Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club - Page 74

Brook K · 08-18-2004, 01:39 PM

#258 Blade Runner

Blade Runner sets up an intriguing world - an Earth that isn't a bright and shiny future, but rather like the one we live in today, if a bit darker and dingier. The plot, that humans created synthetic, sentient "robot" workers that have begun to revolt against them is an intriguing one. However, once the story takes hold, I found much less to be interested in.

What I liked best was the world of the film. Seeing the differences and especially how they kept many things virtually the same, like the Chinese noodle stand. I enjoyed the sunny advertisements for trips to the colonies with a perky announcer declaring the chance for "a fresh start to life" while thinking that these colonies are probably Hellholes worse than life on Earth. Like those shown in the Alien movies where there's nothing to do but work and try not to get eaten.

Ah, but there's that pesky story. And the story of Blade Runner is much less interesting than the world it takes place in. It's really little more than a dressed up action movie. Not a bad one, but it doesn't drip thrills or excitement either. The problem is the script. It doesn't give Harrison Ford's Deckerd much to do besides look morosely at old photographs, get drunk and get his ass kicked. He has the requisite "screw you" attitude, but not the dialogue to go with it and in almost every encounter he succeeds through luck rather than skill. It makes one wonder how exactly Deckerd got to be "the best", simply because he's still alive?

What's the deal with this job function anyway? The police seem to have complete disdain for The Blade Runner. They're asked to take on superior beings one-on-one. They can't or don't call for backup. Is it little wonder Deckerd has to be shanghai'd into the job?

Another thing that keeps this from being a top tier action movie is the lack of a quality bad guy. Rutger Hauer always seems to me like a 2nd choice or a "settled for". Like, "we didn't have the $$ to get actor XXX, sign up Rutger!" They try to make him seem all creepy and intellectual but again, there's no real meat in the script to back this up. If they'd really played up the sci-fi/sentience/slave or tool angle he might have worked well, but they really only pay lip service to this concept before moving on to head smashing and shoot 'em ups. Several of the scenes, particularly the tepid love story play like filler in between the action scenes that Scott is clearly more interested in.

I can understand why this film is embraced around here, but not really why it is this respected in the critical community. It got as many votes as The Gold Rush and Rear Window??! More votes than A Clockwork Orange, Double Indemnity, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, or The Maltese Falcon (and that's just picking out a few classic American films).

As for the "is he or isn't he" question, I found that to be irrelevant in the context of the film. The film may raise certain questions in the mind of the viewer, but the film itself, and presumably Scott, isn't interested in those questions.

A good movie I would watch again if I stumbled across it on late night TV, but hardly an Alien or Robocop, much less Chinatown or Out Of The Past. B (I haven't tried to track down any serious reviews of the movie. I will do that to see if there's something I'm missing.)

Ridley Scott Films

1. Alien - A-
2. Hannibal - B
3. Black Hawk Down - B
4. Blade Runner - B
5. Matchstick Men - B-
6. Gladiator - C

Lew Crippen · 08-18-2004, 02:07 PM

Quote:

It got as many votes as The Gold Rush and Rear Window??! More votes than A Clockwork Orange, Double Indemnity, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, or The Maltese Falcon (and that's just picking out a few classic American films).

I did a little research here too:

First the Critics:

Irene Bignardi: (nothing too off the wall here)
City Lights (Chaplin)
8 1/2 (Fellini)
Nashville (Altman)
Citizen Kane (Welles)
Some Like It Hot (Wilder)
Jules et Jim (Truffaut)
Blade Runner (Scott)
The Battle of Algiers (Pontecorvo)
Paisà (Rossellini)
Singin' in the Rain (Kelly, Donen)

Michel Chion: (I find a few choices strange)
Blade Runner (Scott)
Casablanca (Curtiz)
Casanova (Fellini)
City Lights (Chaplin)
Days of Heaven (Malick)
India Song (Duras)
Monty Python's Life of Brian (Jones)
Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (Paradjanov)
Spirited Away (Miyazaki)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)

