The Top 5 List Thread

[Einherjar86]

But to the first part, I think you're being overly cynical. To achieve a moment of affirming Harrison Ford's manly desirability they didn't need to include a very morally ambiguous "love scene" and as you already stated yourself, that scene perfectly fits in with his character. It's not out of place with anything else he does in the film and it doesn't come across as some hamfisted insertion of a scene to showcase his hunk status.

I agree. I'm saying that the producers may have encouraged Scott to include a sex scene, and Scott could have made a decision to depict the scene as non-consensual in order to comment on the disparity between human and android rights. For me, the feminist angle is inextricable from the presentation of the scene, and the film at large. Pris is a "pleasure model," Rachel obviously doesn't want to have sex with Deckard but he forces her to... By assuming the context of android subjects, the film suggests a "women are things" angle.

I'm not saying this is the only interpretation, because I don't believe there's only one. But this is one strikes me as one of the most evident.

I think this is a much more accurate explanation for the scene. I know I'm not some learned neo-aristocrat like yourself () but I always viewed that scene as Deckard, who previously destroyed her sense of her own humanity, attempting to re-humanize her. It's right there in the dialogue when she says she can no longer trust her emotions (I think that's what she says).

Can you explain this a bit more? You're right that Deckard reveals her literal non-humanity to her, but her reaction to this is the most human reaction imaginable: she's destroyed, partially because she's learned her origins, and partially because she knows that the emotions she feels are manufactured. She's going through an existential crisis, and Deckard's solution is to give her his dick?

The irony of the situation is that if his intention is to re-humanize her, he does it in a particularly dehumanizing way.

What do you think of the angle that Deckard is himself a replicant?

I know this is always the question, but for me the driving uncertainty of the film isn't whether certain characters are androids or not; it's what the real difference is between humans and androids.

The most obvious answer is ontological: that humans are "natural" and androids are "artificial." The problem here is that there is no way to verify this distinction unless you slice open an android's body (and even then, the differences are ambiguous; the novel describes androids as a combination of organic and technological components, but never clarifies the ratio or internal appearance). If a Voigt-Kampff test yields an uncertain result, then what's our next option? If an android convinces us, in a purely behavioral manner, that it's human, then what basis do we have for determining its counterfeit quality?

If Deckard is a replicant, then it would seem to me to be a betrayal of the film's deepest question. The more compelling option, for me, is that Deckard is a human with absolutely no empathy--that he is, for all intents and purposes, a human who acts as replicants are supposed to act. While other characters like Rachel and Roy exhibit serious empathetic tendencies, Deckard is an emotionless shell (until maybe the end... maybe). Sure, it could be that Deckard's realization that he's a replicant forces him to reconsider his attitude toward them; but this is analogous to a slave owner suddenly finding himself in the position of a slave and admitting that it sucks. There's no serious realization there, just the perpetuation of self-interest.

The better conclusion is that Deckard is a shitball of a human being who acts like a non-empathetic android.

Final note--it's also interesting that P.K. Dick always said that Deckard wasn't an android, yet in the novel he struggles repeatedly with the question of why he feels more empathy toward androids (i.e. inanimate objects) than he does toward real animals. It's a fascinating dilemma that the film basically brushes aside, choosing instead to just depict Deckard as a big fucking "dick-hard."

 

[CiG]

The main reason I bring up Deckard's human status is because so much of your analysis is shot to shit if he is indeed a replicant who is programmed to hunt down and terminate other replicants which would involve some kind of zero empathy programming, which if true would actually create a new paradigm that other replicants ended up humanizing Deckard during the process of the film.

It would also bring into question the concept of consent from the angle of the rapist. Can a non-human thing rape a thing etc.

The irony of the situation is that if his intention is to re-humanize her, he does it in a particularly dehumanizing way.

I'm not saying this is the only interpretation, because I don't believe there's only one. But this is one strikes me as one of the most evident.

That's only ironic if you assume she doesn't (or didn't before she started questioning them) have feelings for him.

*For someone who tends to recoil at simplistic, black-and-white explanations and appeals to common sense for very complex subjects, you sure seem to be avoiding the context here and instead seem to simplify it beyond reason given the subject of the film.

