Blade Runner and Postmodernism

Blade Runner is a key example of a postmodern film. It encapsulates every single key elements regarding the postmodern condition, and addresses our awareness of modern times. The major reason why modern film audience finds so much resonance is ‘Blade Runner’ is due to its realistic portrayal of the contemporary situations they find themselves in.

The postmodern condition was defined by the philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard as the 'incredulity towards metanarratives'. Metanarratives are the structures that organize knowledge in a given era. They are the shared stories that members of a given culture or civilization have a sense of belonging to. It is the shared history that binds all the members together for a give culture.

Lyotard pointed out that in the ancient times, the metanarratives tended to be folk myths about the heroic deeds of the ancestors of the culture. By answering the question of 'when do we come from', these stories became ritualistic in terms of narrative, yet they were essential to organize the members of the culture, from the shared history for their origins.

For the modern era, Lyotard has also identified 2 key metanarratives. The first metanarrative is a teleological one, and it can be considered Hegelian. By using reason, humanity can strive for a final purpose of their existences, leading to absolute knowledge and the most perfect form possible. The second metanarrative is a socially-relevant one, in tune with socialism and Marxism. The metanarrative concerns the progress of human history, and by adopting the right kind of social reform, that will lead to an utopian condition.

One can easily see that all these metanarratives have a common feature : they try to organize knowledge and bind individuals together, so as to move towards a common aim. An individual, subject to the power of a metanarrative, feels that he has to belong and thus becomes a part of the grand narrative. This possibility is challenged by many thinkers of Postmodernism, as human existence in the modern era has become more fragmented rather than unifying.

In the world of ' Blade Runner', the metanarratives that governed it were put to challenges. The most obvious statement was the one from Tyrell's company. In an attempt to transcend the limit of humanity, Tyrell's company created bioengineered replicants as a new type of workhorse for humanity. The company's 'more human than a human is our motto' seems to be an idealistic direction at first sight. Yet, the metanarratives of absolute knowledge and technological progress have been put into question, because the film suggests that both of them may not be achievable at the end of the day.

The fact that technology could make more powerful replicants did not benefit humanity. By contrast, that actually threatened human welfare and led to the inception of blade runners. The motto was a deception : because when the company has made something beyond human, they only used it for the purpose of exploitation by other humans, as slaves, workers and pleasure models. There were no enlightenment of humanity in this scenario, because these novel life forms have not been granted any human dignity and they were always seen as sub-human.

Also, 'absolute knowledge' turned out to be a false promise. The emergence of replicants has actually blurred the line of human / non-human and raised epistemological questions around the definition of humanity. Is that you have to have a non-engineered life or a mind which is not implanted by someone else's memories? Roy Batty, having been a powerful replicant yet constrained by his 4-year lifespan, appeared to live fuller and has more enriching experience than Deckard and the other humans (To add to the insult Roy also had Pris as a girlfriend and Deckard was filing for a divorce until he met Rachel). The replicant also had more human characteristics like empathy, desire, instinct for self-preservation and fear of death, unlike the other human characters who were consumed by the cold and sterile environment. In this line of reasoning should Roy Batty be qualified as a human being, and be seen on equal terms with the other 'cold-fish' human characters?

That leads us to a philosophical question. Throughout the thousand of years, thinkers have been debating what really is reality and what approach can we reach that knowledge. As early as Parmenides in Ancient Greece, the 'appearance versus reality' question has emerged as the key theme of Metaphysics. Many philosophers have agreed that that exists an ultimate reality – the standard final answer for philosophy. Many of these philosophers believe that rational thinking is the only approach that can reach this final point, and they tend to distrust our senses as misleading and giving us false illusions regarding reality. Metaphysicans strive to look for reality, and often distrust appearance, as perceived from our senses, as mere illusions. This is 'metaphysical speculation', a term in particular preferred by the philosophers and scientists who believed in a more positivist or empirical approach. Because metaphysical statements are often unobservable and non-verifiable, positivists see these statements as speculative and meaningless. They are armchair philosophy – when a different thinker comes to sit on the armchair, a different answer will emerge.

