Here are some extra credit options. Read one or more of the following articles and write and turn in a hard-copy review in which you (1) summarize the article and (2) analyze one or more specific sections and give your point of view.
Article A. Several versions of Ridley Scott's films have been shown. Here is an article from Wikipedia about the different versions of Blade Runner:
- The releases seen by most cinema audiences
were: the U.S. theatrical version (1982, 116 minutes), known as the original
version or Domestic Cut, released on Betamax and VHS in 1983 andLaserdisc in 1987.
- The International Cut (1982,
117 minutes), also known as the "Criterion Edition" or "uncut
version", which included more violent action scenes than the U.S. version.
Although initially unavailable in the U.S., and distributed in Europe and Asia
via theatrical and local Warner Home Video Laserdisc releases, it was later
released on VHS and Criterion Collection Laserdisc
in North America, and re-released in 1992 as a "10th Anniversary Edition".
- The U.S. broadcast version (1986, 114
minutes) was the U.S. theatrical version edited by CBS to
tone down the violence, profanity, and nudity to meet broadcasting
restrictions.
- The Ridley Scott-approved (1991, 116 minutes) Director's
Cut was prompted by the unauthorized 1990/1991 workprint theatrical
release. This Director's Cut was made available on VHS and Laserdisc
in 1993, and on DVD in 1997. Significant changes from the theatrical version
include: the removal of Deckard's voice-over; re-insertion of a unicorn
sequence; and removal of the studio-imposed happy ending. Scott provided
extensive notes and consultation to Warner Bros. through film preservationist
Michael Arick, who was put in charge of creating the Director's Cut.
- Ridley Scott's The Final Cut (2007,
117 minutes), or the "25th Anniversary Edition", was released by
Warner Bros. theatrically on October 5, 2007, and subsequently released on DVD, HD DVD, andBlu-ray Disc in December 2007. This
is the only version over which Ridley Scott had complete artistic control, as
he was not directly in charge of the Director's Cut. In conjunction
with the Final Cut cinema release, extensive documentary and other
materials were produced for the DVD releases which culminated in a five-disc
"Ultimate Collector's Edition" release by Charles de Lauzirika.
For full details, go
here.
Article B. Here is an article about the final cut of
Blade Runner that was written for
The New York Times upon its release.
Blade
Runner: A Cult Classic Restored, Again
September
30, 2007
By
FRED KAPLAN
The
New York Times
IT’S
been 25 years since the release of “Blade Runner,” Ridley Scott’s science
fiction cult film turned classic, but only now has his original vision reached
the screen.
“Blade
Runner: The Final Cut” — as the definitive director’s cut is titled — was scheduled
to play at the New York Film Festival Saturday night, opens at the Ziegfeld in
New York and the Landmark in Los Angeles on Friday, and comes out in December
in a five-disc set with scads of extra features.
An
earlier director’s cut played in theaters 15 years ago to great fanfare and is
still available on DVD. But the new one is something different: darker,
bleaker, more beautifully immersive.
The
film, based on Philip K. Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,”
takes place in Los Angeles in 2019. It follows a cop named Deckard (played by
Harrison Ford) who hunts down androids — or, in the film’s jargon, replicants—
that have escaped from their slave cells on outer-space colonies and are trying
to blend in back on Earth.
What’s
hypnotic about the film is its seamless portrait of the future, a sleek retro
Deco glossed on neon-laced decay: overcrowded cities roamed by hustlers,
strugglers and street gangs mumbling a multicultural argot, the sky lit by
giant corporate logos and video billboards hyping exotic getaways on other
planets, where most English-speaking white people seem to have fled.
Mr.
Scott designed this world in minute detail and shot it at night, from oblique
angles, mainly on Warner Brothers’ back lot in Burbank, Calif., pumping in
smoke and drizzling in rain.
“I’ve
never paid quite so much attention to a movie, ever,” Mr. Scott said in a
telephone interview from Washington, where he’s shooting a spy thriller. “But
we had to create a world that supported the story’s premise, made it
believable. Why do you watch a film seven times? Because somebody’s done it
right and transported you to its world.”
He
created this world from what he saw around him. “I was spending a lot of time
in New York,” he said. “The city back then seemed to be dismantling itself. It
was marginally out of control. I’d also shot some commercials in Hong Kong.
This was before the skyscrapers. The streets seemed medieval. There were 4,000
junks in the harbor, and the harbor was filthy. You wouldn’t want to fall in;
you’d never get out alive. I wanted to film ‘Blade Runner’ in Hong Kong, but
couldn’t afford to.
When
“Blade Runner” came out in June 1982 it received mixed reviews and lost money.
The summer’s big hit was “E. T.,” Steven Spielberg’s tale of a cute alien
phoning home from the tidy suburbs. Few wanted to watch a movie that implied
the world was about to go drastically downhill.
“Here
we are 25 years on,” Mr. Scott said, “and we’re seriously discussing the
possibility of the end of this world by the end of the century. This is no
longer science fiction.”
The
special effects that produced this vision were amazing for their day. Created
with miniature models, optics and double exposures, they seemed less artificial
than many computer effects of a decade later. But like film stock, they faded
with time.
For
the new director’s cut, the special-effects footage was digitally scanned at
8,000 lines per frame, four times the resolution of most restorations, and then
meticulously retouched. The results look almost 3-D.
The
film’s theme of dehumanization has also been sharpened. What has been a matter
of speculation and debate is now a certainty: Deckard, the replicant-hunting
cop, is himself a replicant. Mr. Scott confirmed this: “Yes, he’s a replicant.
He was always a replicant.”
This
may disappoint some viewers. Deckard is the film’s one person with a
conscience. If he’s a replicant, it means that there are no more decent human
beings.
