alien. it could be argued that batman combined noir and
gothicism--and elements of sci-fi--long before blade runner(and to be
sure, batman movies were, in turn, influenced by blade runner). and
though i know next to nothing about sci-fi literature, i'm sure there
had been many noirish sci-fi literature before blade runner the movie.
after all, the movie was based on a book by philip k dick who started
writing in the 50s. so, blade runner was not a new concept in sci-fi;
it was the first time that such a concept was financed on a huge scale
by hollywood. earlier sci-fi films with certain noirish elements such
as 'alphaville', 'face of another' or 'le jette' were relatively low-
budget and obscure art films.
also, dystopian sci-fi with urban decay as central motif was nothing
new to sci-fi. even Stalker has elements of noirism, at least in the
opening scenes, before it drifts into spiritualist mode. Stalker is
different from most other sci-fi films in welcoming decay as a kind of
mystical return to natural or cosmic order. in blade runner, the rain
soaked hotel looks decrepit and hideous; in contrast, the rain that
falls thru the roof in the near final scene in Stalker is the movie's
most beautiful moment.
at any rate, the greatness of blade runner had more to do with
execution than conceptualization. for the first time, someone really
molded something remarkable out of these idears. and, though its box
office failure was painful for everyone invovled, it certainly helped
in creating a myth around the movie. in fact, many blade runner fans
still guard it as a best-kept-secret. even as they fume about how
most people 'don't get it', they are proud that THEY--and ONLY they--
get it. secretly and darkly, the LAST thing they'd want is for
EVERYONE to get it. they want belong to a special church of blade
runners while crass-mass dorks munch popcorn to star wars or star
trek. the movie New World has created a similar kind of cult following
though i don't see it gaining iconic status in the future.
now, blade runners are a sorry bunch of dorks themselves who need to
get a life. it's one thing to admire a movie; it's another to worship
it. it is, after all, just a movie. but, some people have nothing
better to do than obsess over a certain book, movie, or rock group.
many of these idiots go to college and get a degree in cultural
studies or some such. they're too lazy to read great literature and
listen to serious music--and even if they did, it'd only be for
ideological purposes as they're blind and deaf--, so they watch a lot
of dumb movies, listen to a lot of stupid music, and even read comic
books; since they can't justify going to college to watch mooies, they
justify their obsessions by intellectualizing them. so, some dork
who's a horror mooie fan will write long stupid dissertations on the
ideological subtext of certain horror mooies. or, some feminist
'scholar' will watch a lot of soap operas around the world and
theorize about their social or political significance.
some of these people have HORRIBLE tastes and become 'experts' on a
whole bunch of dumb movies or awful music--like punk and rap. i'm sure
there are departments at UCLA that teach the 'ideology of rap' or
'philosophy of the simpsons'. when cornel west, the trendy and
shallow negro scholar, balances recording rap songs, appearing in
matrix movies, and writing stupid books about the process of
capitalist 'niggerization', we know universities have become ivory
tower ghettos of moronosity.
what's truly horrifying is that even people who seem to have GOOD
taste actually turn out to have no taste at all. for example, you'd
think anyone who loves Blade Runner knows something about movies.
logically, we'd like to think IF the dude's smart and sensitive enough
to appreciate something like blade runner, THEN he must be smart and
sensitive enough to appreciate other good stuff and see crap for what
it is. not so. there are some people who appreciate blade runner as a
great film and there are others for whom it is a geek-obsession. the
latter are worse than poeple who don't like the movie. it's one thing
to appreciate something like blade runner or harold and maude; it's
another to obsess about it and go on and on about it as if one's life
depended on it. such are losers. this is why i don't respect quentin
tarantino's appreciation of good/bad/ugly or godard. the idiot's just
an obessive movie junkie who couldn't tell 'masculin feminin' apart
from 'switchblade sisters' or 'fat cigar chomping super-afro-niggaz
from mars on ice'.
near the end of the documentary 'strange days', we see a bunch of
filmmakes and cineastes drooling, gushing, and pontificating pompously
about why blade runner is a great movie or the greatest movie, how it
changed their lives, how it changed world cinema, how it changed the
world, and will change the cosmos. jesus. watching these clowns was
truly embarassing. among them was the lowlife spick del toro who made
the odiously anti-fascist Pan's Labyrinth. there was some dorque who
made torque. there was the maker of shawshank redemption, green mile,
and other stupid and disgusting hug-a-negro movies. and, there was
kenneth turan, a licker of michael moore's stinky asshole and a
leftwing jew for all i know. the sight of these clods made me wanna
puke. del toro's film output clearly indicates that he's an idiot.
cronos sucked, and i refuse to see devil boy. shawshank redemption by
the negro-hugger is a sickeningly sweet brain-decaying concoction of
capra-isms and prison film cliches--kinda like forrest gump crossed
with escape from alcatraz. i refuse to see Green Mile, a movie that
says a giant negro who could whup half the honkey race is scared of a
wittle white mouse. dorque who made torque talks like a computer
software. and, i know turan's an idiot because he thinks fahrenheit
9/11 is a great film.