Probably a product of your feminist angle?

Can you explain this a bit more? You're right that Deckard reveals her literal non-humanity to her, but her reaction to this is the most human reaction imaginable: she's destroyed, partially because she's learned her origins, and partially because she knows that the emotions she feels are manufactured. She's going through an existential crisis, and Deckard's solution is to give her his dick?

I'm not sure how that is the most human reaction ever. It assumes that we have any real life example to use as a guide for such a reaction, which we obviously don't because humans are humans.

What I mean is that they had both clearly developed feelings for each other (she shoots and kills Leon to save Deckard is one example of her development of feelings towards Deckard) but by the time she goes to Deckard's apartment for the second time she is clearly dehumanized and imo what Deckard does is force human emotions back onto her via his rainy neo-noir penis.

I know that in the theatrical release the scene cuts at them kissing, but have you watched the director's cut? She is blatantly reciprocating sexually, to anybody but an ideologue (imo) there are clearly social cues and an underlying consensual context, she is hesitant but not a victim.



@Einherjar86 fyi I accidentally posted the wrong clip to make my point. I meant to post this one. ^

 

[Einherjar86]

Those are some awesome points.

You're right that my reading of the film is limited to an extent, but that's because I'm hesitant to grant that Deckard is an android. Again, such a move would threaten to obliterate the opportunity for comparison.

If we start wondering whether Deckard is an android, then where does our questioning end? Maybe Sebastian is an android (he suffers from premature aging--maybe a side effect of some technical malfunction...?). Hell, maybe Tyrell is an android...

Obviously it could raise other interesting questions if Deckard is an android (and would be an interesting commentary on our narrative assumptions); but based on the information the film gives us, all we can do is speculate about that. Deckard can only appear to us as a shockingly inhuman human, while the replicants appear undeniably more human than him. In this way, the film becomes a social commentary on the relation between authority and subject.

I'd say that neither interpretation is better than the other, but since the film offers no proof that Deckard is an android, I'm hesitant to go with that case.

That's only ironic if you assume she doesn't (or didn't before she started questioning them) have feelings for him.

*For someone who tends to recoil at simplistic, black-and-white explanations and appeals to common sense for very complex subjects, you sure seem to be avoiding the context here and instead seem to simplify it beyond reason given the subject of the film.

Probably a product of your feminist angle?

I know that in the theatrical release the scene cuts at them kissing, but have you watched the director's cut? She is blatantly reciprocating sexually, to anybody but an ideologue (imo) there are clearly social cues and an underlying consensual context, she is hesitant but not a victim.

Here's my main concern, and you're right that it's a political one.

There's no way in which I view Deckard's actions as acceptable. If he really does have feelings for Rachel, then it strikes me that the most empathetic thing he could do in that moment would be to try and talk to her--not keep blocking her way, keep her from opening the door, and force her up against the wall. He might think that she wants him, but at that point he's just going off prior "social cues," as you say, and entirely ignoring her current social cues. In that very moment, if she says no, then there's no way that his aggression somehow equals empathetic passion.

You may be absolutely right that she does have feelings for him. In fact, I think you are right. But none of that changes the fact that she says "no" at first, and Deckard doesn't accept this as an answer. Her eventual reciprocation doesn't alter the initial dynamic of the scene.

You're right that if Deckard is an android, then the scene needs to be reassessed.

I'm not sure how that is the most human reaction ever. It assumes that we have any real life example to use as a guide for such a reaction, which we obviously don't because humans are humans.

I'm not sure I follow, because this doesn't make sense to me. Since we're humans we do have examples to use as guides--we have human reactions.

Imagine if neuroscientists determined that emotions weren't real in the sense we thought, but were illusions manufactured by the brain intended to distract us from what's actually happening around us. Suddenly we would feel that we can't trust those emotions anymore; we would lose all sense of orientation when it comes to our experience of emotions because we can't circumvent the emotional response or compare it to any non-emotional response because humans are humans. We're all the same.

In a scenario with humans and androids, however, there is a means for comparison. Rachel's reaction is an emotional one--she cries, she feels lost, she feels disoriented with regard to her emotions; and what's worse, she can't even trust the emotions she's feeling about her new knowledge. If we compare her reaction to my hypothetical scenario above, then it strikes me as an appropriately human reaction.