“It’s
a pretty dark world,” Mr. Scott acknowledged. “How many decent human beings do
you meet these days?”
The
clue to Deckard’s true nature comes in a scene that was cut from the original
release and only recently unearthed by Charles de Lauzirika, Mr. Scott’s
assistant and the restoration’s producer. In the film, Deckard falls in love
with Rachael (played by Sean Young), a secretary at the Tyrell Corporation, the
conglomerate that makes replicants. She discovers that she’s a replicant too.
Her memories of childhood were implanted by Tyrell to make her think she’s
human.
In
the last scene of Mr. Scott’s version, Deckard leads Rachael out of his
apartment. He notices an origami figure of a unicorn on the floor. A fellow cop
has often left such figures outside replicants’ rooms. In an earlier scene,
Deckard was thinking about a unicorn. Looking at the cutout now, he realizes
that the authorities know what’s in his mind, that the unicorn is a planted
memory, that he’s a replicant and that he and Rachael are both now on the run.
They get into the elevator. The door slams. The end.
Neither
this scene nor any unicorn appeared in the 1982 release. That version ended
with Deckard and Rachael escaping, driving through green countryside, Deckard
telling us in his Philip Marlowe voice-over — which ran throughout the movie —
that he had learned Rachael is a new type of replicant, built to live as long
as humans. They smile. The end.
How
to explain such a drastic change? The veteran television producers Bud Yorkin
and Jerry Perenchio put up one third of the film’s $22 million budget and the
completion bond, which stipulated that if the film went over budget they had to
pay the overrun but would also take ownership of the movie. The film went $7
million over budget.
Preview
screenings were disastrous. Crowds went to see the new Harrison Ford movie, thinking
it would be like “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and they were befuddled. Mr. Yorkin
and Mr. Perenchio, whose relations with Mr. Scott were always tense, took over.
In
some accounts, Mr. Scott was kicked off the picture and had nothing to do with
the voice-over or the happy ending. This isn’t quite accurate.
“I
was in a minor argument over it for about six hours,” Mr. Scott recalled. “Then
I was fully on board.” He had contemplated a voice-over early on, inspired by
Martin Sheen’s in “Apocalypse Now.” When the previews bombed, he revived the
idea and had his screenwriters, Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, work on it.
The new owners discarded that draft and hired Roland Kibbee, a frequent writer
for the detective show “Colombo,” to do a rewrite.
Mr.
Scott didn’t like the revision, but he edited it into the movie anyway. He also
asked Stanley Kubrick for outtakes of rolling countryside that were shot for
“The Shining,” and used them as backdrop for the desired happy ending.
“I
went along with the idea that we had to do certain things to get audiences
interested,” Mr. Scott recalled. “I later realized that once I adopted that
line, I was selling my soul to the devil, inch by inch drifting from my
original conception.”
“My
original concept,” he said, “was almost operatic: the cadences, the deliberate
pacing. I mean that in the sense of the best comic strips, the ones that adults
read, which are very operatic. ‘Batman’ — you can’t get more operatic than
that.”
Afterward,
Mr. Scott moved on to other films. In 1989 a Warner Brothers executive, going
through the vaults, came across a 70-millimeter print of Mr. Scott’s original
cut. In May 1990 the print was lent to a Los Angeles theater showing a festival
of 70-millimeter films. Fans lined up around the block. The same thing happened
when two art houses screened it in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Sensing
a windfall, Warner Brothers announced the release of a director’s cut and
brought in Mr. Scott. It was a rush job — much of the deleted footage couldn’t
be found — but it was closer to what he had intended.
In
2000 Mr. Scott announced that he was working on a multidisc set that would
include a polished director’s cut. But the project collapsed when the Mr.
Yorkin and Mr. Perenchio wouldn’t transfer the rights.
This
refusal was widely attributed to lingering bitterness. Mr. Yorkin, speaking by
telephone from Los Angeles, denied that. “It’s just there was no reason for
another release,” he said. “We needed an idea that would make it an event.”
Last
year they realized the film’s 25th anniversary was coming up. “That was an idea
we could hook it on,” Mr. Yorkin said. A deal was struck with Warner Brothers.
The project was revived.
Mr.
de Lauzirika plowed through 977 boxes and cans of film, stored mainly in a
Burbank warehouse, and found the missing pieces — including the complete
unicorn scene — along with several discs’ worth of material for DVD special
features. And the technical experts restored the picture to a level of detail
that would have been impossible a few years earlier.
“In
many ways,” Mr. de Lauzirika said, “the delay actually helped. So all headaches
aside, it’s hard to be bitter. I’m actually quite grateful.”
Article C. And finally, here is an in-depth interview with director Ridley Scott about the film.
Wired: I'd like to just start out by asking you
how it feels to be talking about a new movie that you began 25 years ago.
Scott: It's been ongoing so long, it never went
away. So I'm used to it. It kept reemerging, and that's when I realized that it
had really unusual staying power. And it's all very well, at the time, as the
person who made it, to say, "Well, I knew it had." But I didn't,
really, at the time. I knew I'd done a pretty interesting movie which, in fact,
was extremely interesting but was so unusual that the majority of people were
taken aback. They simply didn't get it. Or, I think, better now to say they
were enormously distracted by the environment.
Wired: What do you mean, "enormously
distracted by the environment"?
