O, Blade Runner, how do I love thee?
Let me count the ways...
The hauntingly, beautiful score by Vangelis which lends the film such an overwhelming sense of melancholy and loss...
The stunning cinematography of Jordan Cronenweth which gives the film its incredible visual power...
The drop-dead gorgeous Sean Young (as Rachael)...
The powerful, brooding presence of Rutger Hauer (as Roy Batty)...
The almost unrecognisable Daryl Hannah (as Pris), in only her third big screen appearance...
And the star of the film, Harrison Ford (as Rick Deckard), in one of his greatest on-screen roles.
The story is set in a totally unrecognisable Los Angeles of 2019. The city is covered in permanent darkness and constant rain. The brightest things in this bleak environment are the huge neon lit advertising signs that float across the dirty crowded streets, promoting new and exciting futures in the off-world colonies.
The story revolves around the arrival of a group of replicants (or robots/androids), which have escaped from one of the off-world colonies, and which have made their way back to earth. Since replicants are forbidden to return to earth, they have to be found and killed. A practise euphemistically known as 'retirement'. This task falls to Harrison Ford/Rick Deckard, the Blade Runner of the films title.
This movie has a slow, languid pace, only broken up by moments of violence when Deckard 'retires' the replicants at various stages throughout the film. It's a job he clearly doesn't like, and one which he is doing only because he has been given no choice by his former police boss, Bryant (played by M. Emmett Walsh).
On the most shallow level, this film can be seen as nothing more than a glorified 'bug hunt'. That is: Rogue replicants come to town, and must be hunted down and destroyed. Who better to give the job to than Mr. Harrison Ford, aka, Han Solo, Indiana Jones, super hero. Simple really.
However, what this film is really about occurs on another, much deeper level. This film is about life and death, and about how we as humans cling to life no matter how fragile our grip on it may be; it's about technology and its impact on humanity; about love, and the true nature of friendship in human relationships. And it is about the relationships between men, and the machines we manufacture, ostensibly to help make our lives more comfortable and livable.
When he made this film, Ford was one of the biggest Hollywood box office stars of the 1980's. This role went right 'against type', as they say in Hollywood. In fact, Ford/Deckard only manages to kill two of the replicants during the course of the story, and surprisingly, both of them are the female replicants, Pris and Zhora -- and one of these, he shoots in the back! Clearly, this is not the sort of thing we expect from our leading men, especially when the leading man is Harrison Ford.
[Digression: Ford sandwiched Blade Runner (1982) between The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981), and Return of The Jedi (1983), Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (1984)]
But why do I love this film so much?
It's hard to put a finger on why Blade Runner continues to move me so much, even after repeated viewings. On the one level, it is due in part to the unrelenting bleakness of its vision, and yet it is also because of the underlying humanity of the main protagonists as they struggle to connect with each other, despite what appears to be their predetermined fates.
It is also due, in no small part, to the great performances all the actors in this movie bring to their roles - no matter how small these may be.
But ultimately, I think it is primarily due to Roy Batty's (Rutger Hauer) final speech, which although only a minute or so long, never fails to move me, and remind me of the frailty, and transient nature of the human condition.
Batty: I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time… like tears in rain... Time to die...
Let me count the ways...
The hauntingly, beautiful score by Vangelis which lends the film such an overwhelming sense of melancholy and loss...
The stunning cinematography of Jordan Cronenweth which gives the film its incredible visual power...
The drop-dead gorgeous Sean Young (as Rachael)...
The powerful, brooding presence of Rutger Hauer (as Roy Batty)...
The almost unrecognisable Daryl Hannah (as Pris), in only her third big screen appearance...
And the star of the film, Harrison Ford (as Rick Deckard), in one of his greatest on-screen roles.
The story is set in a totally unrecognisable Los Angeles of 2019. The city is covered in permanent darkness and constant rain. The brightest things in this bleak environment are the huge neon lit advertising signs that float across the dirty crowded streets, promoting new and exciting futures in the off-world colonies.
The story revolves around the arrival of a group of replicants (or robots/androids), which have escaped from one of the off-world colonies, and which have made their way back to earth. Since replicants are forbidden to return to earth, they have to be found and killed. A practise euphemistically known as 'retirement'. This task falls to Harrison Ford/Rick Deckard, the Blade Runner of the films title.
This movie has a slow, languid pace, only broken up by moments of violence when Deckard 'retires' the replicants at various stages throughout the film. It's a job he clearly doesn't like, and one which he is doing only because he has been given no choice by his former police boss, Bryant (played by M. Emmett Walsh).
On the most shallow level, this film can be seen as nothing more than a glorified 'bug hunt'. That is: Rogue replicants come to town, and must be hunted down and destroyed. Who better to give the job to than Mr. Harrison Ford, aka, Han Solo, Indiana Jones, super hero. Simple really.
However, what this film is really about occurs on another, much deeper level. This film is about life and death, and about how we as humans cling to life no matter how fragile our grip on it may be; it's about technology and its impact on humanity; about love, and the true nature of friendship in human relationships. And it is about the relationships between men, and the machines we manufacture, ostensibly to help make our lives more comfortable and livable.
When he made this film, Ford was one of the biggest Hollywood box office stars of the 1980's. This role went right 'against type', as they say in Hollywood. In fact, Ford/Deckard only manages to kill two of the replicants during the course of the story, and surprisingly, both of them are the female replicants, Pris and Zhora -- and one of these, he shoots in the back! Clearly, this is not the sort of thing we expect from our leading men, especially when the leading man is Harrison Ford.
[Digression: Ford sandwiched Blade Runner (1982) between The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981), and Return of The Jedi (1983), Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (1984)]
But why do I love this film so much?
It's hard to put a finger on why Blade Runner continues to move me so much, even after repeated viewings. On the one level, it is due in part to the unrelenting bleakness of its vision, and yet it is also because of the underlying humanity of the main protagonists as they struggle to connect with each other, despite what appears to be their predetermined fates.
It is also due, in no small part, to the great performances all the actors in this movie bring to their roles - no matter how small these may be.
But ultimately, I think it is primarily due to Roy Batty's (Rutger Hauer) final speech, which although only a minute or so long, never fails to move me, and remind me of the frailty, and transient nature of the human condition.
Batty: I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time… like tears in rain... Time to die...