 

[no country for old wainds]

Has anybody ever looked at someone's favourite films list, seen some things you don't know so you look them up and end up feeling ashamed by the ones you don't know because they look so good?

So far these two made me feel like that.
I have a Maggie Cheung boner right now.

hardly anyone knows THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI but you'd probably like it, i think of it as the UNFORGIVEN of the samurai genre basically. not saying it's that good, just that it relates to the genre in a similar kinda way. i'm surprised you don't know IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE though! wong kar wai is a major critical darling and that's his most famous movie. i think it was number 1 on the 'they shoot pictures don't they' 21st century list last i checked (edit: still is), which is like the definitive measure of critical acclaim (for what that's worth). it's pretty great, as are many of his movies if you haven't seen them. i think you might hate MIAMI VICE if you come to it as a fan of the show lol, it kinda flopped for a reason and it took me two viewings to get past how dumb it is in narrative/script/etc - it's pretty amazing/unique on a purely sensory/atmospheric level though. michael mann is secretly a very cinematic director i think, the writing almost feels like an afterthought a lot of the time.

as for harry potter, i think that series of films is useful in demonstrating just how much of a difference a good director can make; the cuaron (of children of men/pan's labyrinth/gravity fame) and yates movies are a lot better than the columbus and newell ones. rowling stumbled onto a fruitful concept (i'm a sucker for bleak coming of age stuff, especially in an epic fantasy saga context) but she's kind of a hack and her execution is super uneven (or downright insulting when it comes to the ending), so it takes a good director to distill what's good about the series and pull off damage control when required. those three movies i listed are the only ones i really like, but i like them a lot. they're so much more dark and raw and conflicted than mainstream kids' series has any right to be.

this review of the 5th one by walter chaw actually got me more heavily into film criticism. in a few brief paragraphs it laid out a lot of things i felt about this movie but couldn't really put into words, and at the time i had no idea people wrote these kinds of pieces about such mainstream blockbuster type stuff:

Spoiler

"It's a blasted earth, this green that holds Hogwarts now, and during a scene where our hero wizard is being tortured into forgetfulness for his own good, director David Yates cues a blanket of forgetful snow to fall. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (hereafter Harry Potter 5) is, likes its title suggests, a startling return to form for the series after Alfonso Cuarón's exceptional Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was followed by the insipid contribution of rom-com specialist Mike Newell. Gratifyingly complex and deliciously Freudian, a moment where Harry loses the last of his family--mirroring a moment in the third film where, on the banks of a lake, he almost loses himself--is preceded by an identical progression from the third film in which he's mistaken for his own father. Alas this time, Harry's not able to affect positive change in the guise of his dad; it's the boy becoming the man, frustrated and folded into a world of dread and doom. As drawn in the film, Potter's universe is like Potter's Field, a place where strangers and orphans are buried on the eve of war and a child's unavoidable matriculation into corruption. Harry Potter 5 is dark as pitch: unsettling, unsettled, unresolved, and utterly remarkable.

I can't judge whether neophytes would enjoy the film without having seen the others--there doesn't seem much in the development of Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint), or Hermione (Emma Watson) beyond that Harry, after witnessing a murder in the previous instalment, is consumed with impotent rage throughout the first half of the picture--but the story is so steeped in primate logic (sex, blood, vengeance, shame) that a primer is likely unnecessary. Issues of class and race resurface here as they tend to do when the Harry Potter series is at its best, and Harry's much-publicized first kiss with love interest Cho (Katie Leung) is resolved fascinatingly with betrayal and unresolved vindication. But the highlight of the piece finds Harry, in a fit of pique, turning the tables on an inquisitive Snape (Alan Rickman) and discovering that his father as a young man (Robbie Jarvis) was Snape's bully. It's an amazing moment, astonishing in its coldness and complexity--this robbing of a child's illusions of his father existing comfortably shoulder-to-shoulder with an unflagging love of that parent, sobered but un-tempered by the baseness of the father's humanity. There's religion in that revelation--a compassionate religion at that, the father/martyr's transformation into the body of a man making his sacrifice not less but greater. I can't count a lot of instances where I've been more gratified by a children's wonderland, because while Harry Potter 5 tackles a boy's reverence for his father with nonpareil transparency, it makes time to address unjust administrations, the power of an unfriendly press, and the ills of a judicial system hijacked by politics and fast fashion.

