There is a scene early in Ridley Scott's film in which Detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) and his partner uncover a cool million dollars in unmarked cash. Roberts' partner argues that to turn in this money is to become pariahs in the department, that crooked cops don't trust cops that would voucher that much money.
It is a scene of the "tell don't show" variety, and it annoyed me, at least a little.
The scene immediately cuts to the two detectives with the pile of money on the precinct table, counting it out. A window separates them from the rest of the squad, and we can see from the sullen expressions that the reaction of the squad is pretty much what Roberts' partner said it would be.
This seemed a little heavy handed to me, but the tradition of setting up a scene so that we know exactly how we are supposed to interpret the behavior is a staple of Hollywood. So, I'm still at this point only feeling mildly as though I'm being condescended to by the film.
In walks the detectives' lieutenant. Why, he wants to know, are they counting the money out in the open where everyone can see it? Let's just underline the point of this whole scene for those who were out for popcorn in the car scene or are oblivious to the body language of his colleagues. Now I'm starting to feel like the film just doesn't trust its viewers to pay attention.
Roberts and his partner voucher the money and walk through the squad room. Over the hostile rumblings of the other officers present, we hear one observer say (in what sounds like a dub), "Fucking boy scout."
Oh, I get it now. They are mad at him for vouchering the money. I was getting this vibe that something was being communicated about his working relationships through this scene, but it wasn't until the end that I truly understood the point. [Unlike the film, I'm trusting my audience to know how to read my tone.]
My friend and former colleague once told a class we were team teaching to treat exclamation points in writing as if one inherited 100 of them at birth and after one had used them all, they were gone forever. I think implicit in this instruction is the understanding that if one exclamation point isn't going to carry the day, two certainly won't. The second actually weakens the first, making us wonder if the writer doth protest too much.
When the exclamation points or underlining are narrative rather than literal, I call it being led around by the nose by the director or screenwriter. Don't think, such films argue, only assimilate and process the film's thematic sound bites.
Scott is a talented filmmaker with a visual eye and a restrained touch, at least early in his career. Films like The Duellists and Blade Runner have pointed and particular ideological and thematic ponts of view that the films--in their totality--are designed to underscore. But they also have contemplative space, room to breathe and think. American Gangster reads more like a police procedural, more interested in the plot mechanics than the insight into the human condition that the plot might reveal. Characters like D'Hubert and Deckard are fascinating precisely because they are not just "boy scouts" and thus the conflicts between them and their respective antagonists are once which interest us because of what they reveal to us and not just because of a marginal rooting interest in the outcome. Can we really say the same about the characters in G.I. Jane, Gladiator, or American Gangster? Is there anything we learn about the main characters in these films that cannot be encapsulated and underscored in any three minutes of film?
Showing posts with label Ridley Scott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ridley Scott. Show all posts
Monday, February 25, 2008
Friday, January 18, 2008
Blade Runner: The Final Cut (2007)
"Are you proud of yourself, little man?"
The question, asked by Roy, the replicant (Rutger Hauer), to Deckard (Harrison Ford), echoes at the core of my still developing understanding and appreciation of Ridley Scott's science-fiction masterpiece.
The film finally opened in Durham, North Carolina this weekend, and Cindy took me to see it on the big screen to celebrate my "inception date."
Roy asks the question after Deckard has "retired" Pris (Darryl Hannah), that word being the euphemism for killing.
Of course, one can't "kill" a machine, even a very life-like one, but even though logic and law tells you (and Deckard) that putting bullets into Pris is no different than pulling the plug on a hard drive or slaughtering an animal, something in his conscience tells him otherwise. Something that can't be numbed by all the alcohol he keeps chugging down to still his shaking hands. Pesky things, consciences. We can't retain our humanity without them, but they often make it hard for us to live with ourselves.
Pris's "retirement" is painful to watch. Painful for Deckard and painful for us. Her body jerks in spasms reminiscent of some short circuiting robot, but also of a marionette jerked on a string, or a creation of Frankenstein jolted with electricity. It is the antithesis of so many movie deaths that happen at distance and desensitize us to violence. The deaths, like the moral choices in the film, are not neat, not clean. Things get messy. Things get painful.
Roy wants to know if Deckard can look on his work and call it good.
Blade Runner is, above all else, a film about what makes us human. What is it that Deckard has that the replicants don't that make his life somehow more valuable than their existence? Emotions? Memories? A conscience? A lot of ink has been spilled over the question of whether or not Deckard is himself a replicant, but in the end I'm not sure that how we answer that question is all that relevant to the film's message about respect for all life.
