Essay Revision Plan - Blade Runner - Character Question
Choose a scene or sequence from a film or television drama that is important to our understanding of a character.
By referring to appropriate techniques, explain how the scene changes our understanding of the character in the film as a whole.
Introduction
‘Blade Runner - the Director’s Cut’ is a 1992 re-release of the 1982 Science Fiction film of the same name directed by Ridley Scott, who also directed ‘Alien’. It tells the story of a reluctant policeman or ‘Blade Runner’ who is forced to track down and execute a number of escaped ‘replicants’, robots who cannot be told apart from humans. The film deals with the themes of empathy, moral responsibility, and what it means to be human. One scene that is important to our understanding of a character is the final action scene, in which the final surviving replicant, Roy Batty, confronts the Blade Runner, Rick Deckard in a roof-top showdown. Throughout the film, the replicants, including Roy, have been portrayed as ruthless killers. In this scene though, which includes religious imagery and symbolism that suggests the replicants may have souls, Roy saves Deckard rather than killing him and gives a speech about the transience of life. As well as symbolism and religious allusions, Scott uses the motif of water to emphasise Roy’s emotional side, high and low angle shots and close-ups to change our perception of Roy, and dialogue to reveal Roy’s inner thoughts, something that also develops the audience’s understanding of his character.
Body
Body Para 1: Symbolism / Religious Allusions ?affect our understanding of the character
l Suggest that far from being an emotionless killing machine, Roy is Christ-like:
n Hand with nail in it saves Deckard
n Dove flies up into blue sky at moment of death (symbolising Roy’s soul)
l Like Christ, Roy ultimately comes to reject violence and conflict, and show his more merciful qualities by sparing Deckard’s life
l It becomes clear that Roy had been chasing Deckard not to kill him, but to allow him to empathise with the replicants who he had been hunting down (Dialogue: ‘quite a thing to live in fear’)
l Sparing Deckard is an anticlimax, and not at all what we expect from an action film.
n Difficult to see ending as a Christian message, as the film has other aspects which conflict with Christianity
Body Para 2: Motif of water ?affects our understanding of the character
l Emphasises Roy’s emotional side,
n As Roy dies, we see his face streaming with water in a close up shot, and he finally bows his head and sits completely still, and the camera shows his hair and the top of his head in extreme close up
l Shows Roy’s vulnerability - unlike a traditional Science Fiction robot, Roy does not live forever, and his body is not made of replaceable parts. The sadness of dying after a life of only four years is reinforced by the water, which recalls tears.
Body Para 3. High and low angle shots and close-ups ?affect our understanding of the character
l Change our perception of Roy
n At the beginning of the confrontation with Deckard, he is seen from below in a low angle shot, his body lit by a spotlight.
u Emphasises his superhuman qualities, and makes him appear threatening
n At the end of the confrontation, after he has saved Deckard’s life, a medium shot shows us Roy sitting down and lowering himself to a sitting position, face to face with Deckard. Close-ups of his and of Deckard’s faces now show that they are no longer enemies.
Body Para 4: Dialogue ?affects our understanding of the character
l Reveal Roy’s inner thoughts
n “All those moments lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die”
u Roy’s final, short but poetic dying speech is highly emotional and reveals his great sadness that his life is coming to an end. Previously he has been portrayed as violent and vengeful, as in the scene in which he kills his creator, Tyrell, but here he appears vulnerable and very human.
Conclusion
l In this scene, our view of Roy Batty changes from seeing him as a villain and a killer, to a much more empathetic one. He emerges as the true hero of the story, and is shown to be morally superior to Deckard, who lacks the qualities of mercy and humanity that Roy possesses.
l The director influences our view of Roy through the use of:
1. religious allusions - imply Roy is Christ-like and has a soul
2. motif of water that make him appear sad and vulnerable
3. Low angle shots and close-ups that change how threatening he seems
4. Dialogue that reveals his inner thoughts
l Scott cleverly manipulates the audience and makes an ending that could be seen as an anticlimax into a highly memorable one that makes it stand out in the Science Fiction genre as original and interesting.