In fact, from the earliest days of Western philosophy, certain thinkers have already cast doubt on such a metaphysical approach. The Sophist Protagoras has advocated a form of phenomenalism, and that was an empirical doctrine which was developed and embraced by some later philosophers. He believed that 'what is true for an individual is what appears to him from (subjective) sense impressions'. For Protagoras, an objective point of view did not exist, and that depended on the human's perspective. Therefore there is no point to engage in any metaphysical speculations, like whether there is objective knowledge or morality and the existence of God.

While the approach of phenomenalism may seem shallow because that appears to not bother with an objective reality, the approach challenges that we may be going the wrong direction when understanding ourselves. If our beliefs are always speculative, how can we be certain about the knowledge we have attained? In 'Blade Runner', such a question has been posed, though there may turn out to be more than one correct answers. Advocates of phenomenalism want to focus on knowledge that is attainable and observable, and get rid of the speculative aspect of knowledge. That just shows how complex human existence can be.

Juxtaposition is also a key idea of postmodernism. To juxtapose, is to overlap new and old elements into the same frame, thus creating a mixed totem of epoch. Blade Runner is about juxtaposition in many aspects. First, it is a film with multiple genres. Certainly, it will not be too hard to see it as a Science Fiction, yet the film contains notions of Film Noir - the expressionistic lighting and style, the underdog private eye, the femme fatale, and to a lesser extent, Western - the idea of bounty hunters. It belongs to the sub-genre of cyberpunk, juxtaposing with explicit contrast,  high material technology with low mental life. All the images in Blade Runner are splattered with novel technology and cultural heritage. Police hoover crafts flying through modern cityscapes and pyramid-like buildings, digital television screens on buildings, showing traditionally attired Japanese ladies, various people of different nationalities speaking different languages, Deckard eating sushi and drinking Tsing Tao beer. Blade Runner seems atemporal, or as Prince Hamlet would have put it, ‘the time is out of joint’. It is as if the wheels of time have been uncoupled, news and olds are merged into an organic unity. What we can see, is a mesmerizing and complex world, which is more than similar to our current, diverse lives.

Similar to ‘The Terminator’, the humans in ‘Blade Runner’ cannot be separated from their interactions with the machines and technology. The spatial dimension to define the Blade Runner lifestyle is the cyberspace. As the French philosopher Jean Baudillard has stated, the experience of postmodern condition appears like a simulacrum – as if we have entered into the game zone of a simulation. Isn’t that the case for our lives? We cannot live without social network, photo sharing sites, and, not to make myself hypocritical, this is a blog, right? This is absolutely true that cyberspace has led us all closer, but are we in control of ourselves, or are we over-relying on the material computer world?

Anyone who has watched Blade Runner should vividly remember one of the key mise-en-scenes of the film – the barrage of commercial brands throughout the film – be it Atari, Bell, Pan-Am, Coke and a million others. Indeed, consumerism is a postmodern condition. Quite unfortunately, some of us can be dehumanized in a sense by material consumption. These consuminators are absorbed into the various brand names, which they believe their shelves are defined by the very brands they are consuming. Our identities are defined by our personal cognitive beliefs, rather than an external, material or monetary force. To be original, one should certainly not to become too postmodern and succumb wholeheartedly to the clutches of simulacrum and consumerism, as it will certain stifle real thinking.

by Ed Law

Film Analysis

Blade Runner, Part 2

In the film ‘Blade Runner’, the Tyrell Corporation, which was involved in the manufacture of the replicants, claimed that they could make replicants ‘more human than human’. Is it merely a sentimental slogan or a foreseeable phenomenon in the near future?

I believe that if we are to think whether ‘more human than human’ is possible, we have to dissect the question in two perspectives – a biotic (evolutionary) perspective and also an ethical perspective. For the first point of view, if the force to rise above human is merely driven through the impersonal force of evolution, then it is a natural phenomenon and there is nothing wrong about that per se. Yet, if the motivation behind this motto is to afford advantages that can improve humanity’s well being, we have to think what sort of consequence that may lead to ourselves, and also our environment and the machines – that is, the replicants in this case – around us.

