Blade Runner

Amy Coplan, David Davies, Amy Coplan, David Davies

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781136231445
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Ridley Scott's Blade Runner is widely regarded as a "masterpiece of modern cinema" and is regularly ranked as one of the great films of all time. Set in a dystopian future where the line between human beings and 'replicants' is blurred, the film raises a host of philosophical questions about what it is to be human, the possibility of moral agency and freedom in 'created' life forms, and the capacity of cinema to make a genuine contribution to our engagement with these kinds of questions.

This volume of specially commissioned chapters systematically explores and addresses these issues from a philosophical point of view. Beginning with a helpful introduction, the seven chapters examine the following questions:

• How is the theme of death explored in Blade Runner and with what implications for our understanding of the human condition?
• What can we learn about the relationship between emotion and reason from the depiction of the 'replicants' in Blade Runner?
• How are memory, empathy, and moral agency related in Blade Runner?
• How does the style and 'mood' of Blade Runner bear upon its thematic and philosophical significance?
• Is Blade Runner a meditation on the nature of film itself?

Including a brief biography of the director and a detailed list of references to other writings on the film, Blade Runner is essential reading for students – indeed anyone - interested in philosophy and film studies.

Contributors: Colin Allen, Peter Atterton, Amy Coplan, David Davies, Berys Gaut, Stephen Mulhall, C. D. C. Reeve.

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION

Amy Coplan and David Davies

DOI: 10.4324/9780203100592-1

The choice of ridley scott’s Blade Runner as the subject for a book in the Routledge series Philosophers on Film is not surprising. The mandate of the series is to look not merely at how philosophical themes can be present in cinematic works, but also at how cinema itself can function as a medium in which philosophical work can be done. The idea of “film as philosophy” has been promoted recently by a number of philosophers – Noel Carroll (2006), Stephen Mulhall (2002), and Thomas Wartenberg (2007) to name but three. And Blade Runner is a film that has been cited as an example of how cinema can function as a philosophical medium. Mulhall, in particular, has characterized Blade Runner as “explicitly concerned with what it is to be a human being” – clearly, on at least one reading, a matter for philosophical inquiry.

The papers in this collection make significant and novel contributions to the already extensive literature on the philosophical dimensions of Blade Runner. These contributions address both the substantive philosophical content of the film – philosophical issues about what is distinctively human, for example, which the film can be understood as exploring – and ways in which the film opens up and explores questions about the nature and values of cinema itself – philosophical issues about film, including the plausibility of the idea of “film as philosophy” and the kinds of cognitive values ascribable to a film like Blade Runner. However, before returning to these issues and offering a brief summary of the arguments of the papers in this collection, it will be helpful to place both the film and the papers in a broader context. We shall look at the history of the making of the film itself, the history of its critical reception, the influence that it has had on the development and understanding of cinema, and the different ways in which it has been interpreted by commentators.

The making of Blade Runner

As is widely acknowledged, the inspiration for the narrative context and characters of Scott’s film came from the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Much less widely recognized is that the book and the resulting film present this context and these characters very differently, in the interests of articulating sometimes strikingly contrasting thematic meanings. David Davies’s contribution to this collection includes a detailed exploration of salient differences between Dick’s book and Scott’s film, and of their thematic significance, and the interested reader is referred to his paper. What we shall do here, however, is look at the history of the making of the film itself.

One question that arises as soon as serious conversation about Blade Runner begins is “which Blade Runner?”, for there are multiple versions of the film, and the differences between them are not at all trivial. While it is not uncommon for films to be released on DVD and for digital download with technical improvements or as extended versions that incorporate additional footage, it is rare for such changes or additions to result in significantly different interpretations or to inspire the kind of controversy that surrounds the different versions of Blade Runner.