what a bunch of tards. as you know, i like blade runner for legitimate
and valid reasons. it's a great movie, nothing more. and, i like
other movies which are just as good. this is why you won't find me
praising ONE great movie as the meaning of my life while praising tons
of trash. i praise blade runner and other great films simply because
they're great.
sadly, many people who appear to have good taste--based on evidence of
their appreciation of a great film--actually have horrible all-around
taste. i found this out when i used to be a regular at
alt.fan.bgcrisis--the bubblegum crisis newsgroup. i intially
thought, 'anyone who loves bubblegum crisis has to above the fray of
your average sci-fi or anime fan'. i was wrong. many people at
alt.fan.bgcrisis were a bunch of idiots and morons. also, their
reason for liking bubblegum crisis bordered on the trivial, the
insipid, the insane, the infantile. they failed to see its
significance as one of the great artworks of the 20th century. also,
they failed to appreciate the obvious truth: that Priss is the best
character in the series.
anyway, i wanna take issue with some of the arguments put forth by the
'experts', devotees, fans, nuts, etc in the documentary.
1. they seem to agree that the movie failed at the box-office because
1982 was year of ET. ET made everyone so happy and gooey that they
simply couldn't appreciate something as dark and disturbing as blade
runner(and john carpenter's The Thing). this is retarded, of course.
if i recall, Empire Strikes Back was kinda dark too but it did great
business. and a whole bunch of ugly slasher films were being made at
this time and they were raking it in big time. also, since when does
a popularity of one kind of movie negate the popularity of other kinds
of movies? close encounters was pretty cheerful yet why did Alien, a
dark sci-fi, did so well at the box-office a year after? and why was
tootsi, a frivolous comedy, so popular in the same year as Gandhi, an
uplifting historical mooie?
the argument put forth by 'experts' are fallacious. they seem to think
since blade runner and the Thing came out in the same year as ET, ET
is to blame. if the movies had been hits, ET would probably have been
credited too. they would have argued 'since people were so just sooo
delighted with ET, they wanted something different to wash away the
overly sweet taste in their mouths'.
in truth, Blade Runner failed because it's too slow for your average
moviegoer. some of it has 'art film' pacing. back in 1968, kubrick
could get away with slow paced 2001 because it was so WOW, and no one
had seen anything like it before. but by 1982, the public had
experienced star wars and close encounters. special effects and art
design alone were no longer enough to draw a large audience. for most
people, much of blade runner was like flipping thru the pages of an
architectural, interior design, or technology-themed coffee table
book. to be sure, there was an hauntingly beautiful story but the
emotions were not obvious. also, as plots went, it was complex for
many viewers. also, many couldn't figure out the themes. was it meant
to be sci-fi adventure for teens, a romance for girls, a horror movie
for gore lovers, a noir film for cineastes, etc. and, i would guess
The Thing went over the heads of most horror fans too. already by the
early 80s, the bulk of moviegoers were young kids, and they preferred
stuff like 'halloween' which was easier to understand than The Thing,
which was morbid and relatively complex. also, its ending was
ambiguous, a thing that almost never sells well.
also, with the exception of 2001, intellectual sci-fi never did well
at the box office. consider the failures of fahrenheit 451,
alphaville, THX 1138, and Zardoz. while all sci-fi films have some
'intellectual idea', most people want it watered down to cops and
robbers--or spaceships and robots.
2. the 'experts' and fans in 'dangerous days' also say that our world
is becoming more and more like blade runner. turan says everytime he
walks around LA, it looks more like the street scenes in the movie.
they talk of overpopulation and pollution and capitalism gone wild and
so on.
this is essentially false; it's just a case of people projecting their
movie reality or fanciful ideology onto reality.
to be sure, there are certain things in Blade Runner which anticipated
the future--such as video projections on buildings and such. but by
and large, blade runner got the future all wrong and, more
importantly, was not trying to predict the future. blade runner is a
work of imagination, not prophecy. though scott appreciates adulation
and praise as a seer of sorts, his main goal was simply to make a
fantastic looking movie. when his colleagues brought up issues of
logic and consistency, scott brushed them off and concentrated on the
vision.
what was this vision? it was a wild postmodern stew of everything that
caught scott's fancy and whatever the art designers came up with. and,
it worked.
but, did it work as prophecy? no. in fact, if the filmmakers were
trying to predict the future, they got it all wrong--at least in the
US. for starters, LA is filled mostly with spicks, not japs and
chinks--though there are a good deal of the latter. (the rising
prosperity and falling birthrates in asia do not translate to
increasing immigration to the US). also, urban culture is
increasingly afro-dominated, with everyone trying to ape the rapper.