Scott: Well, we — I mean I had new ground to address: the idea of
doing a film that is not necessarily futuristic in the sense of the, futuristic
science fiction, but actually more as a look into the future, and the future
possibility, which can be more interesting. Because then you're touching on
various possibilities of, like, replication, which now are quite commonplace,
but 25 years ago they were barely discussing it in the corridors of power where
you have to — you know, like the Senate and things like that. They hadn't even
gotten to that point. I'm sure it was firmly in biological institutions and
laboratories, but they hadn't yet gone for permission. It was almost 10 years
or 15 years afterBlade Runner that
I read about replication. Now, the film is not really about that at all, it's
simply borrowing that possibility and addressing it and putting it to making a
sort of unusual protagonist or antagonist that will be leveraged into a Sam
Spade or one of those detective, film-noir kind of stories. So people will be
familiar with that kind of character, but not at all familiar with the world I
was cooking up. Which, again, really came from what I'd seen. And what I'd seen
was quite a lot of Hong Kong at the time, pre-skyscraper, where the actual
harbor was filled with junks, so Hong Kong was remarkably, darkly romantic. And
also a lot of New York at that time, which always seemed to be a city on
overload. It seems less so today, because, I think, between the last two mayors
there's been this massive cleanup and also a massive show of prosperity. And
prosperity, of course, is what cleans cities up. So I'd borrowed from those two
dark places and put that into what essentially would become the background, and
where we'd be looking forward into — was it 2017 or 2019?
Wired: 2019.
Scott: 2019, yeah. In fact, I even wanted to call
it San Angeles, and somebody said, "I don't get it." I said,
"Duh! San Francisco and Los Angeles?" And they go, "Oh, oh,
oh." They're not even thinking like that, they don't get it. It's bizarre.
People only think about what's under their noses, for the most part, until it
comes and kicks them in the ass. Like, right now, global warming and how we're
nursing what's happening in Iraq.
Wired: Did you take that as a lesson into your
future films?
Scott: You know what? I was always aware that
this whole Earth is on overload. I've been like that for 30 years, and people
used to think I was a — not exactly a depressive, but always dark about it. And
I'd say, "It's not dark, mate. It's a fact. It's going to come and hit you
in the head." It's right where we are right now, where we're still going,
arguing in circles. There's some politicians who still seriously believe that
we haven't got global warming.
Wired: In terms of audiences and their ability to
accept what you're presenting, did Blade
Runnerpose any sort of a lesson to you?
Scott: Word that again?
Wired: Well, you were just saying that people
clearly weren't ready to accept —
Scott: People either want a pigeonhole or have a
comfortable preconception about what they're sitting and seeing. It's a bit
like 20 years of Westerns, and, now, 45 years of cop movies. People are
comfortable with the roles, and even though every nook and cranny has been
explored, they'll still sit through endless variations, permutations on cops
and bad guys, right? In this instance, I was doing a cop and a different bad
guy. And to justify the creation of the bad guy, i.e., replication, I had to
justify that the outside world would support that idea. So, then, it has to be
in the future. So, the future that I had seen portrayed to that particular
point — without being specific or mentioning names, because that means I'm getting
really critical — all of the urban films until that moment had been pretty
ordinary to not very good. So, it was a challenge to say — it's the same as
trying to do a monster movie it's, like, Aliens is a monster movie. Alien is a C film elevated to an A film,
honestly, by it being well done and a great monster. If it hadn't had that
great monster, even with a wonderful cast, it wouldn't have been as good, I
don't think. So, in this instance, my special effect, behind it all, would be
the world. That's why I put together [industrial designer] Syd Mead and people
like that who were actually serious futurists, great speculators, great
imagination, looking to the future, where the big test is saying, draw me a car
in 30 years' time without it looking like bad science fiction. Or draw me an
electric iron that will still be pressing shirts in 20 years' time without it
looking silly. That's the stretch, that was the target: that I wanted the world
to be futuristic and yet felt — not familiar, because it won't be — but feel
authentic. I could buy it. One of the hardest sets to design was his kitchen.
It's not Tyrell's room, which is easy because we fantasize about a giant
super-Egyptianesque, neo-Egyptianesque boardroom. But the idea of saying, what
is his bathroom and kitchen like in those particular times — that's tricky.
Nevertheless fascinating. I love the problem.
Wired: Well, let me ask you the obvious question,
which is: You did a director's cut in 1992. Why wasn't that the final word?
Scott: The director's cut in 1992 was actually
the removal of the voice-over and the ending. But data-wise it wasn't a very
well put-together transition onto disc, honestly. It was represented on a disc,
and the disc wasn't terribly good. Technically, it didn't look that great. And
it should look great, because Blade
Runner, at the time, was pretty formidable — is pretty formidable even
now, actually. It's surprising when you go from photo chem and not off digital
— photo chem's better, right?
Wired: You're talking about picture quality.
Scott: Well, after all that's what we're looking
at: picture and sound. We're experiencing picture and sound. If those are sub,
then it's going to already start to affect or infect the output. It is
important. A lot of people don't even notice the difference of whether they're
watching something beautifully technical or not. But it's important to me. So
that always got in the way of it being the final version. Right now, I think
it's final because I've done all the nips and tucks — removal of voice-over,
tidying up one or two of the visual areas — that we couldn't do properly at the
time because we didn't have the technology. And removing that silly ending,
right? I tried in stuff, once again, because sometimes 25 years afterwards you
think, "Let me look at those scenes that were removed." And there was
still a good reason why the scenes weren't in the film. The putting back of
extensive stuff didn't fly. So, we were pretty good almost the first time up.
But what's great about the five-disc set, because there is so much interest and
discussion about this particular film, is that it covers every piece of ground,
from this final version to the version that was put out to a whole disc just on
discussions such as we're having right now, except between all the people who
actually helped make the movie. It's really a very in-depth chronicle of the
whole goddamn thing.
Wired: Can we talk about the deleted scenes?
Scott: Yeah.
