Abstract
The chapter will look into the status of the artificial humans in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) by considering the manner in which their inhumanity correlates with their eroticization as well as the visual and tactile qualities of the film itself. It will be argued that much of the film’s appeal lies in its sensual complexity. Like the Replicants it depicts, the movie seems to have a deeper nature than it seems at first sight (or viewing). The film’s attraction in the eyes of the public should not be taken for granted, since it has undergone a dynamic change from the time of its release in theaters to its achievement of the status of a cult classic on home video media. The chapter will suggest the reasons for this phenomenon. Moreover, the chapter will touch upon the eroticization of the Replicants, arguing that who they are is related to what they wear. It will be argued that the artificial humans can be associated with the looks and function of their clothing. By artfully stylizing the presented reality and the characters, using the textures of clothes, plastic, as well as the interplay between light and dark itself, Scott renders the city lifelike, and the Replicants dynamic: rebellious and sensual.
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- 1.
The term android was used throughout Philip K. Dick’s book on which the film is based, including its telling title: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
- 2.
The phrase is the motto of Tyrell Corporation, as mentioned by Tyrell himself in the film.
- 3.
It should be noted that the characteristically extravagant look of futuristic clothing goes back at least to 1964 and Andre Courreges’s famous space age collection (141), a trend continued by Pierre Cardin’s 1967 “Cosmocorps”, and later designs by Issey Miyake in the 1980s or Helmut Lang in 1990s. Examples of imitative “space-age” costumes in science-fiction films are too numerous to be listed.
- 4.
For instance, Canby (1982) referred to Blade Runner as a “space-age Sam Spade tale,” Pulleine (1983: 119) compared Rachel to “nothing less than a reincarnation of the Joan Crawford-style woman-in-jeopardy”, while Maza (1982: 9) noted the film’s similarity to “Dashiell Hammett detective stories” and tense “atmosphere of the 1940s”.
- 5.
Despite having genius-level intellect (as evidenced by his ability to approach Tyrell), Batty surprisingly praises Deckard for his unsound or pointless behavior during the final chase sequence of the movie: “That was irrational of you … not to mention unsportsmanlike.” This shows that Batty has abandoned all reason (as evidenced by his nakedness and howling) and has come to revel in his passions and feelings instead.
- 6.
Much like the brutal outburst of Leon during the film’s initial sequence, when he is asked about his parent.
- 7.
For instance Corliss, one of the film’s critics, admits that its visual “wizardry” provides a neigh tangible experience since “[t]he pleasures of texture have rarely been so savory” (1982: 68).
- 8.
Interestingly, in 2002 Prada produced a novel, vinyl raincoat trench, which remained transparent until it became wet from the rain, at which point it became opaque and obscured the clothes beneath it. As can be seen, a completely reverse process was used than in case of Zhora’s provocative uniform.
- 9.
According to Sammon, the film “is one of the most fully realized visions of a future society ever set on film, and repeated viewings are an absolute necessity if one wants to catch the multitude of design flourishes littering every frame” (2007: xvi), a film to which “most viewers repeatedly return” (2007: 3) and which made it into “one of the all-time rental champs” (2007: xvii). In 1982 Mann lauded Scott’s “stunning use of detail” which caused some people to see it more than once, “finding it impossible to fully savor the first time” (1982: 32).
- 10.
Lens flare is still used in science-fiction film, e.g. in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek (2009) or in the more recent Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome (2012). The former example has gained such notoriety for the overuse of the flare effect that the director felt it necessary to publicly apologize for it and digitally removed some of the lens flares for its DVD and Blu-Ray releases (Bibbiani, 2013).
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Skweres, A. (2019). Clothes Make the Man—The Relation Between the Sensual and the Sexual in Blade Runner (1982). In: McLuhan’s Galaxies: Science Fiction Film Aesthetics in Light of Marshall McLuhan’s Thought. Second Language Learning and Teaching(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04104-5_1
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