The children return centre-stage for this one, freed of the actor's workshop tips imposed on them by Newell. They have an earnestness about them that plays out like what it is (children pretending to be big), but I don't know that children asked to be big would act any differently. Michael Gambon and Imelda Staunton stand out as the two duelling headmasters of Hogwarts School, at which Harry and his friends assemble a small band of students to rail against a blinkered educational system modeled, one stretches, on the Kansas School Board's recommended curriculum. Their aim is to prepare for the coming conflagration against arch big-bad Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), though their crowning triumph is as a metaphor for how ill-served are our children by a steady diet of pabulum, platitude, and Pollyannaism. In that respect, Harry Potter 5 is its own best example, providing skies that are overcast and villains who emerge, sometimes literally, from the silt in the picture's midnight atmosphere. The picture also boasts a herd of marauding centaurs, riled from the gerrymandering of their territory (Harry Potter 5 with environmental concerns? You bet); a portrait of arrested childhood in a little boy lost left to fend for itself in a dark wood; and, of course, that enduring image of evil in Staunton's pink, Jackie-O suited headmistress, forcing her charges to cut words of repentance into their flesh while ensconced in a Heritage USA-hell forge of animated kitten collector's plates.

The picture is wicked in its satire but not without purpose. It's that rarity of a special effects spectacular that integrates its phantasms into the mundane of the characters' existences, and when it does show off, as in a scene where the students summon their protective avatars, there's real wonder to it. A film that deserves to be called a fairytale (as the third entry did) for all its darkness and useful enchantment, it fulfills its mandate to be exciting in beautifully-crafted set-pieces in a warehouse of glass globes and a circular arena around a whispering portal where wizards mad and divine engage in alien tactical warfare. I like that it ends on a field of sand for its tactile contemporary link to our own imbroglio; and I like that at the end of it, there's a sense inescapable that if Harry should die fighting his shadow, it's because he didn't learn his lessons of control and tolerance well enough from the people he saw as enemy and the situations he perceived as perilous. Harry Potter 5 is the series' The Empire Strikes Back: the good guys get the tar beaten out of them and learn not only that they're a mirror's thickness from being the bad guys, but also that the fathers they're destined to become are not always the heroes of their stories. A film about a lot of things, it draws its power from the Gordian complexity of crafting a legacy through the belief--when every other system and bedrock is filthy with rot and cynicism--in the ability to forget."

Can't remember if we had this conversation before but would I like The New World, do you think?

i'm not sure actually, i don't remember it that well myself. it's basically a pocahontas adaptation in the same basic style as THE THIN RED LINE. i don't recall liking it as much as his first three, i think i had to watch it a second time to like it much at all in fact, but there's more chance of you liking it than anything that came after.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

(i'm a sucker for bleak coming of age stuff, especially in an epic fantasy saga context)

I've said this before, but you really should watch Shinsekai Yori. It's not exactly an "epic fantasy saga" but it is kind of like Harry Potter by way of deconstructive mindfuck anime like NGE and such but also not really. Rewatching it right now and it comes pretty close to being my favorite damn thing in the world it's so stupid good.

 

[CiG]

You're right that my reading of the film is limited to an extent, but that's because I'm hesitant to grant that Deckard is an android. Again, such a move would threaten to obliterate the opportunity for comparison.

If we start wondering whether Deckard is an android, then where does our questioning end? Maybe Sebastian is an android (he suffers from premature aging--maybe a side effect of some technical malfunction...?). Hell, maybe Tyrell is an android...

Obviously it could raise other interesting questions if Deckard is an android (and would be an interesting commentary on our narrative assumptions); but based on the information the film gives us, all we can do is speculate about that. Deckard can only appear to us as a shockingly inhuman human, while the replicants appear undeniably more human than him. In this way, the film becomes a social commentary on the relation between authority and subject.