Wired: So what will the audience never see?
Scott: There's a guy in the very opening scene
interviewing one of the replicants, and it's in some kind of institutional
booth. And he is shot. And out of that, the replicant is out and on the
streets. That's when we know we have a problem. That character later turns up
in the hospital, where Deckard goes to see him and where that character can
explain who these replicants are and where they're coming from. But it kind of
a repetition, in a way, of the meeting with Deckard's boss in Grand Central
Station, which we turn into a police station, right? Not Grand Central Station,
but the equivalent of Grand Central in LA, the beautiful Spanish downtown
station. It was a bit of over-explaining that you didn't really need, although
what was fascinating about it was the hospital room and what would be the
equivalent of the breathing machine they'd put him in because he'd taken it
through one of his lungs. So, there was that. There was a little bit more with
Rachael and Deckard, which was sexuality. I think we went far enough in the
film, so I kind of cut it back a bit. It got a bit rough. I needed to actually
have Deckard sympathetic. I thought Deckard was very sympathetic. I think
Harrison [Ford] was playing a character so opposite to what people had normally
expected from him that they were surprised by that — and the fact that the
hero, or antihero, finally gets his butt kicked by the so-called bad guy who
turns out not to be a bad guy. That's what's good about the movie, right?
Otherwise we're all down to bad guys and good guys, which is really boring.
It's always nice to make the bad guy either be interestingly sympathetic,
because it makes it more interesting. It gives him more depth, as opposed to
just being a bad ass, which is kind of boring. Watch American Gangster for Frank Lucas. He's a bad man who
sells heroin, and yet you love him. I always try to spin it, you know. I always
try to look for the pluses in these characters to keep you involved, evolved.
And I guess, in this instance, it did. It kept people involved for 25 years.
And those who had seen it are going back for more because they keep
rediscovering in the corners of the story, they keep finding new discoveries.
So, that's good as well. Somebody had written very simplistically that one of
the fascinating things about the film was that it was incomplete. That's
absolute horseshit. The film was very specifically designed and is totally
complete, with great decisions. A lot of decisions made in that film.
Wired: I'm not sure what that would mean —
"incomplete."
Scott: I read this article recently. I don't
remember who the hell it was. But somebody had intellectualized and theorized
that the film had found an ongoing audiences because in its completion it was
incomplete. And therefore, because there had been no decisions made at the end
as to who this character may be — which is entirely wrong, because this
character always in my mind was a replicant. In those particular days there was
more discussion than was welcome, as far as I'm concerned. But at the end of the
day, a director is a director, and that's the job, when he carries it hopefully
through — particularly if he's actually written or developed something. There's
a lot of me in this script. There always is in all the films I do. And you
know, a lot of ideas get injected and then are put on paper, right? So, I don't
want to pen it — I don't want credit for that — but that's what happens because
that's the kind of director I am. If I could write — I can write, but not like,
say, [Steve] Zaillian or Hampton [Fancher] — if I could, I'd do it myself. Or
if I do, it takes way too long, and I could have done two films in that time.
That's really where I come from. And besides, I like to work with writers, like
a good composer. I like to talk music with people. Can I play "God Save
Our Gracious Queen" on the piano? No. But, do I know music now? Yes. I
learned music really through films.
Wired: Well, they're both compositional media.
Scott: They always are. I always shoot my movies
with score as certainly part of the dialogue. Music is dialogue. People don't
think about it that way, but music is actually dialogue. And sometimes music is
the final, finished, additional dialogue. Music can be one of the final
characters in the film. That's why people say you shouldn't note the film
score. That is complete bullshit. If the film score is working absolutely
great, you will probably find that the film is working brilliantly and is
probably being elevated by good score.
Wired: Mm-hmm.
Scott: You don't sound too sure about that.
Wired: No, I understand. It's sort of like saying
you don't notice when the acting is excellent. Of course you don't because
you're drawn into it.
Scott: You're so sucked in, you're completely
engaged. It's afterwards when you can say, "Damn, that was good."
Then you can quietly analyze why it was good, if you want. And usually it's the
unusual circumstances of great story and great acting, and really well carried
out. Or less good story, brilliant acting that supports it. Or great story and
not such good acting, because the great story supports the not such good
acting, which means the director wasn't doing his job. You've got three parts
there, you know. I think it always comes back to, if you can, a good story. The
hard thing is getting the bloody thing on paper. That is the hardest single
thing to do. Once you've got it on paper, the doing is relatively
straightforward and, if you've really got it pinned down, makes it more — this
is a bit of a generalization — makes it more enjoyable.
Wired: Well, it was never on paper that Deckard
was a replicant.
Scott: No, it was actually.
Wired: It was on paper?
Scott: Oh yeah. The whole point of Gaff was — the
guy who makes origami and leaves little matchstick figures around, right? The
whole point of Gaff, the whole point in that direction at the very end, if Gaff
is an operator for the department, then Gaff is also probably an exterminator.
Gaff, at the end, doesn't like Deckard, and we don't really know why. And if
you take for granted for a moment that, let's say, Deckard is Nexus 7, he
probably has an unknown life span and therefore is starting to get awfully
human. Gaff, just at the very end, leaves a piece of origami, which is a piece
of silver paper you might find in a cigarette packet. And it's of a unicorn,
right? So, the unicorn that's used in Deckard's daydream tells me that Deckard
wouldn't normally talk about such a thing to anyone. If Gaff knew about that,
it's Gaff's message to say, "I've basically read your file, mate."
Right? So, that file relates to Deckard's first speech to Rachael when he says,
"That isn't your imagination, that's Tyrell's niece's daydreams. And he
describes a little spider on a bush outside the kitchen door. Do you remember
that?
