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Desser: Blade Runner Science Fiction and Transendence

Page history last edited by Air Dupaix 14 years, 3 months ago

 

 

Blade Runner

is one of the most complex movies that has ever been made. It may have been intentionally written and directed with that particular concept in mind. Several prominent questions arise before, during, and after watching this film; what does it mean to be human? How should we define life? Who is real? What is real? Does it matter?  Personally, in reading Desser’s interpretations of this movie, I am still left with as many questions as answers.

 

In Desser’s article he states, one of the more intelligent critiques of this film places Blade Runner

within a cycle of science fiction films that involve exploration of the problematic nature of the human being and the difficult task of being human, as well as another sci-fi cycle: transcendence.

 

He states that Scott borrowed from many different places, and you can see this throughout the film. One place is Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, with its high angular buildings, futuristic look, and cold and impersonal world. He also borrowed from Film Noir, and describes the similarities quoted from Telotte as bleak atmosphere, and interior darkness

, as well as the hardboiled detective who is an outcast, alienated from society. But where Desser sees the most similarities is in reference to the biblical allusions, and Milton’s Paradise Lost, with its redemptive and transcendental vision.

 

 

Desser believes that the emphasis on human duplication, leads to an undervaluation of human redemption. This I disagree with. In Blade Runner,  the lines between human and replicant are so purposely distorted (more human than human). I feel Scott gives us a higher perspective on the meaning of redemption as well as what it really means to be human. This is part of the metaphysical message.

  

 

 

 

Desser compares both Deckard and Batty within the framework of Paradise Lost, as Adam, Christ and Satan. This I don’t really see. Batty seems as if he  is striving for understanding or for some spiritual insight.He in my mind, is looking for redemption. Wondering like all of us at one point in life, who am I, why am I here, what does it all mean? This is the moment when the lines are truly blurred between man and machine. Purposefully done. My interpretation is Batty has actually moved closer to redemption than Deckard. The dove symbolically shows Batty in the light (the only natural light in the whole film). The lines that are given to Batty are so human, using “you people” and “what my eyes have seen” deliberately humanizing his character, speaking of the loss of his memories as tears in rain. Blurring, almost reversing the roles of human and replicant,or replicant to replicant, gives us pause to measure our own humanity.

 

 


Works Cited

Desser, David "Blade Runner: Science Ficton & Transendence" Literature/Film Quarterly 13.3 (1985)". 172-9.

 

Comments (1)

Sean Desilets said

at 10:20 am on Nov 19, 2009

* Quotation marks
* Links
* "Scott makes sure we know as Batty saves Deckard": know what?
* Final quotation is inaccurate
* Page sometimes asserts disagreement without explaining either the nature of Dresser's understanding or the reasons for the disagreement

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