The five-disc Complete Collector’s Edition that was released in 2007 includes five different versions of the film – the US Theatrical Cut (1982), the International Theatrical Cut (1982), the Director’s Cut (1992), the prerelease Workprint (1982), and the Final Cut (2007). According to some sources, however, some of the pre-screenings for the US Theatrical Cut, and some screenings that took place prior to the release of the Director’s Cut, showed versions of the film other than these five. There is also said to be a four-hour ‘rough cut,’ which was the first version of the film that Scott and others viewed. Depending on the criteria used to determine what qualifies as a distinct version of the film, there are as many as nine distinct cuts of the film.¹ But the five versions included in the 2007 Collector’s Edition are regarded as the most important and will be the focus of our attention here.

The producers of Blade Runner began making changes to the film even before its official release to the general public. This was due to the disappointing audience reactions to the sneak previews that Warner Brothers held in Dallas, Texas, and Denver, Colorado in early March of 1982.² Some audience members said that they had difficulty following and understanding the plot, some found the film’s ending confusing and unsatisfying, and some complained about the “dark and gloomy” character of the film.³ In order to address these concerns, the studio required that additional voice-over narration be added, along with a different ending. This ending was created from new live-action footage of Rachael and Deckard, shot by Scott in late March, combined with shots of mountainous landscapes taken from outtakes of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980).⁴

A new version of the film incorporating these changes was shown on May 8, 1982 at another sneak preview screening held in San Diego, CA. This was attended by several of the filmmakers and cast, including Ridley Scott, Douglas Trumbull, Joanna Cassidy, and Harrison Ford.⁵ Whereas the version screened in Dallas and Denver included only minimal voice-over narration during one of the final sequences, the voice-over now extended throughout the film. The rationale for this was that it would encourage viewers to identify more with Deckard and would help make the plot and thematic content easier to understand. It appears that Scott himself played no part in the writing of the additional voice-overs, and that this was just one way in which the revised cut departed from his own original vision for the film. In addition, the film’s ambiguous, more “European” ending – an elevator door shown closing in front of Rachael’s and Deckard’s faces – was replaced with a “happy ending” in which Rachael and Deckard escape from the city and are shown driving through a verdant landscape.⁶ Audience response to the San Diego screening of this revised version was interpreted as considerably stronger than at the Denver and Dallas screenings.

Blade Runner was released nationwide in approximately 1,300 US theaters on June 25, 1982. This version is alternately referred to as the Theatrical Cut, the US Theatrical Cut, or the Domestic Cut. Though very similar to the version shown in San Diego, it is not identical. Scott deleted a few shots and reworked a few others. Nevertheless, the Theatrical Cut preserves the Chandleresque voice-over and the “happy ending.” Although these two features of the film have been highly controversial and frequently criticized by fans, critics, and some of the filmmakers, the Theatrical Cut has its defenders, including one of the contributors to this collection and some of the film’s high-profile fans, such as filmmaker Guillermo del Toro.

The International Theatrical Cut – also released in 1982 – added approximately 15 seconds of extra graphic footage that, according to Sammon,⁷ was cut from the Theatrical Cut after the Dallas/Denver screenings. As a result, certain scenes were more violent. When Roy murders Tyrell, there is a close-up of Roy sinking his thumbs into Tyrell’s eyes, which are then shown bleeding. Also added to this scene is a close-up of Roy removing his thumbs from Tyrell’s eyes. There are additional shots during the fight between Deckard and Pris. Finally, in the rooftop scene with Deckard and Roy, when Roy pierces his hand with the nail, there are additional shots of the nail penetrating his skin.

As just noted, the Theatrical Cut departed in significant ways from Scott’s vision for the film because of commercially motivated interventions by the studio.⁸ The rediscovery of the Workprint may have played an important part in the decision to create a version that reversed the artistic impact of these interventions.⁹ Thus on September 11, 1992, a little over ten years after Blade Runner’s initial release, a new version of the film – the Director’s Cut – was released to 58 theaters around the US.