Jonathan Ross: (only one off the wall selection)
8 1/2 (Fellini)
Blade Runner (Scott)
Sunset Blvd. (Wilder)
Ikiru (Kurosawa)
The Wages of Fear (Clouzot)
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Meyer)
In the Mood for Love (Wong)
The Producers (Brooks)
Duck Soup (McCarey)
My Neighbour Totoro (Miyazaki)

Jack Stevenson: (disagree with this Bergman selection—but overall OK)
Blade Runner (Scott)
Brainstorm (Conrad)
Europa (von Trier)
Metropolis (Lang)
Midnight Cowboy (Schlesinger)
The Night of the Hunter (Laughton)
Summer with Monika (Bergman)
The Third Man (Reed)
The Wizard of Oz (Fleming)
Written on the Wind (Sirk)

Philip Strick: (I’m surprised at his Renior choice)
L'avventura (Antonioni)
Black Narcissus (Powell, Pressburger)
Blade Runner (Scott)
French Cancan (Renoir)
Le Mépris (Godard)
The Searchers (Ford)
Solaris (Tarkovsky)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
Vertigo (Hitchcock)
Wild Strawberries (Bergman)

My point here is that for the most part the critics seem to have chosen films that you would consider deserving. I had this rated as a ‘must-see’, but I have an awful lot of the films in the above lists as ‘masterpieces’. Perhaps there is more here than either one of us has seen.

Brook K · 08-18-2004, 03:06 PM

I found a few critics reviews, not as many as I would have liked. Ebert basically agreed with me that the world was an interesting creation but that the human story is lacking. He specifically mentioned the romance as occurring more as a plot element than something for the characters. His 3 star rating is pretty much equivalent to my B.

Desson Howe from the Washington Post, who I don't usually agree with but enjoy his writing style, was basically worthless. One sentence fanboy gushes about various aspects of the film. Rita Kempley's rave review though was well-written and gave me some things to consider. Perhaps the life questions are more apparent and I was clouded by my Rutger Hauer bias. However, I would maintain that these thematic elements still are not treated with the importance and intellectual gravity that A.I. provides.

Also, context is always important. Had I seen this movie when I was younger and more appreciative of the type of movie it is, it might have more meaning for me. I doubt if I was seeing Star Wars for the first time tonight that it would have the impact and resonance that it holds for me because of when I saw it. I'm sure the big screen would help too, especially in the opening scenes. The DVD player we have hooked up to our widescreen set absolutely refused to play the disc so I had to watch upstairs on a 25" TV.

Btw, Summer With Monika is a very fine Bergman film, though admittedly one that could be referred to as "minor" and doesn't really belong on this list.

Brent Hutto · 08-18-2004, 03:40 PM

Quote:

Perhaps the life questions are more apparent and I was clouded by my Rutger Hauer bias. However, I would maintain that these thematic elements still are not treated with the importance and intellectual gravity that A.I. provides.

So Brook, do you consider A.I. to be a better movie than Blade Runner? I don't think either one of them are Great Movies by any stretch but I didn't find A.I. nearly as enjoyable as Blade Runner (and for calibration I thought Minority Report was better than either of them).

george kaplan · 08-18-2004, 04:39 PM

Brook,

Although I basically disagree with you on Blade Runner (#58 on my all-time list), I largely agree with you about it's relationship to those other films, most (though not all) of which I place even higher than Blade Runner. On the other hand I completely disagree about A.I. or Robocop, both of which pale IMO to Blade Runner.

Some Came Running (Minnelli)
Pickpocket (Bresson)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
GoodFellas (Scorsese)
La Maman et la putain (Eustache)
Los Olvidados (Buñuel)
In a Year with Thirteen Moons (Fassbinder)
Citizen Kane (Welles)
Fanny and Alexander (Bergman)
Carmen Jones (Preminger)

I think that the approach he took was to make sure his top directors were on the list (once each) and I’d guess that he picked what he thought was their best film.