The replicants in the film were interesting because they could be considered as a combination of the two ends of the dialectic - the man and the machine. Through the use of genetic engineering, the Tyrell Corporation has been able to generate replicants with above-human abilities, in terms of physical strength and intelligence. Thus, they should be compared to HAL in ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’ rather than the Terminator, as the replicants were a sort of artificial intelligence which could mimic real human behaviors, or could even become more like humans. Yet, the irony was that in order to use these replicants as instruments, they had to be treated in a mechanical way. The Tyrell Corporation's underlying motivation to use the replicants as tools and slaves meant that they had to strip the replicants of their potential dignities, treating them as sub-human. The replicants were engineered to behave as if they were automatons, so that they could be effectively controlled. They were only allowed a mechanical sort of lifespan - a battery life of 4 years, and this forcibly limited the potential development of their existences. They were all assigned specific duties, and they had to perform functions they were programmed to.

Moreover, they were even assigned to simulacra, where in some cases they were misled to believe falsely that they were behaving as if they were genuine human beings and they had life stories of their own. Take Rachael as an example. One of the first twists in the film was that Rachael, who has always believed she was a human being, but was actually a programmed replicant like all the other products of the Tyrell Corporation. While Rachael argued that she had all the memories and all the proofs of her ‘human’ existence, Deckard told her the awful truth that all these memories of her were actually implants, they were simulacra which were programmed into her brain to give her a false consciousness of human existence. I suppose any members of the audience can sympathize with this poor character. It is as if you have everything and all of a sudden, they are gone.

Thus, for Eldon Tyrell, no matter how he rationalized in a sentimental way that he was trying to make our lives better or led us to a better future, it is contentious to state that his motivation is ethical. From a Kantian perspective, the Tyrell Corporation treated the replicants – for whom the Corporation claimed were more human than human – as means to an end. The replicants were not granted any human dignity or individualism - they were merely seen as instruments to further other humans’ end. If we are to use Kant’s ethical theory to provide critique on the Tyrell Corporation’s action, then they should be seen as unethical. For someone to be treated as a human being, he/she should be treated as an end to himself/herself, so that autonomy can be gained and they are not dehumanized because they have to perform some pre-assigned functions to further others’ ends.

Coming back to Rachael’s scenario.  Even if Tyrell appeared to be compassionate and caring to Rachael, his motivation was hypocritical. He went as far to implant happy memories to Rachael’s psyche, to offer her a complete fictional narrative for her existence. None of the scenarios she has encountered throughout her existence belonged to or were originated from her, because they were stories that has already been written and programmed into her.  When she started playing the piano in Deckard’s apartment, she bitterly commented that it was just another skill implanted to her. Tyrell’s dream clearly has not been fulfilled.

The above discussions regarding the nature of replicants are closely related to the central enigma of Blade Runner, which has become iconic over the years - is Deckard a replicant? Many words have been devoted to the potential answers of this question, and everyone, including the director and cast, has provided their own points of view. The newly released ‘Blade Runner 2049’ has thankfully preserved the importance of this mystery, thus preventing the possibility of any simple and shallow answer. I believe this ambiguity is deliberate from the director, though he probably understood that this decision would alienate those members of audience who looked for simple story and fast entertainment. The director put in both clues that argued for and against Deckard’s true nature, and some of these clues would lead to subjective value judgments from the viewers, thus leading to gaps in logic from any possible interpretations. Everyone’s answer will have their own assumptions and have slightly different interpretations, so that a final and definite answer for this mystery will not exist.

It should not be surprising to see that the name ‘Rick Deckard’ is very similar to Rene Descartes, one of the first modern philosophers who questioned about the justification of being. How are I certain of my own autonomous existence, not existing in a dream or being controlled by some unknown, outside force? In the film, the replicant Pris, who were assigned the role of pleasure model, also attempted to assert her autonomy by quoting the motto ‘I think, therefore I am’. The question regarding Deckard’s ultimate status is an epistemological question – very much like if someone challenges you the justifications that you are in a waking state rather than in a dreaming state. When Rachael first met Deckard at the Tyrell Corporation, she challenged Deckard whether he has ever retired a human by mistake before. It was a totally logical suspicion because with the exception of the Voight-Kampff test, there were almost no possible ways to distinguish between a human and a replicant – the replicants were made to look like humans from the very beginning.

