Mediacology

So, it turns out Blade Runner turned 25, a film that almost wasn’t made. Thank the Great Whatever that it was, for it remains one of the most near and dear to my heart as the standard of science fiction filmmaking. This is one of those situations that when confronted with such a great work of art, all words fail to capture its immensity. But here are some random thoughts anyway.

I was fortunate to take a class with the Blade Runner’s cinematographer, Jordan Cronenweth, who at the time had severe Parkinson’s Disease. We watched the film shot by shot as he explained the film’s innovative lighting. What sticks out is how often the lights are shooting and strobing through the windows into your eyes, like the ubiquitous police helicopter lights in contemporary Los Angeles.

Apparently William Gibson was so shocked when he saw the film, because its gestalt is so much like Neuromancer, that he had to walk out of the screening.

My favorite detail is the street shot that has the Million Dollar Theater, a Mexican movie house that is still in downtown LA (last I checked) and is actually across the street from the Bradbury Building where the film’s toy maker J.F. Sebastian lived.

At the time I saw it (1982) I was living in LA and just getting into punk. Somehow the movie captured all the sensibilities of our multicultural apocalyptic vision of the city. In particular I love Edward James Olmos’ character, Gaff, whose gruff Zoot Suit demeanor was betrayed by his origami skills. If you haven’t seen the director’s cut (by far the best version), pay special attention to the last scene.
One of the best writings I’ve come across that relates the film to critical theory is David Harvey’s “The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change”. According to him, Blade Runner has these key components:

• Replicants return to earth to find their maker (309) by infiltrating the heart of the apparatus that made them
• Both Deckard and replicants exist in a similar relation to the dominant power of society (Deckard forced out of retirement)
• Hidden bond of sympathy between hunted and hunter (they sace each other’s lives while trying to destroy each other)
• post industrial decay - garbage, infrastructures in varying degrees of disintegration
• scavengers, city-speak, informal labour practices everywhere
• The chaos of signs (311), recycling, explosion of boundaries
• a sense of hidden organizing power - the Tyrell corporation
• Replicants discovered on the basis of no real history
• lack the experience of human socialization
• Photographs represent a real history no matter what the truth of that history may have been.
• Replicant conflict consists of people living in different time scales
• in the end, the difference between replicant and human becomes indistinguishable (they fall in love)