Wired: I don't remember the — oh, the spider.
Yeah.
Scott: Well, the spider is an implanted piece of
imagination. And therefore Deckard has imagination and even history implanted
in his head. He even has memories of his mother and father in his head, maybe a
brother or sister in his head. So if you want to make a Nexus that really
believes they're human, then you're going to have to think about their past,
and you're going to have to put that in their mind.
Wired: Why didn't the unicorn dream sequence
appear in either the work print or the original release?
Scott: As I said, there was too much discussion
in the room. I wanted it. They didn't want it. I said, "Well, it's a
fundamental part of the story." And they said, "Well, isn't it
obvious that he's a replicant here?" And I said, "No. No more obvious
than he's not a replicant at the end. So, it's a matter of choice, isn't
it?"
Wired: As a fan reading people's comments about
this, I've come across statements of Harrison Ford saying that he was not a
replicant.
Scott: I know.
Wired: And watching the director's cut, it seemed
to me when Ford picks up the origami unicorn at the end of the movie —
Scott: And he nods.
Wired: The look on his face says, "Oh, so
Gaff was here, and he let Rachael live." It doesn't say, "Oh my God!
Am I a replicant?"
Scott: No? Yeah, but then you — OK. I don't know.
Why is he nodding when he looks at this silver unicorn? It's actually echoing
in his head when he has that drunken daydream at the piano, he's staring at the
pictures that Roy Batty had in his drawer. And he can't fathom why Roy Batty's
got all these pictures about. Why? Family, background, that's history. Roy
Batty's got no history, so he's fascinated by the past. And he has no future.
All those things are in there to tap into if you want it. But Deckard, I'm not
going to have a balloon go up. Deckard's look on his face, look at it again now
that I've told you what it was about. Deckard, again, it's like he had a
suspicion that doing the job he does, reading the files he reads on other
replicants, because — remember — he's, as they call them, a blade runner. He's
a replicant moderator or even exterminator. And if he's done so many now — and
who are the biggest hypochondriacs? Doctors. So, if he's a killer of
replicants, he may have wondered at one point, can they fiddle with me? Am I
human, or am I a replicant? That's in his innermost thoughts. I'm just giving
the fully flushed-out possibility to justify that gleaming look at the end
where he kind of glints and kind of looks angry, but it's like, to me, an
affirmation. That look confirms something. And he nods, he agrees. "Ah
hah, Gaff was here." And he goes for the elevator door. And he is a
replicant getting into an elevator with another replicant.
Wired: And why does Harrison Ford think
otherwise?
Scott: You mean that he may not be or that he is?
Wired: Well, he is on record saying that, as far
as he's concerned, Deckard is not a replicant.
Scott: Yeah, but that was, like, probably 20
years ago.
Wired: OK, but —
Scott: He's given up now. He's said, "OK,
mate. You win, you win. Anything, anything, just put it to rest."
Wired: OK.
Scott: I'm just saying that the hours of
discussion that the writer and I used to have when were trying to get it on
paper, that it expanded into that, you see. And that's where it all came from.
And suddenly you get everyone's opinion and their mother, and I don't tend to
have that any more.
Wired: A moment ago you mentioned that there's a
lot of you in the movie.
Scott: Yeah. Always has been. There's a lot of me
in The Duellists.
There's a lot of me in Alien.
I was the fifth choice of director on Alien,
and I just knew what to do with it. I knew it was a kind of — it would be
classified as a B horror movie, and I just knew what to do. So I said,
"I'll do it." And that's what happened.
Wired: You've called Blade Runner your most complete and personal film.
Scott: Probably, yeah. Probably.
Wired: Well, I'm sorry to jog something you
probably said off the top of your head 10 years ago, but can you tell me in
what ways it's complete, and especially in what ways it's personal?
Scott: Well, different things drive the bus, you
know. For instance, I've just finished a thing calledAmerican Gangster — well, I finished months ago, but it
comes out in November with Denzel [Washington] and Russell [Crowe]. And it's
honestly about two guys who are still alive. And therefore your target, when
you're preparing that, is to make sure all the accuracy goes into what you
actually know about these people. And, therefore, because they're sufficiently
interesting to make a film about, you want to make it absolutely accurate. So
you almost have a feeling of, not exactly but nearly, documentary. You really
make it a film and not a movie. You know what the difference is? It's not
exactly a documentary, but it feels awfully real. This [Blade Runner]
involved full-bore imagination, right? And so did Legend. But Legend was borrowed very much from Jean
Cocteau'sBeauty and the Beast and
a lot of the best of Disney. I just think I did it too early, actually. But
this was such a brand new presentation of an arena, which is loosely called the
future, that a lot of very specific invention went into this. And because of
that, the invention was very entwined, first of all, from the requirements of
the story and therefore from what the actors are saying to each other, which is
driving it along. So if, in very simplistic terms, Deckard's saying, "I am
going out, and I will be back later," when I see him on that street, I
have to involve that exterior, that universe. His universe has to be expanded
into credibility. That was probably the hardest pressed thing I've done,
really, because there was nothing to borrow from. You know, for Black Hawk Down, you can
just walk from street to street and say, "I want to be there at 2
o'clock," and just shoot it, right? With some prep — it's not quite that
simple, but you know. This was all invented, really.
Wired: I don't know how to ask this question, but
in the invention of it, were there personal experiences that you drew on?