Of course, the most straight forward answer is to have Deckard himself taking the Voight Kampff test. Yet, I feel this simple answer does not address the implication behind the question. The Voight-Kampff test, which could be seen as a representation of science in the film's world, was dependent on the context and order of knowledge in that particular world. Even if it can provide a satisfactory answer at that point, one cannot guarantee that the answer is the ultimate final answer, because the science and technology in a given era may not be adequate as time goes on - the development of Einsteinian physics from Newtonian physics serves as a great example. What the question is concerned with are more timeless and metaphysical issues - how Deckard was certain himself that he was a genuine human being but not a ‘skin job’. Descartes, employing his method of doubt, came to conclude and asserted his being because rationality should dictate his existence to be real. The Cartesian doubt should eventually lead to self knowledge, and provides an opportunity to philosophize one of the deepest questions of humanity.

One of the most important and suggestive evidence to support the possibility of Deckard being a replicant was the unicorn origami that Gaff apparently left in Deckard' s apartment, when Deckard planned to escape with Rachael after all that happened. This was so because Deckard had a similar dream about an unicorn some time before, and this uncanny coincidence might suggest that the dreams were planted into Deckard’s consciousness, thereby implying Deckard was just a replicant experiencing his own simulacra. The point when Deckard picked up and inspected the unicorn origami, his facial expression suggested he seemed to understand something. It was also possible that Gaff might be aware of the fact that Deckard was a replicant, and so he provided a subtle clue to Deckard and helped him to run away with Rachael indirectly. Ridley Scott did not commit to provide a final answer in the 1982 film. With the intention of making a hybrid between sci-fi and film noir, he wanted to immortalize the Blade Runner mystery, and thus led to ongoing debate and discussions regarding this modern classic.

So do I think Deckard is a replicant or not? Well, just like everyone else, when I first watched ‘Blade Runner’ I have tried to pick up all the clues in order to lead myself to a final answer. Yet, the more I revisit this question, the more I understand why the creators of the film want this to be a mystery. The question itself is a philosophical one, and the metaphysical nature of it means that we are likely to be inaccessible to the final truth, and can only employ whatever mode of thinking and arrive at some speculations. The point is not just a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, but what implications the question brings us to. It is the most elemental question of what it means to be human. If I can choose an answer for the film, I would prefer to have Deckard being a replicant, because that will lead to a more ironic and powerful message for the film. No matter what sort of systems we have used to understand ourselves, there are many issues that we cannot understand at the end, because we are often situated in a subjective point of view, no matter how impartial we believe ourselves to be. The acquirement of self-knowledge is the holy grail of our intellectual lives, because it is just so hard to achieve.

Perhaps, the final answer of what it means to be human is not the mere use of reason, in a Cartesian sense, to give a ‘yes’ to the question of our being. It is the very ability for us to doubt our existences, to raise these hard questions, that makes us so human in the first place. A machine or an animal with a lower cognitive ability will not have the ability to ask this. Even we may never find an ultimate answer for the puzzle of our existences, the courage we have channeled to think about these issues is affirmative to our presences. As Gaff will have the final words here – ‘You’ve done a man’s job, sir.’

-End- 

(2/2)

by Ed Law

22/10/2017

Film Analysis

Blade Runner, Part 1

Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard in 'Blade Runner'

Science fiction does not have to be fantastical. Too often, if a sci-fi film can inspire us to a better understanding of our current condition, fiction can give way to fact. To this end, Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, ‘Blade Runner’ (1982), serves as a prime example.

