There are advertisements in the BFI's Sight and Sound magazine for their series of short books on various modern films. As an experiment, I searched for second hand copies and found this book on eBay. It starts off with some words about what science fiction is all about. When I read some of the early sentences, I began to realise what the writing was going to be like: "inexhaustible complexity", "demands inferential activity" and "complex visual negotiation of urban space". And yes, it does go on just like that. "Like the best science fiction stories and city films, Blade Runner incorporates at once the magisterial gaze of of the panorama, the sublime obscurity of the phantasmagoria, and the shifting fields of the kaleidoscope".
1 FILMING BLADE RUNNER
Pre-Production
I found this the most interesting part of the book. It told us how the adaptation of Philip Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? came about. Hampton Fancher (an actor and independent film maker) was interested in a film adaptation of the novel and the found interest from the actor Brian Kelly. It was he who bought the rights to the book and approached producer Michael Deeley who suggested that Fancher write a screenplay.
In 1974 Deeley showed it to Ridley Scott who eventually came on board. He looked at draft after draft from Fancher because he wanted a far simpler story than that in the book. This led to another writer, David Peoples doing a re-write and then a final script from Fancher. Scott wanted a new name for the title. Fancher it was who found a book called "Blade Runner: A Movie" by William Burroughs, a working of a novel by Alan E. Norse about smugglers of medical supplies. Scott liked the title and so the rights to the book were purchased. JUST FOR THE TITLE.
The production company had been Filmways but they withdrew. So new finance was raised through three separate organisations. One got American distribution rights, another foreign rights and the third for tv and video. This is all fascinating stuff.
The Look of the Future
Ridley Scott wanted it to be "a film set 40 years hence, made in the style of 40 years ago". We hear about Syd Mead who had an amazing background in design. He was originally brought on board to design the vehicles but eventually took over the street scenes and interiors. (London Critics Circle Award for Special Effects 1983). This became the whole look of the film.
Special Effects
Lots of technical stuff and something about Douglas Trumbull and his background in special effects for films such as 2001, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Silent Running and Brainstorm.
Cinematography
Jordan Cronenweth was in charge of lighting and the hand held cameras.
Tensions and Post Production
Those three new producers were not happy with what they were seeing. The director and crew were not getting on, nor were Harrison Ford and Sean Young. Maybe the result of that awkward tension works so well in retrospect. Filming does run over budget and all sorts of people become involved with the final version. "Morose and narratively muddled" was one view.
Responding to the Replicants
The early reviews were very mixed. Nobody was that enthusiastic. It's first release only garnered half it's cost. But then the audience began to grow especially with home and recording releases that gained multiple viewings.
Blade Runner - Revised and Revisited - The Director's Cut
The 1992 version is known as The Director's Cut (a huge hit) and it's gestation is described as a compromise between Scott and the original release. (not to be confused with The Final Cut over which Scott had complete control).
The Blade Runner Effect
One effect was the resurgence of the work of Philip K Dick. "The film continues to exist beyond itself ....." ??
2 THE METROPOLIS
Science Fiction in the City
Just some background about urbanisation.
The Dark City
"The high tech urban settings were congested and confusing, yet exhilarating". But I'm not attempting to describe the author's vast explanation about "cyber punk".
The Bright City
Reflections of New York.
Panoramic Perception, Fractal Geographies
Even the titles are becoming bemusing. But the writer does hit upon that extraordinary sequence early on as Deckard flies the police spinner. The complex combination of 35 separate elements for the scenes of the city glimpsed through the windscreen are well explained as they combine with the views of the screens in the cockpit. The "explanation of urban existence" is a hugely important part of the film outside of the main story.
The Return of the Modernist City
"Another more deeply historicised restatement of fundamental modernist ideas of the city".
Gotham City
Comparing the metropolis: "horizontal LA has vanished into vertical New York".
3 REPLICANTS AND MENTAL LIFE
Cinema and Synthetic Life
Something I did not understand, just awful.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
About the Philip K Dick book, the inspiration for Blade Runner. "The nature of the non human". I don't think I will read it. And how Ridley Scott's replicants are so different to those in the book.
New Bodies for New Worlds
The background to "robots, androids, replicants and cyborgs".
New Selves
Something about racial politics. The original release included the word "nigger". A piece about gender issues reminds us that all three major female characters are replicants and two are shot in the back. Why are we told that "replicants are more human than human".
Making History
"History is devalued as a guarantor of truth, stability and unified meaning". I have no idea what that is all about. And when replicants are programmed with memories ..... "as synthetic humans, replicants inherently challenge essentialist notions of identity". What??? And more: "confront our own constructedness, and by confronting ourselves, to make them ....."
Is Deckard a Replicant?
"The question is more important than determining the answer" ??? Did the director leave it to the viewer to decide. There has been far too much discussion about the subject. "No wonder audiences were baffled".
Masquerading in the City
"The city is a site for masquerade, a metamorphic zone, a place to disappear and re-appear". If only I knew what he meant half the time.
4 CONCLUSION
"What it means to be human". The writer keeps on quoting Slavoj Zizek. I wonder why. But the remainder of this final part is unintelligible. Or is it me?
Time to sum up. There is a lot that is interesting but there is also a lot that seems to me to be pretentious rubbish. While someone referred to "his innovative and nuanced reading" another criticised his "extensive intellectual sidetracks". I have to say it has not encouraged me to buy any other books in the BFI series. I will save any other comments until I have seen The Final Cut (see post 9th August).
There does not seem to be any mention in the book of "The Final Cut". It was released in 2007 and the book published in 2012. I wonder why.
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