Blade Runner: The Final Cut (15.)
1982. Directed by Ridley Scott.
Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, and M Emmet Walsh. 123 mins
Back in the 70s Marty Feldman made The Last Remake of Beau Geste, a parody of French Foreign Legion films. (It lived up to its title – the genre died with it.) To mark the end of their Sci-fi season the BFI are re-releasing in cinemas, The Last Director's Cut Of Blade Runner. Ridley Scott has never been shy of whipping out his stool, rolling up his sleeves and giving one of his films a good milking, drumming up another extended director’s cut. He's been chipping away at Blade Runner, trying to get it right, for a quarter of a decade (it got its first makeover in 1992, this Final Cut dates back to 2007 and is reckoned to be the fifth version), getting rid of the futuristic thriller it was initially sold as, and shaping it into the rambling arthouse film it was apparently always intended to be. The more he succeeds, the less I care for it.
Blade Runner – an S Burroughs title for an adaptation of a K. Dick novel – is a dystopian vision of the future that has grown to look quite desirable over the years. True the weather’s terrible and there's no Internet but in the Los Angeles of 2019 flying cars zip around 100 storey pyramids while the cream of the world's population is off conquering and colonizing the galaxy with the aid of life-like androids called replicants. In this world Ford's gumshoe Deckard searches for a group of replicants, “skinjobs,” who have returned to earth seeking an extension beyond their four year expiration date.
Hard to believe there are kids knocking around who don't know there was once a voice-over narration to Blade Runner. Imposed upon them by the producers, it was the first thing to go in the '92 re-edit. Scott and Ford always hated it but I grew up on those lines and I miss them. It is all a bit much without it. Though very little happened in the film, the voice-over gave it a bit of forward momentum, a smidgen of excitement and tension, a sense that something was going on. Without it the film practically seizes it up, congeals under all its visual style. It's a mood piece and the mood becomes suffocating.
Blade Runner is still something rather special, but I have just seen it too many times now. The film's vaunted visual style is both oppressive and a bit dated. All those sweeping searchlight beams, faded art deco designs, Venetian blinds and enormous candles in Tyrell's bedroom look rather silly now. It's a victim of its own success, its influence is everywhere and has diminished it.
A Good Year review
American Gangster Review
Body of lies review
Exodus review
Blade Runner: The Final Cut (15.)
1982. Directed by Ridley Scott.
Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, and M Emmet Walsh. 123 mins
Back in the 70s Marty Feldman made The Last Remake of Beau Geste, a parody of French Foreign Legion films. (It lived up to its title – the genre died with it.) To mark the end of their Sci-fi season the BFI are re-releasing in cinemas, The Last Director's Cut Of Blade Runner. Ridley Scott has never been shy of whipping out his stool, rolling up his sleeves and giving one of his films a good milking, drumming up another extended director’s cut. He's been chipping away at Blade Runner, trying to get it right, for a quarter of a decade (it got its first makeover in 1992, this Final Cut dates back to 2007 and is reckoned to be the fifth version), getting rid of the futuristic thriller it was initially sold as, and shaping it into the rambling arthouse film it was apparently always intended to be. The more he succeeds, the less I care for it.
Blade Runner – an S Burroughs title for an adaptation of a K. Dick novel – is a dystopian vision of the future that has grown to look quite desirable over the years. True the weather’s terrible and there's no Internet but in the Los Angeles of 2019 flying cars zip around 100 storey pyramids while the cream of the world's population is off conquering and colonizing the galaxy with the aid of life-like androids called replicants. In this world Ford's gumshoe Deckard searches for a group of replicants, “skinjobs,” who have returned to earth seeking an extension beyond their four year expiration date.
Hard to believe there are kids knocking around who don't know there was once a voice-over narration to Blade Runner. Imposed upon them by the producers, it was the first thing to go in the '92 re-edit. Scott and Ford always hated it but I grew up on those lines and I miss them. It is all a bit much without it. Though very little happened in the film, the voice-over gave it a bit of forward momentum, a smidgen of excitement and tension, a sense that something was going on. Without it the film practically seizes it up, congeals under all its visual style. It's a mood piece and the mood becomes suffocating.
Blade Runner is still something rather special, but I have just seen it too many times now. The film's vaunted visual style is both oppressive and a bit dated. All those sweeping searchlight beams, faded art deco designs, Venetian blinds and enormous candles in Tyrell's bedroom look rather silly now. It's a victim of its own success, its influence is everywhere and has diminished it.
A Good Year review
American Gangster Review
Body of lies review
Exodus review
