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Blade Runner

The Ridley Scott (1982) film Blade Runner is co-scripted by author Philip K. Dick, on whose book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the film is based. In her review of the film, the Washington PostÆs Desson Howe (1992) argues the main theme is ômanÆs futile quest for immortality,ö (2). Indeed, at the end of the film the main character Deckard refers to the futility of this quest as he ponders the death of Roy, ôI donÆt know why he saved my life. Maybe in those last moments, he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life, anybodyÆs life, my life. All heÆd wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got?ö (Scott 1982). However, within this recognition Deckard begins to understand that the meaning of life comes from our ability to connect with others, others who also lend meaning to our own ôidentity.ö

Within the film, we see a postmodern deconstruction of contemporary, materialistic society. The filmÆs visuals provide us with an environment that basically predicts the end of reality and social order as we now know it. As Clayton (1996) maintains, it provides us with a ôportrait of ecological disaster and urban overcrowding, of a visual and aural landscape saturated with advertising, of a polyglot population immersed in a Babel of competing cultures, of decadence and homelessness, of technological achievement and social decay,ö (53). Within this ôdystopiaö, we find the use of images, pictures, photographs, and mirrors to be significant in conveying the artifice of all reality. Only photographs provide a representation of origin, i.e. history, identity, and validity. Memories are something that are implanted, copies of images without originals. It is only through photographs that memory exists, proof of our actually being here or ôexistingö over time. In such an environment, the self because an extension of the collectiv...

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Blade Runner. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 15:27, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1710294.html