The life story of the ‘Blade Runner’ film is an inspiring one. The first film ever to be adapted from a novel by Philip K. Dick - namely ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’, ‘Blade Runner’ was released in the summer of 1982. This initial reactions to the film were mixed, because many audience found the story too slow (some jokingly referenced it as ‘Blade Crawler’), and um – boring. It shouldn’t be too surprising – the star, Harrison Ford, the one who has starred as Han Solo and Indiana Jones, and given the fact that he is melancholically holding a revolver in the poster, one will likely to expect a John Woo-style heroic bloodshed. Yet, a small number of critics and film buffs could be able to look beyond the obvious, and started to appreciate the artistic aspects and implications of this ‘boring film’. Indeed, ‘Blade Runner’ is a film that rewards repeated viewings, as there are so many insights and details that you cannot get it all in one screening. By the 1990s, Blade Runner has already been re-evaluated and it is now hailed as the one of the greatest sci-fi films in the history of cinema. The film features in many of the Top Sci-Fi movie lists, and it is acclaimed as one of the most realistic science fiction films ever, rather than like the sort of Mary Poppins fantasy that no one can easily believe in.

Deckard and Rachael

How to retire skin-jobs? (Spoilers head, but that’s worth it.)

The story of Blade Runner takes place in 2019. By that time, humans have already developed genetic engineering techniques to create ‘replicants’, a sort of ‘super-human’ that has strong power and intelligence, yet with a limited life span of 4 years. Known as ‘skin jobs’ in a colloquial way, these replicants are used by humans as slaves, to work in hardship at the off-world colonies that humans have already abandoned. Since the replicants are not allowed to interact or intrude the human world, special cops, known as ‘Blade Runners’, are employed to track down and kill any intruding replicants on Earth – they prefer the word ‘retire’ to ‘kill’. Since replicants look like humans, the police force has developed an empathy test – known as a Voight-Kampff test, to distinguish these ‘super-men’.

Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a blade runner who is assigned to ‘retire’ 4 replicants. The quartet has escaped from the off-world and now they are drifting on Earth. The leader is Roy Batty, and the other members are Leon, Pris and Zhora. As Deckard comes to investigate, he goes to the compound of Dr. Eldon Tyrell, the head of a corporation who develops the replicant technology. There he meets a young lady called Rachael (Sean Young), an assistant of Tyrell. Tyrell challenges Deckard whether one can distinguish a replicant from a human by the Voight-Kampff Test, and thus they decide to test on Rachael. As the result surprisingly turns out, Rachael is a replicant, yet Tyrell assures Deckard that she is not aware of this truth. When Deckard goes home later, he is stalked by Rachael, who is now depressed and not willing to believe all her memories are merely ‘implants’. Deckard offers solace to her and they begin a relationship. On the other hand, the replicants Roy and Leon are looking for clues to track down their creator, as they just want nothing more than an extension of  their limited lifespan. The pleasure model, Pris, comes across an automaton-loving man, J.F. Sebastein, and they become friends. J.F. turns out to be a key designer for Tyrell, so when he meets Roy, he tells the replicants about Tyrell’s compound.

Deckard starts to gather evidence that Zhora is working as a dancer in the night club area, so he goes there and attempts to trap her into custody. Zhora is intelligent enough to sense that, after a brief struggle, they start chasing through the streets. Zhora is eventually gunned down by Deckard. He is then ambushed by Leon, and as Leon is ready to ‘wake him up’ and kill him, Rachael suddenly appears and guns down Leon instead! Rachael and Deckard retreat to his flat, and Deckard assures her that he will not retire her, though he is assigned to sooner or later. Further romance ensues. Meanwhile, Roy goes to confront Tyrell, and when Roy insists ‘I want more life, father / fxxker!’, Tyrell points out that, Roy is like a candle, for which it burns twice as bright, the flame goes out half the time shorter. Roy doesn’t care, and simply crushes Tyrell’s head.

Deckard is out for action again, and he eventually goes to J.F.’s house. Pris, who is posing as a doll among the automatons, launches a spectacular acrobatic attack on Deckard. In the nick of second, Deckard puts 2 bullets into her body, killing her instantly. Roy arrives and the he starts a final showdown with Deckard. Yet the brawl is certainly one-sided – Roy, a replicant with magnificent caliber, is able to wound and chase Deckard through the mansion, with Deckard too thrilled to fight back. Eventually, Deckard is hanging on the edge of the building, soon to fall down to his demise. It is at this point that Roy offers him a hand and saves him.