(clockwork orange also failed as prophecy by failing to take into
account the rising power of negroness. can you imagine a bunch of
street gangs wreaking havoc to classical music?) even though black
share of LA population has declined, most young kids of all races all
try to act black and 'niggerish'. blade runner gives us a street
filled with punkers and the like but that is so 70s-ish.
the LA of blade runner looks like a broken melting pot with all the
ingredients spilling out, but that's probably the future of NY more
than LA. future LA will be increasingly be dominated by ONE groups.
spicks. i'd wager that 1/4 of these spicks will want to assimilate
into the american way. 1/4 will wave the flag of separatism and call
for reunion with mexico. 1/4 will become so 'niggerized' that they'll
only care about sex, drugs, and gangsterism. and the final 1/4 will
become che-guevarites brainwashed by the leftwing jews who control the
media and academia.
blade runner also got the idea of the super corporation and the nature
of capitalism all wrong. the vision of capitalism in blade runner
essentially harks back to 19th century when social darwinism was the
dominant social creed among the rich. back then, we had supergiants
like carnegie, rockefeller, morgan, ford, and others who monopolized
lots of industries--seemingly forever. many felt confident and
justified in their wealth, and many feared that they were overturning
the democratic order.
this is not the case today. yes, some of today's rich are richer than
any rich before. they're so rich that if we burned their cash, the
smoke would block out the sun. BUT, they are markedly different from
the 'robber barons' or 'captains of industry'--take your pick--of the
past. tyrell in the movie is right out of some ayn rand novel--in
terms of commerce, 'more capitalist than capitalist' is his motto(even
social darwinist supercapitalists of the 19th century believed in
philanthropy, charity, and altruism). tyrell is a superduper
randian.
today's superrich--at least in US and europe--are not like this. they
may be merciless in the way they make their fortune, but they are not
all-powerful. even mighy bill gates of microsoft is shi**ng bricks
thanks to competition from google. if anything, technology has made
competition among capitalists even more democratic, fiercer, and
advantageous to the little guy. how many computer giants started out
in the garage? and how many of them were brought down by others who
started in the garage? microsoft toppled IBM, and google may topple
microsoft. there is no ONE SURE GIANT WINNER TYRANT like tyrell
corporation(or genom in bubblegum crisis). of course, we moviegoers
want to mythify everything and reduce it all down to cops and robbers.
so, we wanna believe in the one and only supercapitalist tyrell who
seems to own EVERYTHING in the universe, and we wanna believe in the
badass wagnerian rebel in the form of batty. but, this is not where we
are headed. instead of a future of visionary tyrells, we're moving
toward a future of supersmart dorkass geeks. whatever one may say of
tyrell, he has good taste in art and culture, class and
sophistication, and a certain regal style. can we say this of today's
billionaire tycoons in hightech? well, maybe larry ellison of Oracle;
on the other hand, he owns a huge yacht with a bowling alley which
shows he's really just a nouveau riche vulgarian. as for bill gates
and google dorks, technology is ALL they know. they're tireless when
it comes to technology and business but they're slackers in everything
else. they don't fit the model of the superbourgeois tyrant as
produced by social darwinism or depicted by marxists.
also, many of the neo-tycoons of today really believe in 'serving the
people'. so, steve skol of Ebay earned billions but is financing 'save
the world projects'. warren buffet, the richest man in the world, is
gonna give most of his money away to dumb africans after he dies; he
also leads a modest lifestyle. and, many rich folks today are not
proud to be rich--many of them favor liberal economic policies to show
how 'progressive' and educated they are. to find people like tyrell,
you gotta go to china or russia maybe. blade runner does reflect a
certain reaganism of the 80s. deng in china said 'to get rich is
glorious' to erase the maoist mindset. and reagan's message was
similar, to wipe away the liberal mindset that prevailed since the New
Deal. since the era of FDR, it had been more fashionable to be
liberal minded. reaganism--along with thatcherism--unleashed the
yuppie-dominated unapologetic capitalism of the 80s. yuppies became
hated by liberals and leftists. oliver stone made movies like Wall
Street which damned the yuppies. ironically, the yuppies turned more
liberal as the yrs passed. as jesus said, 'man doesn't live by bread
alone' and many yuppies felt empty with riches. so, they took up art,
culture, museum going, save-the-world causes, etc.
this is true of little yuppies and mega-yuppies. and what is bill
gates but a mega liberal yuppie? he's dilbert gone wild gone green.
well, so much for a future ruled by the likes of tyrell--utterly
monopolistic to the point of being dictatorial, permanently
entrenched, and utterly ruthless. today's hightech billionaires are
more like the muppets than count dracula.
of course, one could argue the blade runner is prophetically true in
spirit. even if future billionaires don't resemble tyrell, the future
of capitalism will be about the superduper rich and the masses of
people struggling to get by. why is this? with global trade, we have
the end of national capitalism where corporations hired, favored, and
protected people of their country. so, german car companies were
about german owners, german managers, and german workers. and same was
true of US auto industry. but, with globalization, corporations can
ship jobs overseas, use cheaper labor, and reap greater profits. so,
the rich get richer--especially the savvy jewsters. meanwhile workers
in their own country are jobless while workers abroad work for
peanuts. the pro-globalist argument says that globalism will increase
the economic pie worldwide and the demand from growing overseas
markets will boost all sectors of the US economy in turn. nice as
theory but what about practice? as practice, the results are mixed so
far. globalism is both irreversible and irresponsible.
