It was another very special night at
R.W. Norton Art Gallery for Reel Adventures 10, Blade Runner!
Here's the talk I gave:
Set in 2019 but made in 1982, Blade Runner was 37 years ahead of its time.
As much as any film I’m aware of, the reception Blade Runner received upon initial release versus the reputation it now enjoys could not be further apart.
Is this because it was 37 years ahead of its time? Or might there be a simpler, more plausible explanation?
I tend to believe it is the latter. Let me explain.
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As we all know, movies are expensive. And in cases where a director has a vision and views the movie as an opportunity to express that vision, what often happens is a tension arises between the people who fund the movie and the team working to execute it.
The people who fund the movie are risking money and most concerned that the final product generates a profit. Meanwhile, the director and his or her team are most concerned that the final product clearly articulates the vision.
A common practice for movies is to hold test screenings before a movie is released to the general public. These test screenings include survey cards that tell the moviemaking team how audiences are responding to the movie and give moviemakers the opportunity to make adjustments before the film is considered final and ready for release.
In the case of Blade Runner, its first two test screenings convinced the money people that audiences were confused and that some significant changes needed to take place before the movie was shared with a larger audience.
The two major decisions the money people made to Blade Runner following the test screenings were to add voiceover and to add a happy ending to the film.
So what I’d like to do tonight is compare and contrast a few scenes of Blade Runner with and without the voiceover and the film with and without the happy ending.
My hope in doing this is:
a) to help you better understand why it took so long for Blade Runner to enjoy the reputation it now has
b) to demonstrate a few of the things that film does particularly well as a medium
AND c) to think about how commercial concerns and artistic concerns might not necessarily align in a film
What you are about to see are clips from the version of Blade Runner that was originally released in 1982, the version the money people wanted, contrasted with clips from the “FINAL CUT” version that the director wanted that was finally released in 2007 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film:
BREAK
I don’t want to spend tonight debating which version is better (although I definitely have an opinion). Instead I want to use this opportunity to discuss what I think these two versions tell us.
1. Neither art nor commerce
The first thing I think is clear in watching the two versions side by side is that the original version (the one with voiceover and a happier ending) is an effort to give the audience what the money people think it wants.
This version does not give the audience much credit. It thinks they need to be guided and have their hand held through the moviegoing experience, as well as be reassured at the end, as Hollywood almost always does, that everything will work out.
I would argue that this version failed at the box office because it tried to make a more artistically minded film more commercial, ending up with something that is neither successful as art nor as commerce.
Ridley Scott, the director, and the writers behind Blade Runner, never set out to make a straight commercial film. They wanted to make a movie that had ideas and that gave the audience the opportunity to reach their own conclusions. Plus, the film was too dark in mood and look to ever end up a mainstream, Hollywood blockbuster success.
In 1982, the money people made the adjustments (the tacked-on voiceover and happy ending) that they thought the audience would want and ended up with a film that, for the most part, satisfied no one.
2. Certain art is not really commercial
Blade Runner was a failed venture from the get-go.
I would argue that even if they had released the Final Cut in 1982, the film would still not have been a commercial success. It simply cost too much money and was too artistic in its vision to ever make its money back.
The only way Blade Runner could ever have been a successful venture is if all the people, money people included, agreed that they were making an artistic statement and that making a profit was not important. In other words, the only way Blade Runner could ever have been “successful” is if all involved agreed that success is defined by the vision of the final product being stated as clearly as possible.
3. Movies do immersive art well if you let them
There are certain things that movies as a medium do particularly well if you just let them.
Because they are a combination of so many of the other artforms, films can be immersive in ways that books, albums, plays, and paintings cannot quite match. Movies can envelop us and allow us to lose ourselves in their sights and sounds. When you get someone as visually strong as Ridley Scott and pair them with someone as sonically creative as the composer Vangelis, whole worlds are created that we can enter into.
Decisions like adding a voiceover take us out of these worlds and ground us when the movie wants us to float and let ourselves go into the magic of this alternate world.
Watching the final cut next to the original version is instructive for so many reasons, one of which is how it reminds us of what film does well - immersion.
Here is Frank Darabont, Director of The Shawshank Redemption, saying a few words about this:
4. What is and what isn’t art
And then finally, just because I’ve talked so much about art and artistic films, I feel like I at least need to spend a few minutes talking about what is and what isn’t art.
My whole point here is that Ridley Scott was looking to make an art film. So what does that mean?
Art is a unique language that says things that we cannot communicate otherwise. And art allows people to experience emotions, ideas, and perspectives that might not be accessible through ordinary life.
When we did Reel Adventures 7 focused on David Lynch’s The Straight Story, I talked about why Lynch several times in the film refrained from showing us certain things, only allowing us to hear them. My point was that, in doing so, he wanted the moviemaking experience to be interactive, to obligate the viewer to engage and do some of the work of processing the story themselves.
I think Ridley Scott and his team are up to the exact same thing here. They purposefully set out to make a movie that did not give all the answers, that put the audience in a world where they had to put many of the pieces together themselves, knowing that this would involve the audience more.
When the money people in 1982 at the time of Blade Runner’s original release forced the addition of voiceover, essentially what they did is remove a portion of the film’s art. The added voiceover spoon fed us unneeded explanations leaving less to our imaginations. And it ground us when many of us would have preferred to lose ourselves in the magic of the worlds created.
And the same can be said for the added happy ending. It tried to narrow the way that people could process the film, pushing the audience to reach similar conclusions and tying up any possible elements of ambiguity. In doing so, it stripped art of one of its greatest strengths - that it doesn’t seek to give all the answers.
To conclude, what I’m saying is that the money people tried to make Blade Runner into something it wasn’t. It would be like city leaders and developers looking at Shreveport in 2025 and trying to make it into Paris, which for so many reasons of course it is not. But it is wonderful that 37 years later we have Blade Runner: The Final Cut because it gives us the opportunity to see the film for what its director wanted it to be and enjoy it in its full artistic expression.
Thank you.