Scott: I think you always do. I mean, I do. In
that respect, directors, probably — well I do. Actors draw from personal
experience, certainly, as a director. I don't think all directors do, but I
certainly draw from personal experience — sometimes I remember things,
sometimes it will come out from the back of my head and I'm thinking, I never
knew where that came from. And then I can analyze afterwards and realize that's
what it was. Funny enough, the beauty in industry, which is probably killing
us, but actually nevertheless is beautifully like Hades, is one reason why you
start to feel the beauty in the godawful condition of the red horizon and the
geysers of filth going into the air. I used to go to art school in West
Hartlepool College up in the north of England, which is almost right alongside
the Durham steel mills and Imperial Chemical Industries, and the air would
smell like toast. Toast is quite nice, but when you realize it's steel, and
it's probably particles, it's not very good. But I'm still here. So, you draw
back on that. And to walk across that footbridge at night, you'd be walking
fundamentally above, on an elevated walk on the steel mill. So you'd be
crossing through, sometimes, the smoke and dirt and crap, and you're looking
down into the fire. So, things like that are remembered. Personal experience in
spending a little bit of time in Hong Kong at the time when it was kind of
almost wonderfully medieval, Asian medieval. And therefore deciding what to do:
Do we go Hispanic or do we go Asian for what seems to be the majority on the
streets in San Angeles at that time? So I opted for Asian.
Wired: Is it true that you didn't read Do
Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? before making the movie?
Scott: I actually couldn't get into it. I met
Phillip K. Dick later, and he said, "I understand you couldn't read the
book." And I said, "You know you're so dense, mate, by page 32,
there's about 17 storylines." And I said, "So, one of the problems is
actually distilling this down into a three-act play that can be filmed."
And Hampton had done that with a thing he had called Dangerous Days. Didn't
Catherine Bigelow do a film later called Dangerous
Days?
Wired: It sounds familiar, but I don't know.
Scott: It was called Dangerous Days, and
[Michael] Deeley had come to see me when I was actually mixing Alien. And he said,
basically, "I hear Alien is pretty good, and do you want to do
another science fiction?" I said, "I don't really want to go down
that route if I can avoid it next." But, to cut a long story short, eight
months later, after a lot of buggering about what I might do, what I might not
do, the Dangerous Days script stayed with me. So I went back
to him saying, "You know, if you guys had to expand this into something
more spectacular, we can push this right outside and onto the street and create
this universe of futuristic urban future. And wouldn't that be
interesting." Because I could never shake loose the fact that I was a
designer, which I'm constantly criticized for, and I really don't give a shit.
Because, at the end of the day, it's proved to be quite useful. In fact, I'm
sitting right now in front of a 6-by-4 canvas, because I've been painting again
seriously for a while now. I'm staring at a big portrait of my niece with her
pony. And my favorite artist, if you're going to go back — do you know who
Stubbs is?
Wired: I don't know him.
Scott: George Stubbs is an 18th-century painter,
one of the great ones. I always get influenced way back when. So the target is,
how can I paint like him? That's a tough call, but I'm getting there. So I
always like to struggle with the visual side still, and it's working out quite
well, actually. I've never lost the art school background, you see. Always draw
the storyboards, and the old paintings — seven years of art school. I decided
to start painting again a year ago. I was afraid, actually, because — and big
is better. You know, when you start painting, you want to be a big canvas if
you can. So the [?] simple small sketch, and then you think that's that. And
then you're facing the big white canvas. It's a bit like a movie. And getting
the canvas together, where you can start really addressing it — I always
remember being told, "Get rid of the white canvas as fast as
possible." It's a bit like saying, "Get your assembly as quick as
possible, then you can look at the overall scheme of things."
Wired: "Your assembly"? I don't
understand.
Scott: Editing.
Wired: I see, the assembly edit.
Scott: Editing is the same thing as — when all
the lumps and pieces are missing, it's hard to judge. And that final look of
it, when you're going to look at your first cut, is always scary as hell,
because it's nearly always too long. A few road bumps in it. Sometimes you're
amazed that, "Oh, my goodness, that works." Doesn't happen very
often. It's always hard work.
Wired: I've read that there are wires and shadows
in the earlier versions of the movie that you've eliminated.
Scott: Mm-hmm, yeah.
Wired: Given the design focus that you have, and
you're famous for your attention to detail, I just wonder: How did wires and
shadows get into the original print?
Scott: Because you can't make a spinner fly
without a crank. That's why it was raining in the shot, because the rain would
help to hide the cables. But when that spinner comes around the corner — we
always say today, "Oh, that's digital." It's not. That's a real 2-ton
spinner being hoisted out around the corner and brought around the corner by a
large crank that literally brought it down, landed it, and took it off again.
Bloody good crane driver, right? You have four points on the cable that keep it
steady. Because those big cranes are incredibly technically accurate. So he
could do that. But I always used to sit there staring at the cables. Then
eventually one or two of the geeks spotted it. So we took those out.
Wired: I see.
Scott: I was tempted not to, because I thought it
was quite charming that there were cables still in the shot, you know. And
there was when Roy Batty came out of the phone booth, and for some bizarre
reason we never noticed that somebody's thumb was in the bottom left-hand
corner. The phone booth was automatic door and I couldn't de-automate it, and I
was getting really beaten up because we were against the gun, so I just shot. I
was, by then, getting a two-take Charlie. And there was the bloody thumb in the
shot. We just left it in there for a while. It's things like that, the little
mistakes like that, that you're tempted to leave them in actually. It's a
signature saying, "Yes, it is fiction, it is fantastical
moviemaking."
Wired: Today it would be done with
computer-generated imagery.
Scott: Oh yeah, you wouldn't even think about it.
Wired: There would be no thumb.
Scott: Oh, it's become too easy.
Wired: Do you have a sense that it's better to do
it physically or better to do it digitally?