Deckard on the edge

Roy does so because he wants Deckard to accompany him, as he is close to his death. At the final moments of his life, Roy delivers the extremely moving ‘Tears in Rain’ monologue:

  

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 Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

When Roy is finished with it, he dies. Deckard comes back to the apartment to unite with Rachael. Rachael turns out to be a special replicant model that has a far longer lifespan. But before they leave, Deckard discovers a unicorn origami, likely to be left by his colleague, Gaff. The unicorn is something that appears in Deckard’s earlier daydream. That may suggest his dreams are ‘engineered’ and thus Deckard, himself, is also a replicant. Alarmed, he takes Rachael to the elevator, and the doors close...

'Move, get out of the way!' Deckard in hot pursuit.

Man’s Match?

What are the ‘skin jobs’ that Deckard has to take down? How can these strong fellas shed light on our understanding of humanity? To me, replicants are truly fascinating, as they are transcending the possible experiences of the human beings, and certainty can be seen as an example of post-humanism. Yet, the replicants are not quite the same as our friends, the Terminators!

First, it is evident that the replicants do have a consciousness. They certainly possess cognitive abilities. As Pris succinctly stated to J.F. Sebastein, ‘I think, Sebastein, therefore I am.’ This is the ultimate Cartesian stance, and Pris uses this argument to defend her ‘being’, to assert her wholesome existence. Pris is assertive enough for this epistemological certainty, yet in other cases, such as that of Deckard’s situation (see later), can he be that confident? How do Pris know that she is not dreaming, not living in a tin-can, or not controlled like a Duracell as in ‘The Matrix’? The epistemological implications here can be profound, and Pris can only safely assume that she is a thinking replicant, quite capable of doing impressive leg-locks.  In a sense, they are also designed to possess higher intellectual abilities, to serve the proposes for uses by humans.

What is quite fascinating is that replicants show compassion, and genuinely care about, at least, their other replicant friends. Roy cares about Pris, and even the rather dumb Leon treasures Zhora’s compassion. They band as a group and see each other as friends. This is an attribute very different from other cyborgs, and I guess the implication here is quite ironic as it serves as a reaction against the cold, insensitive human beings, which is what Deckard’s divorced wife would have coined, ‘sushi’, or ‘cold fish’. It is the emotional capabilities exhibited by these ‘low-level human-like androids’ that makes the dehumanized and uncompassionate humans rather disturbing to watch. Also, I feel that it is an ironic answer to the atmosphere set by the crime and film-noir films in the past, in which the edgy, underdog protagonists often can not place any trust on people around them.

I suppose the ultimate difference between humans and replicants is not a scientific one, but a social one. It is the motivation behind the creation of replicants. The intention, is single-minded, to create workhorses to serve human’s purposes. It is a master-slave dialectic here, no wonder the emotional replicants show hatred and contempt for their masters. They have to be subservient to their human bosses, but their bosses simply do not provide human dignity to them. They are seen as slaves, and that is the reason I think Roy and his friends should not really be seen as villains – they just have a desire to ask for a longer life, to at least live more like a human...

Even if the humans fabricate to make the replicants sound inferior, it is their courage that makes them stand out. A scene that is extremely moving to me is of course the ‘Tears In Rain’ scene, when Roy is about to die. Roy somehow is capable of being compassionate, and he deeply understands the plight of human nature. Roy, with his experiences in the on-world and off-world, has lived his replicant life to the fullest, though with a span of no more than 4 years. He has seen far more than his so-called master, the humans.  He is even melancholic about the fact that these memories will be lost, and laments the sadness with tears. He is a replicant who is able to experience, and to feel and explore. If there is a super-human ability in replicants, that is it. As Newton has once said,  ‘If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.’ If this is really how things work, then Deckard should be inspired by Roy Batty. 

Now it's his problem?

It’s not Deckard’s problem

All in all, replicants are some sort of ‘super-man’, or in Nietzsche’s characterization, an ‘Übermensch’. Man has certainly made his match – the replicant, but it is in no way Rick Deckard’s problem. It is you, whether you are ready to take action and go one step further!

(to be continued)

by Ed Law

4/10/2017

Film Analysis