so, we have a paradox. thanks to globalism, the smart, adventurous,
crafty, ambitious, knowlegable, and such can make more than ever
before; the world is their oyster. if they know what they're doing and
make the right connections, they can do business on a scale and at a
speed--thanks to technology--unimaginable before. so, on the one
hand, the world is becoming flat as thomas friedman said. but, this
flat world is creating high peaks and low valleys. will the economic
geology find some kind of balance, or will mounting pressures lead to
major earthquakes and eruptions heralding a new age of violent
upheaval and revolution?
on the one hand, more people have more access to one another, to
information, and to opportunities than ever before. but, it also means
that the supersmartest will have more freedom--given the continuance
of rule of law and property rights--to rise faster and higher than
anyone before. we are seeing some of this on the internet. freedom
is not conducive to equality.
meritocracy can lead to deeper divisions than aristocracy--which is
why ideocracies and theocracies are opposed to both. marxist
ideocrats hate meritocratic bourgeoisie, and islamic theocrats hate
the saudi royal family. it's prophets vs profits. ayn rand was odd as
the prophet of profit.
on the one hand, internet technology leaders have 'empowered' the
people like they've never been empowered before. we no longer have to
rely on newspaper companies for news, music industry to obtain music,
video rental stores to download movies, etc. especially with
digitalization, files can be copied freely or 'illegally' all over
the world. so, it fills many people with glee to watch the old
dinosaur industries shudder and crumble. tower records is history.
most music businesses are ailing. blockbuster video is gonna be a
goner. newspapers are losing ad revenue and cutting staff. many are
thinking of closing down altogether. many people gleefully think, 'the
era of big media is over'. but what will replace it? a billion
bloggers yammering about their personal lives or uploading to youtube
their cell phone camera video? that's news? if the major media
outlets go out of business, who will pick up the slack? obviously,
guys with the most money. and who has the most money? those who create
the new technologies.
just consider google. though its motto is 'do no evil' and though it
has indeed 'empowered' all of us, it has driven many businesses out of
business. as google rakes in billions more, more and more newspapers
are shutting down. as craigslist takes in more ad revenue, newspapers
lose more ad revenue and must fire more people. so, in the name of
our 'empowerment', we are losing more and more professionally trained
journalists. while newspapers are dying, more and more people are
relying on google and yahoo for all their news. so, the people are
empowered by concentration of wealth and power in the hands of fewer
and fewer. it be ironic.
of course, even internet giants devour one another; yahoo will lose
out to google. new technologies democratize our society more, but
they also concentrate more and more power in the hands of the few.
suppose google gets everything it wants; there will be nothing between
google and us. we will be more empowered but so will google, and
there will be nothing between us and google.
so, the blade runner scenario where tyrell has all the power while the
masses are slave ants got it wrong or half-wrong. future of
capitalism is empowering of both increasing numbers of people and of
the dwindling number of technology industries destroy all
competitors.
but, will google really become like tyrell corporation? prolly not.
even as some guys reap massive fortunes, they too will come under
competition from other supergeeks--mostly jews. if microsoft is
shi**ing bricks because a couple of brilliant jewish nerds came up
with a search engine, just imagine the future of capitalism where
other jews try to out-google google. might as well be renamed gobble.
also, as technology and economies becomes supremely advanced and
complex, it will be impossible for someone like tyrell to exist who
can hold it altogether. enron guys didn't know what was happening in
the various departments. big oil, despite its huge profits, is a
dying industry--at least according to a recent article in the New
Republic. jerome kervial, some low-level investor in france, nearly
brought down an entire banking firm. the latest technologies are
becoming so complex and accessible only to geeks that many people at
the top simply don't know what's going on. bill gates, who was
brilliant long ago, is probably befuddled by recent development in
software technology and by what's happening in the various departments
of his company.
so, even as some people now have the possibility of becoming richer
than ever, they're also more vulnerable to changes and less secure
than the rich folks of the past. in the past, some guys could take
control of certain industries and become, in essence, the members of
the new aristocractic order. and, they would set up their social
order apart from of rest of society. think of the world of the
socialites. while today's rich send their kids to special schools and
have their special zones of privilege, they do not fixate on class
status as rich folks of the 19th century done. back then, the
bourgeoisie modeled themselves on the aristocracy; the bourgeoisie
emulated as much as they replaced the aristocracy; and many bourgeois
folks were eager to marry into aristocracy. but, 20th century saw the
final destruction of the aristocracy--and in the US, aristocratic
roots were never deep.
rich people today want to be seen as people than as privileged folks--
at least in public perception. if you saw bill gates or warren buffet
walk down the street, you could mistake him for any office worker.
back in the 19th century, you'd never mistake a super rich guy with an
office clerk. even unapologetic snobbery today tends to be muted.
even refinement prefers hipness to haughtiness.
of course, this may all be a bullshi* act; maybe today's rich are no
less powerhungry and 'greedy' than tycoons of the past, but most rich
folks today are the products of politically correct indoctrination
instilling concepts of 'social justice'--a meaningless term.
so, even making billions is supposed to be about helping people.
where conservatives differ from liberals is cons believe doing
business is good for the people whereas liberals believe that the real
goodness only comes from 'giving back' what one has earned. so, a
conservative businessman will say, 'i made a fortune but in doing so,
i created jobs, bought and sold goods and services which helped other
businesses and other people. also, i paid taxes and invested my money
so that other people could gain access to capital and start businesses
of their own'. a liberal businessman may believe that it was somehow
wrong that he made more or much more than other people; he feels that
he 'stole' from the people, and he must give his profits back to
society; so, a liberal believes a businessman is only truly good when
he gives away than invests his money. any investment--no matter how it
may help expand the economy--is about making more money for oneself;
as such, it's sinful, whereas giving is for the good of giving.