I'd say that neither interpretation is better than the other, but since the film offers no proof that Deckard is an android, I'm hesitant to go with that case.

I actually don't see it as interpretation vs interpretation as the director himself has stated explicitly that Deckard is in fact a replicant.

Here's my main concern, and you're right that it's a political one.

There's no way in which I view Deckard's actions as acceptable. If he really does have feelings for Rachel, then it strikes me that the most empathetic thing he could do in that moment would be to try and talk to her--not keep blocking her way, keep her from opening the door, and force her up against the wall. He might think that she wants him, but at that point he's just going off prior "social cues," as you say, and entirely ignoring her current social cues. In that very moment, if she says no, then there's no way that his aggression somehow equals empathetic passion.

You may be absolutely right that she does have feelings for him. In fact, I think you are right. But none of that changes the fact that she says "no" at first, and Deckard doesn't accept this as an answer. Her eventual reciprocation doesn't alter the initial dynamic of the scene.

But how do you feel about the following scenes which show them having consensual sex?

Sorry I just have no respect for this view of the scene, but you're obviously entitled to it. Also, below I explained my logic a bit further but we may just disagree about this scene too much.

I'm not sure I follow, because this doesn't make sense to me. Since we're humans we do have examples to use as guides--we have human reactions.

We have human reactions to finding out something as earth-shattering as I'm not human to use as guides? That was my point that what Rachel finds out is something we don't really have anything to compare it with.

Imagine if neuroscientists determined that emotions weren't real in the sense we thought, but were illusions manufactured by the brain intended to distract us from what's actually happening around us. Suddenly we would feel that we can't trust those emotions anymore; we would lose all sense of orientation when it comes to our experience of emotions because we can't circumvent the emotional response or compare it to any non-emotional response because humans are humans. We're all the same.

I actually don't think this is true even if your analogy is true re: the facts, because unlike Rachel's revelation which is very basic on its face (you're not a human, you're a replicant), I think only scientists and intellectuals would understand your neuroscientific revelation and thus it would only impact the highly learned in the same way the discovery that love isn't some mystical emotion but rather PEA acting as a releasing agent of norepinephrine and dopamine which creates the feeling of romantic love doesn't cause the average person to devalue the love emotion etc.

It's also important to mention that not only does Rachel distrust her own emotions but since she discovered that she is a pleasure model, I think she assumed that Deckard was only kissing her because it is her function to be kissed, which is why Deckard forces her to reciprocate by making her ask to be kissed rather than just doing what rapists do.

 

[CiG]

 

[EspaDa]

Someone please recommend me some movies. My favs are:

- Fight Club
- American History X
- The Silence of the Lambs
- Black Hawk Down
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Leon
- Man on a Ledge
- Altered States

I'm an utter noob when it comes to movies, so please be understanding .

 

[The Ozzman]

Someone please recommend me some movies. My favs are:

- Fight Club
- American History X
- The Silence of the Lambs
- Black Hawk Down
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Leon
- Man on a Ledge
- Altered States

I'm an utter noob when it comes to movies, so please be understanding .

Heat
Serpico
Terminator and Terminator 2

 

[CiG]

Someone please recommend me some movies. My favs are:

- Fight Club
- American History X
- The Silence of the Lambs
- Black Hawk Down
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Leon
- Man on a Ledge
- Altered States

I'm an utter noob when it comes to movies, so please be understanding .

La Femme Nikita, We Were Soldiers, Eastern Promises.

 

[Einherjar86]

I actually don't see it as interpretation vs interpretation as the director himself has stated explicitly that Deckard is in fact a replicant.

And Scott is borrowing source material from P.K. Dick, who stated that Deckard isn't an android. Why isn't Dick's comment the more authoritative in this case? When you start appealing to authorial intention, you run into a lot of snags (related: the intentional fallacy).

To dissect this kind of argument a bit more--Scott's comment that Deckard is a replicant doesn't actually take place within the universe (i.e. narrative) of the film. The film itself, which is the primary source of information for Deckard's ontology, offers no definitive proof of his artificiality; the closest it comes is the clues that Scott tossed into the director's cut.