Scott: No, not necessarily. I mean, otherwise
I'll sound like an old fart. I think less is more. When you see an explosion
where no one could have survived that explosion, and the person is still
running, then it's bullshit. And that's frequently why they're just not as
good, you know. Whereas when you've got to do it physically, you've got to be
careful — like really careful. And it's different. With digital the painting
book is unlimited, and there are advantages and disadvantages, you know. The
world in, say,Lord of the Rings would
have been nothing like as impressive as that 30 years ago, as it is today where
he can literally do anything. Although I must say Star Wars was one of the first — the one that
George [Lucas] directed is still, honestly, the best by far. There was the
beginning of some interesting digital thinking in that one. [Stanley] Kubrick
really showed the way with 2001:
[A Space Odyssey], where he had some very simple variations and versions
of digital work. It was not digital so much as computer-driven shots. And that
was [Douglas] Trumbull. Trumbull was working with Stanley. They got through
that pretty magnificently. That was the first of the really great science
fictions, where I went, "Wow, that works." Everything up to that one,
I always felt, was a bit too much fantasy and not enough reality.
Wired: But that's digitally controlled cameras,
which is really — I suppose the mechanical precision is related to current CGI.
But today you have a plastic universe. You generate it the way you want it to
look.
Scott: You can't say it's not as good, because
good things have come out of it, like the variations of some films where
they've really used it discerningly, I think is the best way of putting it,
rather than going to massive overkill, which is when it becomes the end, not
the means. And that's OK, because there are audiences who want that, right? I
still have to have the story, so the digital is purely not the end. It's the
means to the end.
Wired: Blade Runner was prescient in its presentation of
technology in some ways. Not presentation of technology, but in its depiction
of the world. You know, anticipating globalization, genetic engineering,
biometric security. What kind of influence do you think the movie has had on —
Scott: Enormous, enormous. I know it has. I had
one of the biggest — now maybe the biggest — one of the top six architects in
the world tell me he used to run it regularly in his office once a month.
Wired: Will you name names?
Scott: No. But he's real big. And he said to me
once, he said, "Do you know who I am?" I said, "Sure." He
said, "You know, I've got to tell you something. The bloody film Blade Runner drove me crazy. And I eventually
couldn't explain it, I just used to run it and we'd sit there watching it,
usually on a Friday afternoon, staring at it." He was talking about
retrofitting the interior on the exterior, where the innards can be beautiful.
And a lot of architecture has grown to innards on the outside, you know? And
eventually now we're into full-blown glass. I don't think we're seeing great
developments necessarily in LA. Some quite good stuff in New York. But the best
stuff is stunning, is staggering, in places like the Far East. I'll even say
Hong Kong. I'll say certainly Shanghai is really interesting. But very
interesting stuff in Europe; in Holland they've got really great architects,
fantastic. And Potsdamer Platz in Berlin is kind of interesting, evolution into
glass, which is kind of practical and beautiful. I'm not including Chicago,
because I haven't been there in a bit, but I understand Chicago has some nice
stuff there. But New York, while it's evolved spectacularly, the best in New
York, to me, is keeping a hold of all the old buildings, old warehousing and
things like that. Thank God they didn't pull them down. They're kind of
beautiful, and they've sort of kept them and they've evolved, which is cool.
London's evolved very nicely now. Really good stuff. Wow.
Wired: I haven't been there.
Scott: Architecture would have been my game if I
hadn't done movies.
Wired: That kind of comes across in Blade Runner, along with
your design sensibility.
Scott: Yep. Design and/or architecture. I think,
living — I would have gotten involved in just living. I mean, [Philippe] Starck
is very clever in terms of his — he can design a building, design interior,
design furniture. A lot of the architects are now shifting into taking on board
the whole thing, which is what it should be. Because frequently an architect
will design a building, take a walk, and not care about what's put inside it,
which is a pity, because you get a great building, you walk in there, and
everything inside is shit. They'll design the space and then walk. And then
it's up to the client to say, "Oh, we want to put these things in
there." If I was an architect, I'd say, "You can't have that
chair."
Wired: Perhaps the moviemaking analog to that is
keeping in mind how your audience will view the movie once you've made it and
released it.
Scott: Yeah, I mean, hopefully. Certainly Charles
Knode people don't talk about often enough. Charles Knode's wardrobe. Deckard
was subtle, but very good, because it's so futuristic. Usually you get bad
futuristic suits, right? Deckard was very good, very well done. And the women's
clothes, Rachael's clothes, were stunning. And I stared at what happened very
shortly after that, which are a couple of really big Italian designers. There's
a lot of influence from the film in that direction.
Wired: I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought.
Scott: You were talking about influences of the
film, various influences. Fashion, definitely. Architecture, definitely.
Interiors, definitely. A big clothing designer sent me stuff with the interior
of his whole place. The factories looked like Blade
Runner. He used to send me stuff, which is very sweet. And hotels in New
York started to get very what I call — Blade
Runner is kind of retro,
'40s projecting into the future. A lot of that happened in New York for a bit.
Wired: Those buildings you said you loved in New
York, those are '40s buildings.
Scott: Well, there's a beauty in having a big
girder in a room with bolts and things like that. You don't tear it down, you
keep it.
Wired: The quaint touches, I don't think you
intended them that way, but there are pay phones inBlade Runner.
Scott: Yeah. But there are digital phones that
have been scrawled all over, because in the nightclub he talks to her on a
digphone.
Wired: I also think of the flying car, which is
sort of a 1950s sci-fi cliche almost.