(though if giving is so good, why should some people just sit on their
ass and take and take? why don't they earn to give also?) warren
buffet and bill gates who bought into the liberal line believe that
they must 'give back'. we still wonder why they're giving all that
money to africans who did NOTHING to make those two clowns rich. it
was american investors and consumers who made them rich. so, if they
wanna give back, give back to those who made them rich. how is giving
black giving back? also, with african population doubling every 20
yrs, the west is gonna be responsible with feeding, clothing, housing,
and medically caring for BILLIONS of poor dumb morons who keep having
15 kids per woman.
3. in blade runner, we see a very crowded big city. while
overcrowded cities constitute major problems in many developing
countries, many US cities suffer from the opposite problem. sprawl
out into the suburbs have hollowed out many cities. chicago has been
losing population for the past 20 yrs. same is true of st. louis,
cleveland, detroit(ugh), milwaukee, etc. sure, some cities are
gaining in population. but, with ample space and more roads and cars,
americans are not flocking into densely crowded cities. indeed, the
business districts in many cities are closing their doors and turning
out their lights. i suppose we could argue there's some of this in
blade runner. it looks like amidst urban decay, many small shops have
grown up.
4. though some 'experts' speak of blade runner's prophetic accuracy, i
would argue that the movie is appealing because of its anti-prophetic
style. it's pipe dream fantasy than a hardnosed look at the future.
what's endearing is the blend of the old and new. like deckard's dream
of the unicorn, blade runner's future is alluring because of its hazy,
mythic quality. despite the dystopian darkness, it's really a series
of epiphanies and reveries. and, everything--even the grubby and
grimy--is striking and stylish. everything looks cool, hip, badass.
there is satirical dystopianism and there is sci-fi dystopianism--
which tends to be more fascinated than appalled by society-gone-
wrong. i don't think anyone would wanna be trapped in the satirical
dystopianism of orwell's 1984; it is dark, dank, grey, and
unforgiving; it's like being locked in a cold grey cell. but, sci-fi
dystopianism is more like a crazy theme park with all sorts of
funnery. even when everything is wrong, it's vibrantly, kinetically,
deliriously, or thrillingly wrong. i would liked to visited--though
not be trapped in--the world of thx 1138, zardoz, solaris, fahrenheit
451, and yes, blade runner. cyberpunk turned dystopianism into a cool
statement. and, though i never read philip k. dick, my guess he felt
most at home in his dystopian fantasies. when orwell wrote 1984, he
wasn't trying to be imaginative for the fun of it. he was writing of
an all-too-true reality in stalin's soviet union; he sincerely wished
NONE of it was true. while sci-fi dystopian artists may not want
their fantasies to come true, they happily escape into those worlds
because they offer many fun and exciting possibilities. satire
reflects on what really is or what really may be. sci-fi seeks what-
would-be-cool-if....
the japanese akira is dystopian sci-fi that thrills than disturbs us.
all the dystopian motifs and themes have been sensationalized, rock-n-
rollized, and exaggerated. the style matters more than the substance;
indeed, there is no substance really.
so, blade runner is appealing because it offers escape to a fantasy
future than a realistic future. (simiarly, death wish movies are
appealing not because they are truthful about street crime but offers
a fantasy where most criminals are cartoonish white punkers who can
easily be wiped out by bronson. most people would be depressed by an
honest movie about street crime showing us crazy blacks robbing and
raping and mostly getting away with it.)
and, if blade runner does grapple with certain futuristic
possibilities, they are mythified/poeticized than rationally
considered. so, the grand battle comes down to batty as siegfried and
tyrell as fusion of wotan/nibelung. the protagonist is handsome and
irresistible harrison ford at his peak(who would not want to be
harrison ford circa 1982?). and he falls in love with impossibly
beautiful and classy sean young. so, blade runner is kinda like a
romance novel for guys. but, there's other stuff which appeals to
different folks. geeks will be fascinated by the technology in the
movie. intellectual types will ponder the meaning of what it means to
be human in the context of robotics and cloning(kinda like La Notte or
L'Eclisse crossed with Logans' Run). aesthetes are surely impressed
by the architectural and set designs, costumes, lighting, music, etc.
and, some people are impressed and wowed by all of this.
as with antonioni's films, sexual or romantic fantasies are crucial to
the appeal of Blade Runner. most film geeks are dorks, not
particularly rich or well-off, never get quality pussy, don't drive
fancy cars, are afraid of guns or being manly, and the very opposite
of cool. (they are like lester bangs and that kid in Almost Famous).
