Blade Runner: Memory and space

Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) belongs, according to Forest Pyle to the subgenre of sci-fi, which builds a story on a "distinctly dystopian tone and premise" and uses "the cyborg - hybrid of human and machine - its thematic and formal focus". But Blade Runner brings more than that. The film is multilayered, thrilling and unsettling, offering visual richness which contributes to the overall futuristic vision of not only a sprawling, technological metropolis, but of an empty, impersonal place. The issues, which I am going to be dealing with, sprang from the materials we read in our seminars in connection with postmodernism and Blade Runner. In addition, I will also be drawing upon Vivian Sobchak's Screening Space; mainly the chapter devoted to postfuturism.
In my essay, there are several topics, which I would like to discuss; first it's Giulliana Bruno's term pastiche and its different realisations that could be found in the film. Secondly, it's the problem of androids and to them connected questions of humanity, history and memory.
Guilliana Bruno in her essay called Ramble City: Postmodernism and Blade Runner explains the term of pastiche as follows; it's "intended as an aesthetic of quotations pushed to the limit; it is an incorporation of form, an imitation of dead styles deprived of any satirical impulse". Vivian Sobchak in her book defined the term as: "a nonhierarchial collection of heterogeneous forms and styles from a variety of heretofore distinguishable spaces and times". From the above quotes it is clear that the term pastiche suggests certain melange and collages of different and in its character opposite features which, when put together, create the characteristic picture of a post-futuristic town. All this is very much mirrored in the visual aspects of Blade Runner. As far as the space from the point of view of pastiche is concerned, the viewer from the firsts shots is faced with powerful but decrepit Los Angeles, in which architectural elements constitute the notion of the film's heterogeneity and ambiguity at the same time. As mutual contrasts stand out the building of the Tyrell Corporation and the one in which J.F. Sebastian owned a flat. The first one is a mix on its own because from the inside it very much resembles an Egyptian pyramid but from the outside one has a feeling of looking at a microchip.

On the other hand, there's Sebastian's flat, which is situated in an old, empty and nearly decomposing building, once having been the best, which the town offered. To this architectural blending one can add the market-like character of the Los Angeles` streets where members of different nationalities rush from Chinese outdoor fast food restaurants to another. The reference to the nationalities brings me to the problem of identity of the people living in L.A. in 2019. From what the viewer sees, he / she can easily assume that it was a "place of vast immigration from countries of overpopulation and poverty" Consequently, the city dialect, which the inhabitants of the metropolis, used were as Deckard said: "mishmash of Japanese, German, and Spanish whatever you got." The multinational character of L.A. is also highlighted by logos of the supranational companies (a Japanese face, a dragon at the fast food, Coca-Cola, TDK, or Budweiser) illuminating in the night but at the same time reminding us of its impersonal and soulless face. In connection to what I've just written I should add that somehow one couldn’t notice the "upper classes" appearing in the film (maybe with an exception of Dr. Tyrell), because they were either off the city centre (leaving it to the poorer members of the society) or they might very well have been in some space colony. Those who stayed on the Earth either couldn't afford the journey, or were not fit enough to go, as in case of J.F.Sebastian who did not pass the test because he suffered from, what Priss described as, an "accelerated decrepitude". The darkness of the film is, in my opinion, another factor that supports the spatial pastiche. Nearly the whole film takes place in the night or at places where there is none, or very little light. This mournful picture is underlined by the omnipresent rain, "a corrosive rain which wears things away" In these passages Vangelis' music is the only element which lightens the gloomy atmosphere of the film.
Finally, the last aspect, which I would like to mention in connection with the spatial pastiche, is the very ending of the film. The whole colourful scene of Deckard and Rachel driving to the North works as a kind of opposition to the whole film. What should have looked as natural and enequivocal ending might have seemed to some viewers as quite unnatural and artificial. (My impression was not, however, negative. I perceived it as the only positive moment of the film, illustrating the ambiguity of "humanity" and love together with the need to be loved.

But maybe it was exactly what the producer intended when he requested the changing of the ending.)
In the following part of my essay I would like to concentrate on the replicants and how humanity, history and memory worked and were reflected in the film. To speak of humanity in connection with replicants might be a bit misleading, however, the film is in its tone very human indeed and this fact, paradoxically, comes from replicants. They were designed, as Dr. Tyrell said "to be more human that human" but one substantial feature differentiated them from humans. They don't die as "ordinary" people do it means they are programmed to die after a certain time of dirty work, which the usual purpose of their creation is. They are not happy with their gift - playing second rate to humans, living in fear and useless end. That's why they came to the Earth, to find their Maker and prolong their lives. What thus might seem more human that one's effort to preserve his / her life? This is exactly what they are after, moreover, trying to find not only functional, but also emotional fulfillment. Dr Tyrell indeed said that they might have developed their own emotional responses that are nothing less than ordinary human fear or even love. When one towards the end of the film sees Pris playing with a doll, he / she is aware of the fact that "she is capable of poetry as well as irony". Humanity of the replicants is finally confirmed when the leader of the replicants and the last one to die - Roy Batty gives a hand to the falling Deckard. This is a moment when even he realises that in this war between humans and non-humans both sides pose the same global questions; who am I, where am I going to, how long have I got to live? And the line of separation and clear distinction becomes fussy and indistinct, leading one to consider the essence of humanity. That’s why one must agree with the quote from Sobchak's book where she claims: "And nowhere before in the SF film...has such a fully self-conscious longing for life and eloquently ferocious challenge to humanity beýn articulated as in Blade Runner“
History and memory are another two important factors that substantially contributed to the "psychology" of the replicants. However, the most important feature of the replicants is that of the absence of their memory and paradoxically that's why Blade Runner is "obsessed with memory because the replicants' assurance of a future relies on the possibility of acquiring a past". That's why Leon keeps his "beloved" photographs in the drawer, to have a proof of his so short existence. Rachel is another example of a character who, being a replicant, too claims her right for the past. The "inhumanity" of Dr.

Tyrell was in her case much worse because she did not know she was a replicant and her memories were only that of the Tyrell niece "to make her more human". She also, after having learned that she is not human, shows a photo of her as a little girl and her mother to Deckad to certify her past. Deckard himself learns that the photos are of certain importance to them when he, not really conscious of what the real nature of replicants might be, said: "Maybe they were like Rachel, they needed memories".
The mother on the Rachel's photo might be another important clue for a notion of history in the film. We encounter the "mother" several times, once right in the beginning when Leon being questioned by the Tyrell's people to identify whether he is a replicant or not, and when asked by the inquirer about his mother, stands up and shoots him. ("My mother? I'll tell you about my mother…") The second time when the mother becomes important is the already mentioned Rachel's fake photo where the mother figure is to affirm Rachel's "identity over time". Consecutively, the photographs in Blade Runner acquired the status of being the document of "what-has-been", they "represent the trace of an origin and thus a personal identity, the proof of having existed and therefore of having the right to exist".
To conclude, the Scott's futuristic vision Blade Runner is a film in many ways very much expressive, mirroring the "so far" experience of the humanity and bringing many striking and powerful suggestions of which humanity is, in my view, most touching. Even if the sci-fi genre was not particularly appealing to me, Blade Runner was a very bright and extraordinary exception.