Ultimately, Scott's comment amounts to nothing more than one more interpretation of the text itself. I realize this seems weird, but we cannot derive Deckard's replicant status from the text of the narrative universe, and so we can't call Scott's comment anything more than an interpretation, even if he was the director of the film. Obviously his opinion means something, and it's some curious biographical info; but it's no more authoritative than Dick's, or Harrison Ford's (who felt that Deckard should be human), or anyone else's.

But how do you feel about the following scenes which show them having consensual sex?

As I already said, I admit that Rachel probably does have feelings for Deckard. I said this in my last post. But this doesn't negate Deckard's original actions--that's my point. It's a political problem, yes. Narratively speaking, there is a way to comprehend why Rachel eventually consents; but this eventual consent shouldn't sanction Deckard's original actions.

Sorry I just have no respect for this view of the scene, but you're obviously entitled to it. Also, below I explained my logic a bit further but we may just disagree about this scene too much.

That's too bad, because I respect your view. I'm trying to explain why my training in narrative theory doesn't permit me to acknowledge Scott's comment as anything more than opinion/interpretation, and why I think there are multiple ways to read a scene simultaneously.

We have human reactions to finding out something as earth-shattering as I'm not human to use as guides? That was my point that what Rachel finds out is something we don't really have anything to compare it with.

Yes, I think we do (maybe not personally, but historically). But I don't think you actually need the context of replication to imagine what our reactions would be.

The premise of Blade Runner is that newer androids don't know they're androids because their memories are manufactured. All Rachel actually has to go on is the word of others telling her she isn't human, yet she still feels, right down to the marrow, that she is human. She has no way to verify her non-humanity from her perspective.

She still occupies exactly the same position that we all do (emotions, memories of youth, etc.). All we have to do is imagine feeling exactly the way we do now, but what it would mean if our parents weren't our parents, if our childhood wasn't our childhood? This is a thought experiment, and we can entertain it because Rachel feels exactly the way we do.

I actually don't think this is true even if your analogy is true re: the facts, because unlike Rachel's revelation which is very basic on its face (you're not a human, you're a replicant), I think only scientists and intellectuals would understand your neuroscientific revelation and thus it would only impact the highly learned in the same way the discovery that love isn't some mystical emotion but rather PEA acting as a releasing agent of norepinephrine and dopamine which creates the feeling of romantic love doesn't cause the average person to devalue the love emotion etc.

But Rachel's revelation isn't basic by any means! She still feels one hundred percent human. She can't deduce or intuit the difference.

It's also important to mention that not only does Rachel distrust her own emotions but since she discovered that she is a pleasure model, I think she assumed that Deckard was only kissing her because it is her function to be kissed, which is why Deckard forces her to reciprocate by making her ask to be kissed rather than just doing what rapists do.

Sorry, that doesn't sit well with me at all. You think that if someone forces a woman to say "kiss me" before they take advantage of them, that isn't "what rapists do"?

 

[Carpe Mortem]

Someone please recommend me some movies. My favs are:

- Fight Club
- American History X
- The Silence of the Lambs
- Black Hawk Down
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Leon
- Man on a Ledge
- Altered States

I'm an utter noob when it comes to movies, so please be understanding .

Have you seen Se7en? Might be up your alley, serial killer stuff with some heavy hitting actors.

 

[EspaDa]

Have you seen Se7en? Might be up your alley, serial killer stuff with some heavy hitting actors.

Yeah, I've seen it once. Great one! Have to see it one more time, thanks for reminding me of it!

 

[Carpe Mortem]

I haven't seen Black Hawk Down yet and I've heard over and over that it's fantastic. Maybe I'll remedy that today.

 

[no country for old wainds]

Someone please recommend me some movies. My favs are:

- Fight Club
- American History X
- The Silence of the Lambs
- Black Hawk Down
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Leon
- Man on a Ledge
- Altered States

I'm an utter noob when it comes to movies, so please be understanding .

a bunch of classics that are easy to watch/like:
pulp fiction
the usual suspects
terminator (1&2)
alien (and aliens)
the thing
predator
die hard
raiders of the lost ark
jaws
the shining
robocop
the good the bad and the ugly
taxi driver
apocalypse now

the last two or three are probably a bit more challenging than the others.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

the last two or three are probably a bit more challenging than the others.