on the one hand, they want to be cool, studly, tough, privileged, and
dashing. but, since that is out of the question, they settle for
intellectualism, cultism, or radicalism--or all three. so, when a
movie like blade runner comes around, their balls rattle with joy. ON
THE ONE HAND, they get to identify with cool handsome harrison ford
killing androids and getting it on with sean young. ON THE OTHER HAND,
they can pretend they're REALLY into the movie because of its deep,
dark, complex, and intellectual themes--and not over some shallow
puerile fantasies.
there was some of this with antonioni's films as well. though many
essays have been written on the MEANING of those films, i dare say
much of the appeal--even among intellectuals--had to do with glamorous
people looking gorgeous and stylish. take la notte. though it's often
been commented that it's about alienation, confusion and meaningless,
and other maladies of modern existence, how truly meaningless can
one's life be if you're affluent, well-attired, fabulous looking like
marcello mastrionni, and married to dropdead gorgeous jeanne moreau?
you'd say, 'bring on the alienation'. suppose La Notte had starred
danny devito and sarah jessica parker(yeccch!). do you think many
critics and scholars would have written about it much?
antonioni's use of rich & beautiful people was purposeful and
significant artistically, symbolically, philosophically, and
spiritually, BUT it's beauty and glamour just the same and so have the
same appeal as any kind of beauty and glamour. (indeed, it may have
MORE appeal as aged wine is more appreciated than grape juice. beauty
and glamour in a fashion magazine are nothing more than beauty and
glamour but, as elements in an art film, have the aura of deeper
beauty and deeper meaning--even if the theme is meaninglessness of
modern life. a beautiful flower is just a beautiful flower but a
beautiful flower aware of its fleeting, pointless, and vain existence
is poignant and even tragic. antonioni's world is kinda hip because
it's post-tragic. old ways have failed, revolution has failed, and
even tragedy has failed. the spiritual wells are all dry. yet, the
pool of rich people has grown wider as their souls have grown
shallower. but gosh, they look good).
antonioni had an appreciative eye for beauty, sensuality, style,
etc. though his themes were arid, antonioni's sensual gekko eyes
that condensed moisture from the spiritual desert.
meaninglessness could be beautiful and even have an hip, liberated and
liberating modernist appeal.
in this sense, it's wrong to pit antonioni against fellini as
opposites; they were opposites in style who nevertheless shared the
same obsessions and fascinations--luxury, beautiful people,
privilege, and all the fun, doubt, guilt, and confusion that are part
of the package. la dolce vita is l'avventura on uppers, and
l'avventura is la dolce vita on downers.
there's certainly more to blade runner than good looking hero,
beautiful heroine, and fancy gadgetry, but those are the real hooks
for the audience. there is an extra zing from ambiguities in the
characterization and plot--subversive of staples of the genre--but
they of secondary nature. and, the material is old-fashioned which, in
post-modern terms, is same as timeless. in this sense, blade runner
isn't so futuristic as mythic. it suggests there is something greater
than human, greater than technology. this is a mythic or even
spiritual message. so, it doesn't matter that rachel may be a
replicant. she is capable of love and sadness. and even if her
memories have been implanted in her mind, the memories still have
their meaning, a timeless life of their own. even if those memories
had belonged to someone else, rachel makes them her own; and even if
tyrell created her, he based her on humanity that long pre-existed
technology; and so, rachel is more than what tyrell made of her; she
is tyrell's version of life, and life is bigger than all the tyrells
in the world combined.
in a way, what is true of rachel is true of us. we are all bio-
replicants designed, programmed, and produced by essentially the same
dna code; yet, we are all different. we can create a million clones
with same dna and implant the same memory in their mind. they'll still
go separate ways and develop an individualities in the existential and
private sense. there is a scene where deckard stares at a photo;
though the photo is a mere imagistic copy of reality, it has a life
and meaning all its own. and everyone who looks at a photo projects
his own meanings on it. so, even if rachel's memory was borrowed from
tyrell's niece, rachel is more. she is what she makes herself to be
with those memories, and she is what others--like deckard--make her
out to be. deckard can choose to see her as a dangerous replicant
that must be destroyed or choose to love her. there's even a
fairytale element to this--as when the hunter was ordered to kill snow
white but let her go.
(by the way, to what extent was rachel's childhood memory was tyrell's
niece's? entirely or only snippets? if rachel's mind had been
wholly programmed with tyrell's nieces memory, might she not have seen
tyrell as her uncle? as she doesn't know this, it's possible that her
memory is a combination of 100s of memories of different girls, a
crazyquilt web of psychic design and intrigue.)
blade runner's mythic in that even artificiality and technology are
presented as man's copying of the natural, timeless, or cosmic order.
so, even if you create a robot that is capable of love, you have not
created love. love was created by the natural world thru cosmic and
natural evolution. life too was created by nature. so, when man
creates artificial life capable of love, man is merely copying nature.
