Film Club

Hi again everyone, as I said last post, this summer we will be watching 3 sci-fi films for Film Club.  The first film will be shown this month on Thursday, June 21st @ 6:15pm.  We will be watching Ridley Scott's:  Blade Runner.

Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer and Sean Young.  The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.  The film depicts a dystopian Los Angeles in November 2019 in which genetically engineered robots called replicants-visually indistinguishable from adult humans- are manufactured by the powerful Tyrell Corporation as well as by other "mega-manufacturers" around the world.  Their use on Earth is banned and replicants are exclusively used for dangerous, menial or leisure work on off-world colonies.  Replicants who defy the ban and return to Earth are hunted down and "retired" by police special operatives know as "Blade Runners".  The plot focuses on a brutal and cunning group of recently escaped replicants hiding in Los Angeles and the burnt out expert Blade Runner, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), who reluctantly agrees to take on one more assignment to hunt them down.

Although Blade Runner is ostensibly an action film, it operates on multiple dramatic and narrative levels.  It is indebted to film noir conventions: the femme fatale, dark and shadowy cinematography, and the questionable moral outlook of the hero-in this case, extended to include reflections upon the nature of his own humanity. (from Wikipedia)

Like much of Philip K. Dick's work, Blade Runner deals with not only what it means to be human but also the implications that arise with the creation of non-organic life and it's status as "human" or "non-human".  Do synthetics have souls?  Do they feel the same emotions as humans?  Are robots aware of their inorganic nature?  Does this make them any more or less "human"?  and as the novel on which the film is based asks, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Blade Runner is a beautiful mixture of science fiction and a sub-genre of film noir referred to as "neo-noir" (it also happens to be a personal favorite of mine).  This is a film you will not want to miss.