This version of the film includes some highly significant and controversial changes that are still the subject of lively debate. The voice-over added right before the official release of the Theatrical Cut is gone, as is the “happy ending.” In the Director’s Cut, Deckard no longer narrates the story for viewers, and the ending is more ambiguous. As in the original “European” ending, we watch as elevator doors close on Rachael and Deckard and are left uncertain what will become of them, how long they will live, and if they will escape from the city. Although these differences are highly important, the change that created the most debate is the addition of the now-famous unicorn sequence.¹⁰, ¹¹

In the Director’s Cut, the unicorn sequence occurs during the scene in Deckard’s apartment that takes place just after Rachael has fled in tears, having shown up distraught over the revelation about her identity and having now learned that her memories aren’t truly her own. Deckard is shown sitting at his piano and drinking, and the image then dissolves to a 12-second shot that looks like nothing else we have seen in the film up to that point. A white unicorn in a green forest is shown in slow motion galloping right toward the camera and then shaking its head and mane. We immediately cut back to Deckard who is still at the piano with the photographs he has been examining. Due to the timing and placement of the sequence, it’s clear that the image of the unicorn is a dream, a memory, or a thought of Deckard’s; it’s an episode in his mental life.

This is critical because of its bearing on the meaning of the silver foil origami unicorn that Gaff leaves for Deckard at the end of the film. In the Theatrical Cut, we never see Deckard dreaming of a unicorn and thus the meaning behind Gaff’s origami unicorn is ambiguous. But now that we know that Deckard has dreamt of a unicorn, a strong case can be made that Gaff leaves the unicorn to communicate to Deckard that he – Gaff – knows something about the content of Deckard’s dreams. But how could Gaff know this? In the same way, it would seem, that Deckard knows about the contents of Rachael’s memories: he knows because the memories were implanted and thus could be discovered by reading Rachael’s file. Following the same line of reasoning, Gaff could know about Deckard’s unicorn dream only if it were a function of something implanted. If this is the case, then we have very good evidence that Deckard is himself a replicant.¹² And, as many commentators, including some of the contributors to this collection, have argued, this significantly affects the thematic meaning of the film. This indeed is a principal reason why critics and viewers argue that one’s interpretation of Blade Runner depends on the version under discussion.

Although Ridley Scott considered the Director’s Cut to be an improvement on the Theatrical Cut, he was still not entirely satisfied, and in 2007 another version – the Final Cut – received a limited theatrical run and was made available on DVD. In making the Final Cut, Scott was able to draw upon a cache of original negatives unearthed in a storage facility in Burbank in around 2001 by Charles de Lauzirika, the producer of the Collector’s Edition.¹³ The major difference between the Final Cut and the Director’s Cut is the markedly improved quality of the image and sound. A new digital print of the film was created from the original negatives, and the special effects were updated and polished.¹⁴ The Vangelis soundtrack has been remastered in 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound. But there are also changes and additions in content, involving extra shots and some extended sequences. New footage was shot for the scene in which Deckard chases and kills Zhora (Joanna Cassidy). In the previous versions of the film, when Zhora crashes through the glass display cases it is obvious that the person in the scene is a stunt double and not Joanna Cassidy. For the Final Cut, the scene was reshot and Joanna Cassidy performed the stunt herself. As a result, Zhora’s death scene is much improved.¹⁵ In addition, graphic shots of violence that were only in the International Theatrical Cut have been restored in the Final Cut so that Roy’s killing of Tyrell is a bit more gruesome, as is Pris’s fight with Deckard.

Some changes were also made to the dialogue. In the scene in which Bryant meets with Deckard and briefs him on the replicants, he now describes Leon’s job. Perhaps more significantly, when he explains what happened to the replicants as they returned to Earth, he says that “Two of them got fried runnin...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Notes on contributors
• Note on the director
• List of characters and cast
• List of figures
• 1 Amy Coplan and David Davies Introduction
• 2 Berys Gaut Elegy in La: Blade Runner, Empathy and Death
• 3 Peter Atterton “More Human Than Human”: Blade Runner and Being-Toward-Death
• 4 C. D. C. Reeve Replicant Love: Blade Runner Voight-Kampffed
• 5 Colin Allen Do Humans Dream of Emotional Machines?
• 6 Stephen Mulhall Zhora Through the Looking-Glass: Notes on an Esper Analysis of Leon’s Photograph
• 7 Amy Coplan In the Mood for Thought: Mood and Meaning in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner
• 8 David Davies Blade Runner and the Cognitive Values of Cinema
• Index