I hope that's not his approach. I like Preminger, but to consider him a top director above Hitchcock or Wilder is quite a stretch IMO. And in almost all of those cases (except for Scorsese and Welles), the directors I've seen have done better work IMO.

glen_esq · 08-19-2004, 12:42 AM

In a Year of 13 Moons has quite a high IMDB voter score - 8.1

I didn't find the movie dreadful, just too much all over the place, mixing tragedy, the absurd, camp, and grotesque. I looked up my imdb vote - 5/10.

Jim_K · 08-20-2004, 07:14 AM

Now that is an interesting choice Jim. As it turns out, In a Year with Thirteen Moons was only on three ballots: that of director Richard Linklater and critcs Chris Berry and David Hanan.

Regardless of how one feels about the film, I’d think that his view ought to be seriously respected.

Linklater is a moderately above average film-maker (I'm tempted to bump him down to mediocre after watching that steaming pile School of Rock) & his opinion just doesn’t carry much weight with me. Now someone of Scorsese’s caliber would demand my attention, though if he were to list 13 Moons in his Top 10 my respect for his opinion would be tarnished forever.

It doesn’t surprise me that Brook didn’t get Blade Runner.

The great thing about the Roy Batty character is that he's not merely just some "bad guy" in an "action" movie. We feel empathy for him on his quest to meet his creator, as he knows they (androids) will die soon. His "weirdness" evokes an alien behavior that indicates he is not quite human. It's also points out the stunted emotional growth of a 5 year old in a 30 year old body.

Now the A.I./Blade Runner comparison is interesting as they share the same theme. I prefer the subtlety & hidden contexts of films like Blade Runner where some things are left to the imagination vs. the everything explained to you, sledgehammer approach of A.I.

This all can be dismissed as the rantings of a "fanboy" I suppose, but to describe BR as “nothing more then a dressed up action movie” shows that the viewer has not paid attention to the details. But what do I care anyway? Why am I typing this? I have a little free time for once is all.

Eh enough of that.

Birth of a Nation - Quite frankly I can’t say I’m all that glad I finally watched this film. There’s no doubt it’s an important silent but I got just as much out of the clips I’d seen watching Scorsese’s Personal Journey documentary. A marvel for it’s time? (what do I know as I wasn’t around back then, maybe Lew can enlighten us

) however, it’s a rather repugnant & dull viewing experience today. This one doesn’t even come close to the great silents such as Metropolis, Greed, Napoleon & Sunrise.

george kaplan · 08-20-2004, 08:47 AM

Earth

As a window into Soviet thought and propaganda circa 1930, Earth is an important and interesting historical document. As a film, it's a meaningless, disjointed mess. I can't even begin to come up with enough adjectives to describe the acting. Horrible is far too kind. The humans in this film are either statues with no emotion whatsoever, or wildly exaggerated clowns. I felt like I was watching a popcorn kernel that just sits there, until the heat is turned up and then it starts jumping around.

For most of the film, the wheat fields and cows (and yes, the tractor) were better actors than the humans.

Are there some interesting shots in this film. Yes, but put together, they don't make a good film. Aside from the political import, I remain baffled how this could end up on a list of 'great' films.

I read some reviews after watching this, trying to understand. I came across the following: "Anyone looking for the origins of Andrei Tarkovsky's cinema must start with Earth", which explains my feelings for this film in one simple line.

182 down, 159 left.

Lew Crippen · 08-20-2004, 10:03 AM

I am another one who did not get Earth, George.

Quote:

A marvel for it’s time? (what do I know as I wasn’t around back then, maybe Lew can enlighten us ) however, it’s a rather repugnant & dull viewing experience today. This one doesn’t even come close to the great silents such as Metropolis, Greed, Napoleon & Sunrise.

Very funny, Jim.

The films that you listed (except Greed) all came at the very end of the silent era (1927)—the time when the form was perfected. Even Greed came almost a full decade after Birth of a Nation (1915).

Now this may not seem like very much time, but the industry was so young at that time that on a percentage basis, there was an enormous difference. Of course the elements of telling a story on film were in early stages, with big jumps in techniques and effectiveness all the time. Much like the strides being make in CGI today.