man's invention may be new but the functions and feelings of the
invention is timeless. this can be said of cinema. yes, the
technology was a relatively recent invention BUT it has served a
timeless purpose--to give us a mythic rendering of reality(even
realistic movies have a way of exaggerating, intensifying, and
exaggerating certain aspects of reality). and, in a way, we are all
like rachel in the sense that our minds are colonized by the movies we
watch. in a way, every movie implants its 'memories' into our
memory. movies spin a worldwide web. like the baby spiders that came
out to devour the mother in rachel/tyrell's niece's childhood memory,
movies are like spiders that crawl around inside our head. tyrell
says his company's motto is 'more human than human'. the motto of
film industry is 'more real than real'. indeed, many people have come
to substitute movie--and tv--reality for real reality. for many
folks, the reality we see thru the media is the REAL reality. if you
took away modern media from americans, they will freak out; they would
not be able to handle reality as pure and simple reality. they need
the 'more real than real' reality. .
anyway, it's mythicism that is most appealing and alluring about blade
runner, not so much futuristic aspects. blade runner is essentially a
futuristic look at the past or a sci-fi rendition of the timeless.
notice that much of the visual motifs hark back to the noirish 50s,
egyptian pyramids, mayan empire, classicism of the greeks, the hustle
and bustle of the exotic orient. the interior design of deckard's
apartment is both futuristic and ancient. the view from inside the
flying cars is heavenly; it's as though we're in the realm of the gods
than in the realm of technology. myths have a way of simplifying,
poeticizing, intensifying, and magnifying the reality around us. it's
like the opening line of 'alphaville' where alpha computer 60 says
reality is so complex that we rely on stories--mythmaking--to make
sense. but, it goes the other way around too. some of reality is so
simple that we wanna make more out of it. many sons wanna see their
dads as superheroes(a theme treated in Unbreakable). for all of us who
are baffled and confused by the capitalist order, it is comforting to
see a villain like tyrell and go, 'ahhh, so, that's what the superrich
are like'. of course, the truth is both more complex and more
mundane. most myths give us the story of good vs evil. this is the
staple of most fairytales. most myths have the hero on some grand
quest and who confronts all sorts of baddies on his adventure. but,
myths are not necessarily simple. some greek heroes were essentially
good going up against essentially bad forces or folks. but, some were
far more complex and ambiguous. the most ambiguous hero is odysseus--
if he qualifies as a hero at all--because his goal--or 'quest'--after
the trojan war isn't very heroic. he simply wants to go back home.
along the way, he gets into all kinds of mischief; at times, we wonder
if he isn't simply crazy; other times, we wonder if he really wants to
get back home. sometimes, he acts rashly and gets some of men killed
for no reason. eventually he does get back home, and he wins back his
home and hearth thru heroic courage. but, was he finally content? or,
was he gripped by wanderlust and spent the rest of his life thinking
back on his adventures?
one could argue that blade runner is anti-mythic because it eschews
simple good/bad dichotomy, but anything can be mythified as the
odyssey shows. there is myth of the good cowboy vs the bad cowboy, but
there is also the myth of modern alienation. in this sense, it could
be argued that antonioni's films, despite their parched
intellectualism, could still be regarded as mythic tales; they give us
beautiful neo-classical figures who are searching for heroism in a
world without heroism; but even this despair in the face of apathy is
a kind of heroism. it's as though beautiful heroes and heroines are
still looking for something. l'avventura is a kind of modern odyssey
of a man with no sense of home and without a map; but he still seeks
and ultimately discovers that his spiritual well isn't totally dry.
one of the signs of heroism is to keep searching or struggling--
physically or emotionally--even when there is little hope or chance.
and, keep in mind that godard's Les Mepris was largely inspired by the
films of antonioni; and godard was even more explicit in his use of
ancient classical motifs. in the odyssey, odysseus wins back his
wife. in les mepris, the noirret loses bardot to palance. even the
modern cannot escape from the timeless.
there was also a mythic element in noirism. despite its conceit of
ultra-modernism, noirism borrowed from a certain gothic and teutonic
sensibilities. the ancient germanic tribes, surrounded by deep
forests and thick mists, created a dark, forbidding, irrational, and
mysterious mythology about their world. and, there is a sense of this
in the modern noir. instead of towering mountains, thick forests,
howling wolves, animal remains, marauding tribes, and mist, you have
skycrapers, police sirens, garbage, street thugs, and steam from the
sewers.
given these similarities, it's no surprise that fritz lang was adept
at both teutonism--nibelungen saga--and modern noirism--M, dr. mabuse,
fury, manhunter, etc. and of course for Metropolis, lang fused the
ancient and the futuristic, creating one of the first mythic sci-fi.
but, sci-fi and mythology have always gone together well. in many
cases, sci-fi is just a mythologization of science and technology.
(actually, more of technology than science. indeed, sci-fi should
really be called technological fantasy or techno-fantasy as most sci-
fi artists know little about real science and only fantasize about
technology. most sci-fi works in terms of 'it'd be cool to have
flying cars' or 'it'd be cool to have robots'. any 7 yr old can do
it). science and technology are frustrating because they can only
work according to strict laws of physics. most of us dummies don't
understand how science and technology really work so we create mythic
models and possibilities that allow our imaganination to roam freely.
it's difficult--if not impossible--to create an artificial human
being. but, it's fun and fascinating to fantasize or think of such.