On an intellectual level, the film tells us it may not matter because if we can't distinguish human from replicant than any justification for treating them differently is really doomed to implode under the weight of its own hypocrisy. On an emotional level, the film argues that the sadness and horror our eyes and souls feel at the sight of the replicants' deaths are real, even if the replicants are not. And the reality of that emotion trumps and overpowers whatever arguments we make to ourselves to try to convince ourselves that it is okay.
In an election year that has seen a resurgence of debates about the justification of torture, Blade Runner reminds us that violence always extracts a price on those who use it, not just on those who receive it. Each time we act in violence a part of our own humanity is lost, or at least repressed. So even if we can convince ourselves that the objects of our violence are not covered under whatever moral or legal code we operate under, we can't escape the fact that the agents of violence are haunted and scarred by the experience of using it.
As an aside, the film holds up very well on a technical level, which was a relief. It is always a dangerous thing to revisit a film around which there is a mystique, lest the actual fact fails to live up to your memory of it. Blade Runner may not have the "wow" factor it did in the 1980s in regards to its special effects or art design, but unlike many contemporary action or genre pieces, there is something there in addition to spectacle, so once the giddy rush of spectacle (or the warm wave of nostalgia) wears off, there is still a core of ideas within the film for the viewer to contemplate.
*****************************************************************
Link to my interview with Doug Cummings about Blade Runner, at The Matthews House Project.
The question, asked by Roy, the replicant (Rutger Hauer), to Deckard (Harrison Ford), echoes at the core of my still developing understanding and appreciation of Ridley Scott's science-fiction masterpiece.
The film finally opened in Durham, North Carolina this weekend, and Cindy took me to see it on the big screen to celebrate my "inception date."
Roy asks the question after Deckard has "retired" Pris (Darryl Hannah), that word being the euphemism for killing.
Of course, one can't "kill" a machine, even a very life-like one, but even though logic and law tells you (and Deckard) that putting bullets into Pris is no different than pulling the plug on a hard drive or slaughtering an animal, something in his conscience tells him otherwise. Something that can't be numbed by all the alcohol he keeps chugging down to still his shaking hands. Pesky things, consciences. We can't retain our humanity without them, but they often make it hard for us to live with ourselves.
Pris's "retirement" is painful to watch. Painful for Deckard and painful for us. Her body jerks in spasms reminiscent of some short circuiting robot, but also of a marionette jerked on a string, or a creation of Frankenstein jolted with electricity. It is the antithesis of so many movie deaths that happen at distance and desensitize us to violence. The deaths, like the moral choices in the film, are not neat, not clean. Things get messy. Things get painful.
Roy wants to know if Deckard can look on his work and call it good.
Blade Runner is, above all else, a film about what makes us human. What is it that Deckard has that the replicants don't that make his life somehow more valuable than their existence? Emotions? Memories? A conscience? A lot of ink has been spilled over the question of whether or not Deckard is himself a replicant, but in the end I'm not sure that how we answer that question is all that relevant to the film's message about respect for all life.
On an intellectual level, the film tells us it may not matter because if we can't distinguish human from replicant than any justification for treating them differently is really doomed to implode under the weight of its own hypocrisy. On an emotional level, the film argues that the sadness and horror our eyes and souls feel at the sight of the replicants' deaths are real, even if the replicants are not. And the reality of that emotion trumps and overpowers whatever arguments we make to ourselves to try to convince ourselves that it is okay.
In an election year that has seen a resurgence of debates about the justification of torture, Blade Runner reminds us that violence always extracts a price on those who use it, not just on those who receive it. Each time we act in violence a part of our own humanity is lost, or at least repressed. So even if we can convince ourselves that the objects of our violence are not covered under whatever moral or legal code we operate under, we can't escape the fact that the agents of violence are haunted and scarred by the experience of using it.
As an aside, the film holds up very well on a technical level, which was a relief. It is always a dangerous thing to revisit a film around which there is a mystique, lest the actual fact fails to live up to your memory of it. Blade Runner may not have the "wow" factor it did in the 1980s in regards to its special effects or art design, but unlike many contemporary action or genre pieces, there is something there in addition to spectacle, so once the giddy rush of spectacle (or the warm wave of nostalgia) wears off, there is still a core of ideas within the film for the viewer to contemplate.
*****************************************************************
Link to my interview with Doug Cummings about Blade Runner, at The Matthews House Project.
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