Great list, but there's nothing "challenging" about The Good, the Bad and the Ugly .... and its probably the most straightforward out of the Dollars trilogy.

Apocalypse Now is the best movie on that list.

 

[no country for old wainds]

eh probably. it's more sparse with more silences than you typically get in hollywood but i guess it's not really 'challenging', just super stylised. i did recommend it 'cause it's the most accessible of the trilogy - i like ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST even more myself.

i agree re: APOCALYPSE NOW also.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Yeah, Once Upon A Time in The West is the greatest western of all time imo. I dont think The Good, the Bad and the Ugly can even hold a candle to it.

 

[CiG]

And Scott is borrowing source material from P.K. Dick, who stated that Deckard isn't an android. Why isn't Dick's comment the more authoritative in this case? When you start appealing to authorial intention, you run into a lot of snags (related: the intentional fallacy).

Dick's comment is less authoritative because he sold the rights to make his book into a film and by doing so he gave creative controls to the director. Films based on books often veer from the source material in significant ways and that's why you should always judge a film based on its own merits and the intentions of the director.

At least that's how I see it.

To dissect this kind of argument a bit more--Scott's comment that Deckard is a replicant doesn't actually take place within the universe (i.e. narrative) of the film. The film itself, which is the primary source of information for Deckard's ontology, offers no definitive proof of his artificiality; the closest it comes is the clues that Scott tossed into the director's cut.

I consider the director's cut to be a valid piece of narrative which simply builds upon the clues presented in the theatrical version in the character Gaff. If you want to completely discount the director's cut fair enough.

Ultimately, Scott's comment amounts to nothing more than one more interpretation of the text itself. I realize this seems weird, but we cannot derive Deckard's replicant status from the text of the narrative universe, and so we can't call Scott's comment anything more than an interpretation, even if he was the director of the film. Obviously his opinion means something, and it's some curious biographical info; but it's no more authoritative than Dick's, or Harrison Ford's (who felt that Deckard should be human), or anyone else's.

I completely disagree. It was Scott's vision, the rest of the people you mentioned were tools to reach it.

As I already said, I admit that Rachel probably does have feelings for Deckard. I said this in my last post. But this doesn't negate Deckard's original actions--that's my point. It's a political problem, yes. Narratively speaking, there is a way to comprehend why Rachel eventually consents; but this eventual consent shouldn't sanction Deckard's original actions.

I don't think it does sanction his original actions because I do believe it was a scene which depicted something of a forceful nature, the difference for me I suppose is that the thing being forced upon her wasn't his lust, I see something deeper than that myself. I think he was forcing her humanity back inside of her and I'm not intelligent enough to express exactly what I mean on a philosophical level.

Sorry, that doesn't sit well with me at all. You think that if someone forces a woman to say "kiss me" before they take advantage of them, that isn't "what rapists do"?

No. Rapists don't ask is the point.
The fact that he does what he does is a clear indication that there is more to the scene than your interpretation.
Rapists also don't "take advantage of people" and I'm surprised you would even say something like that in relation to rape. People who manipulate other people into sex knowing that they're emotionally vulnerable are moral dirtbags but not rapists.

This is a movie not a real life situation and so everything that happens has some meaning to some degree.
I genuinely do believe that it goes beyond this and I have watched enough women's revenge exploitation films to not feel squirmish about admitting something in a film is rape, but I am also not saying the scene was some ordinary love scene either it is clearly morally ambiguous.

That's too bad, because I respect your view.

Now I feel bad.
I respect your views in general, but actually your view of this scene is a growing consensus on film blogs and reviews so I was more speaking to a narrative larger than us on UM debating it.

 

[CiG]

@Einherjar86 I also have a question that might help our disagreement in some way:

Do you think this rape scene was intentionally a rape scene on the part of the director or do you think he intended something else but it came out looking like a rape scene? Intentional vs. accidental?

And also, if the replicant status of Deckard isn't valid because Ford considered his character a human and Dick's book made him a human, doesn't it also follow that Deckard isn't a rapist because his sex with Rachel in the book is consensual and I doubt any of the actors viewed Deckard as a rapist?