Scott: I think it's impractical. That's why it's
probably not going to happen. You'll probably get, like, if you take Los
Angeles. Who said, Los Angeles is 45 miles across and 7 meters thick? You've
got the big downtown city and the big uptown developments of Century City,
which will definitely evolve probably more than it has. I'm surprised it hasn't
evolved more. And between that you've got the huge hinterlands of two-, three-story
architecture. So, that's where LA would be far more practical for lots of air
traffic. But New York would be very impractical. And I used to fly regularly,
so here's another personal experience. The years when I was doing a lot of TV
commercials, I was flying in and out of New York. Once a week I'd go into New
York — once a month I'd go into New York, 12 times a year. And I'd get off the
plane at JFK, I'd get a helicopter, which was the service — which in those days
I remember cost $20 — get on this chopper with double rotors, almost like the
big Sikorsky. Take off, you're in — land on top of the PanAmerican Building,
winter or summer, high wind or balmy evening. And it was hairy. And that's how
I used to do it, did that for almost two years, until one of the choppers in a
very stormy January or February evening nearly missed the top of the building
because of the wind gusts. And it perched perilously on the edge and they
nearly lost it. And that was the end of that. There was no more helicopters,
they just closed them down. But I always remembered that. It was always coming
and going down 5th Avenue and approaching the PanAm Building as we got closer
and closer that I used to think about Blade Runner.
Wired: Aren't those flying cars kind of like the
explosion that you couldn't possibly walk away from, that the protagonist walks
away from?
Scott: Sorry, how do you mean?
Wired: It's maybe not so much an unrealistic as
an impractical, as you say, element —
Scott: I think it will certainly happen when they
plan it. We're talking some time away when you may have controlled cars on
controlled freeways, where you interlock, drive on, and it turns off until you
want to get off. Where you'll be going at a given speed. It will be assisted.
It won't be gasoline, it will be electric or whatever, hydrogen. I drive an
electric car now. My whole company's gone green about a year ago. So
everybody's now got the combination electric and a bit of gas. You start up a
little gas and then you go straight to electric as soon as you're moving.
Wired: What do you drive?
Scott: I'm driving — what do you call it? — a
Lexus. It's like an SUV, but it's a Lexus. It's very good, actually.
Wired: It's a hybrid.
Scott: Sound is toxic, so there's no sound. So
when you switch it on, you think, "Has the engine started or has it not
started?" There's no movement until you put it in gear; then you start
moving. It's really, really impressive. And the surge ain't bad at all.
Wired: This is difficult for science fiction
films, if everything is silent.
Scott: Yeah. You won't have any of those big
bursts and gouts of steam and shit. In those days, I thought everything from
hot and cold air, condensation, overload, all pushing us toward global warming.
Wired: What have you learned about Blade Runner, about the
story, the characters, the ideas at play, that you didn't know when you went
into production?
Scott: I always knew everything! I mean, I always
knew it. I knew all the characters. But because the film wasn't expensive, and
it wasn't cheap — we're like three years after [Michael] Cimino's movie [Heaven's
Gate], and two years after 1942, which was fairly expensive, Steven's
[Spielberg's] film — or '41 was it? We were about 23 [million dollars] and a
bit. So, probably about the same price asIndiana Jones. And Indiana Jones was the previous year. So, what did I
learn? I learned more about and got more experience as a filmmaker. But every
time you do a movie, in fact, the more experience you get, you can almost say,
the less you know. Because the more you know, the more can go wrong. So that
can also make you more insecure. But I guess I don't really worry about much. I
just try and do the best I can on the set. And at the time, I'm in three
movies. I mean this is my third movie. My first movie is pretty good actually,
called The Duellists.
And that was criticized for being too beautiful, and you know, I took that to
heart. So the next one wasAlien, and that was less beautiful but
more impressive and more grungy. I was criticized for a lack of character
development. I said, "What fucking character development do you need when
you've got that son of bitch on board?" So I started getting defensive,
then realized actually I was in fairly good shape in terms of being a film
director, because for the kind of movies that I will do, I will be always very
visual. And I won't push it in your face, but I know it's an advantage. I've
got a good eye, and I don't know what a good eye means, but I've got a good
eye, I think. I can align and see way beforehand, imagine way beforehand,
what's going to be. That's good, that's very useful. Because some people don't
have that, they have other talents. I've had to evolve my capabilities in
developing material. And even though I've chosen the story, found the writer,
had it written on The
Duellists, so that was a total development by us, by [Scott Free?], and
then got it financed and got it made. Alien I was sent, and I read it and thought,
"I know what to do with this," and didn't want to change anything.
Because they kept saying, "Want to change anything?"
"Nope." They said, "No?" I said, "No. That's it. Let's
go." So that was great, because that flew. And then Blade Runner was the play, which then evolved for
eight months every day. Hampton and I and Deeley every day talked, talked,
talked, talked. As Deeley was trying to get the financing, the film was
growing. And that was interesting because that was a real evolution of working
alongside a writer that I really respect. And it was hard for him because
sometimes he'd say "Oh fuck." I'd suddenly have this brain wave that
comes from a visual notion. We'd get a lot of, "Oh God, I thought we had
that worked out." I said, "Yeah, but wouldn't this be great?"
And he'd say, "Yeah, but that will mean this, this, this, and this."
Because then there's a domino effect, particularly if you're going to have —
the best screenplays are organic. Like a good book is very organic. And that's
why the words — I always liked the definition of sentimental. I am
asentimental. Sometimes it's used as a word to describe something as a
compliment, and I say, "No, sentimental is bad. Emotional is good."
The difference is that sentimental is unearned emotion, right? So when something
slips by and you either sneer or feel for the moment that somebody was trying
to manipulate you, it's because the playwright hadn't earned it. Right? He
hadn't earned the right to push your emotional button. That's when you think,
blech. OK, then it means he came too quick or from the wrong direction.