(generally, a lowly sci-fi artist only fantasizes while an highly sci-
fi artist thinks about philosophical ramifications of such fantastic
possibilities.)
in a way, sci-fi is a kind of theology. our sense of morality and
truth is shaped not only by what is but what we hypothesize. so, even
if we don't have robots, just thinking of artificial intelligence
opens up endless debates about the meaning of life, meaning of
humanness, the meaning of morality, the meaning of soul, etc. and
the same could be said of the concept of soul. is there really such a
thing as a soul? or, is it just a useful concept? and, the same
could be said of god. supposing god's existence or non-existence
changes the way we think about ourselves, our values, and our purpose
in the universe. if we argue for god, we may ask is there A god or
many gods? and, what is the nature of this god? and how does our
understanding of his nature affect the way we live our lives and
choose our values? surely, believing in a judeochristian god means
something different than worshipping a crocodile god or an aztec god
or human-like gods. (it's possible that greek philosophy developed
from the nature of their bickering gods. maybe greeks were dialectical
or diaological because their gods were so; athena, apollo, diana,
zeus, hera, etc didn't see eye to eye and argued over the dinner
table. in contrast, jews had only ONE god and his word was the final
word. so, jewish culture and thinking became more interpretative than
dialectical--until marx came along. since yahweh's word was the final
word, jews could not argue with it but only find new ways to interpret
it.)
or, suppose we say there is no god. what does that mean for us and
our lives? what is the meaning of the universe? who looks over us?
nobody and nothing. so, what are we to do? what is truth when there
is no ultimate truth? is your truth as good or better or worse than
my truth?
anyway, it should be said that most sci-fi never tackled real science.
this is because most sci-fi artists are not really good at science--
though there are exceptions like asimov. and, even supremely
intelligent sci-fi artists were more philosophically and even
mythically inclined than scientifically inclined; that is the nature
of art--to imagine and soul-seek. so, 2001 is about the grand
mystery of the universe. star wars is about timeless myths retold in
space--as was flash gordon. zardoz is a jungian tale that says science
isn't enough and man must reconnect with mythic nature and be in tune
with the testi-cyclical cosmic order; zardoz seems to follow the
eliadaean idear that man and civilization must go thru the process of
being born, maturing, dying, and being reborn than continue in a
linear fashion--as with the jews; the longer a culture lasts, more
stale it becomes and divorced from the way nature and man were meant
to be; we must live and die, not stay the same like some taxidermized
stuffed animal in a museum. and, there is an echo of this mythic view
in blade runner as well. batty wants to live longer but tyrell tells
batty that he was meant to live for only a few yrs but live
intensely. though tyrell done batty wrong, there is some truth to
this. batty's recollection of images in outerspace has great power and
beauty because they are fresh; suppose batty had been allowed to live
for a 100 yrs. such images would lose their special and poetic
significance; so, it's not so much what batty saw but how he saw them;
things are more mesmerizing to a child than to an adult. a child is
more enthralled with a hill than an adult with the grand canyon.
batty was 1/3 child, 1/3 man, and 1/3 god-hero. he saw the world with
innocence, intelligence, and inspiration.
AI is also timelessly mythic because david is programmed with
something greater than man or technology. the parent/offspring
instinct is one of the most powerful in life. so, even though david
is the ultra-modern creation of man, what he's programmed with is a
synthetic version of the timeless natural/cosmic principle. david,
though a mechanical product of man, has come to embody an emotional--
even spiritual principle--grander than man and longer-lasting than its
creator; toy boy becomes the ambassador of humanity thru eternity. on
the one hand, it seems perverse for technology to mass produce robots
like david--produce souls. even so, it means man is only copying or
replicating nature, not mastering nature. david is a mytho-mechanic re-
creation of nature. so, in this sense, both rachel and david are
mythic as well as mechanical creatures. and, even though they seem
controlled by humans, the humans who made them are controlled by the
timeless forces governing all life--need for love and power. in a
way, one can see technology as merely an extension of reproductive--or
replicative--forces within life itself. the reproductive process
makes copies of life. and, technology makes copies of prototypes.
so, technology is a projection of our reproductive nature to non-
living forms. the replicant in blade runner is fullest realization of
projecting humanness onto objects.
bubblegum crisis(2032-2033; readers must be warned that 2040 is
TERRIBLE) took the mythic implications even further than blade
runner. mythicism says that technology, no matter how advanced, is a
projection of timeless archetypal forms. just as man created god in
our image or our longing, man creates technology in our image. god
was a projection of human traits and thoughts, and so will science and
technology be--like in Solaris. of course, just as god--creation of
man--gained power over man, technology may gain greater power over
us. it already has power over us in the sense that we are so
dependent on technology. but, will it have greater power over us in
becoming more 'human than human'? i dunno.
in bubblegum crisis, we have technology that seeks to usurp man and
gain god-like status vs technology that serves man or the human form
and the human scale. all the same, it comes down to the battle of
human psyches. whoever wins, it's a timeless story between those who
want to be god looking down on humans and those who wanna be human and
serve god. this explains the appeal of jesus--god as man as god who
loves man.
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