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Blade Runner - Coggle Diagram
Blade Runner
representation of women
the three central female characters operate within a field of vision which establishes their 'to be looked at-ness'.
rachael, priss and zhora are eroticised, fetishised and subjected to pov shots that reduce them to objects of beauty or to a series of body parts.
rachael (femme fatale) seductively enters the film in high heels, a sharp tight business suit and is framed in low key light. she appears to be both a madonna and a whore type figure, dark and light.
she literally and metaphorically blows smoke rungs around deckard, but is also presented as pure, untouched, wanting only to be loved by Deckard.
Deckard proves to her that she's a replicant by recalling two of her precious memories planted by Tyrell. This creates a masculine/feminine knowledge/power inequality leaving her violated and distraught, with deckard seemingly taking pleasure from her feelings.
deckard then forces rachael to have sex with him, suggesting that not only women need heterosexual love to be complete but also that coercion is a likeable, permissible or necessary part of the experience.
Priss = fishnet tights, short skirt, see-through top and dog collar - eye candy for the male spectator.
Zhora = running through the streets dressed only in a see-through mac and knee length boots acts to give justification to her death, like she deserved it.
men invent, detect, build, destroy, make history, are the real heroes and villains. woman by contrast are the love interests and provide the sexualised body to be enjoyed as sexual spectacle for the male spectators.
female bodies can be too sexual, too promiscuous and therefore deserve punishment and to be put back in their place. = reason for pris and zhora's brutal deaths. patriarchy is natural and any challenges to this need to be put down or 'retired'.
no real biological mothers, forces tyrell to invent memories so they can imagine that connection. without mothers, mother nature or nurturing loving qualities, replicants are shown to be incomplete, confused and dangerous
Rachael, Priss and Zhora can be said to destabilise gender categorisation.
- the excessively constructed nature of their femininity draws attention to it as a construction or as artificial and a performance. the self reflective rachael who consciously draws on codes and conventions of a femme fatale seems to play with the madonna/whore identity. these representations of excess (too sexual, too promiscuous) may be liberating for feminist/female spectators who want to throw off the repressive regimes.
Auteur?
powerful heroines, dark aesthetics, horror close ups, internal conflict, freedom, film noir
scott researched and drew together the elements of film noir, german expressionism, realist urban photography, heavy mental science fiction and art.
scott demanded endless retakes, multi tasking
film noir iconography, conflict, freedom, horror close ups
recurring motif of fans, sense of cycle, always likely to be in conflict, unable to enact change, powerless to the corporations which oppress. cyclical structure, lack of development.
visual layering which create complex and artistic visuals, used to convey congestion an complexity of the postmodern city. tech and decay.
a product of its time?
Oil crisis of 1970s drew attention to conservation, making environmentalism mainstream. US forest service's Woodsy Owl advertisement 'give a hoot, don't pollute'
scott created an environment/world uncared for by corporations, with mass environmental degradation
New hollywood era
realistic, authentic acting, abolition of the star system and the hays code, anti-authoritarian themes, ambiguous endings
wider appreciation of creativity, darker tone and aesthetic, lower key lighting, haunting diegetic score
in 1982 deep concern surrounded technology, time's person of the year was the computer
post vietnam war, making many distrusting of the government, following atrocities committed and the watergate scandal. failure to beat communism
no?
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film noir
chiaroscuro lighting, femme fatale, detective antihero
Context
inspired by Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, the idea of playing god, Frankenstein a replicant of a human
Actor's strike during preproduction, meaning that the WB set was unused for 9 months therefore giving more time for set design
set built on top of WB New York, creating a layered aesthetic
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scenes
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Questioning Rachael
Lack of reaction, performance, facial expression
lack of key lighting creates shadows, cuts her off from spectators
hair, makeup arranged and constructed whereas deckard is plain, dull and bland
classic 80s female, inverted triangle with big, exaggerated padded shoulder blades. Rachel is 'of the past' yet she's a replicant.
placed opposite deckard, almost challenging him and his authority
smoking demonstrates her defiant and confident attitude, masculinity? synonymous with femme fatale.
Together
dog collar, owned by Tirell
lack of lighting, hides Priss' face and her true identity, hides her eyes
theme of identity. priss crumpled next to piles of rubbish, demonstrating how commonplace rejection in the future world is. juxtaposed with neon lights, hovercar and appealing aesthetics = a world that doesn't understand her