Blade Runner

I have to admit, action films typically are not my forte. Science fiction films are the exception, but even then they have to have something else going for them besides explosions and spaceships. Even though Blade Runner doesn't have a whole lot of gratuitous chase scenes or anything too "action-y," and even though it has Harrison Ford, one of my favorite actors who can get me to watch anything, I still have trouble getting excited about this movie. Something about it is just a little too sharp, a little too abstract - I didn't see much humanity in it. Perhaps this is the point, but nevertheless, I know I'm not really supposed to be critiquing the movie, so I'll continue with my commentary.

What I did find interesting about this film was the core existential question at it's core, when Rick tests Rachel to find if she is a cyborg, and discovers that she doesn't know she is, he asks, "How does it not know what it is?" This question hit me as what the movie is definitively about, and it seems to be clearly a commentary on our own self-awareness - do any of us really know "what" we are? The techy sci-fi aspect of this raises the question of "What if I suddenly found out I was a cyborg?" but this is not really the problem. The problem is that labeling something ("human," "cyborg") doesn't necessarily create a definition, it just creates a label. Therefore, we think we know what we are, but we still don't, even as "human beings." Because we just accept the label, without really knowing "what" it means to be human. If we don't know what it means to be human, there is no way we can even recognize our own humanity - does our humanity exist in memories, or in the ability to feel sad? Or does our humanity exist in the sadness that might occur if we realized our memories were not our own. When Rachael realizes that the picture of her with her mother is not her mother, that the memory of the spider hatching is not her memory, she feels grief. If grief, a distinctively animal emotion, can even be felt by cyborgs, aren't cyborgs capturing the root of humanity? Perhaps Rachael "knew" who she was more than any of us do, because she, unlike most of humanity, felt the need to prove herself and identify what she thought made her human.

THX 1138

THX 1138 is a dystopic, futuristic film centered around the title character, who lives in a society so intently focused on production and consumption that it admonishes most human emotion, as this is seen to be a distraction. The character of THX is partnered with LUH 3417, and these two go off their sedation and experience love. The byproduct of this, however, their sexuality, is one of the highest crimes one can commit in this society. As close watch is kept on the workers, so THX and LUH are caught and punished, and attempt to escape.

The intended purpose of the film is largely unclear to me, but I found myself thinking a lot about the other dystopic novels and films I’ve seen and read. In some cases, the society is created out of a desire to form a utopia, for the good of the citizens, but the rules get out of hand. In others, the society is created because of some kind of dictatorial ruler or rulers who want to control humans. In THX 1138, we’re not really sure what the situation is, because the background of this society is never clear. Because of this, it seems to me that the emphasis or lesson the film is trying to convey is not a matter of what to avoid, but of what to value. Through the film we see that the people in charge see THX as merely a cog in a machine, but he is shown as an individual. Individuality, it seems, is the theme of the movie, and THX’s liberation from this society was almost entirely of his own willpower, save the help of the hologram. Though the police officers keep saying they only want what is best for him, and the religion instructs workers to “be happy,” only each specific person can decide what is best for him or her, and in the end, even the ability to make this choice is enough for THX.

2001: A Space Odyssey*

2001: A Space Odyssey, as I think of it, particularly after the class discussion and readings, is largely a film about tools and the way humanity looks at them. In the transition from the opening “Dawn of Man” scenes to the futuristic space station scenes, a bone is thrown up into the air and the film cuts quickly to a shot of a space station. The similarities in appearance between these is striking, and this calls attention to the fact that any type of technology, however large or small, is a tool of man.

It’s rare to think of something as simple as a bone as technology, or to think of something as complex as a space station as a tool. But nevertheless, these are appropriate definitions for this items, and misclassifying them or failing to recognize that all tools are signs of human technology, just as all human technology is a tool, can lead to dangerous territory. The downfall, it seems, in 2001, is the fact that HAL is given human characteristics – a human name, a human voice, et cetera. This makes him not a tool of humanity, but humanity itself – even believing he has human rights and the ability to make decisions. Endowing technology with these characteristics gives humans an unnatural attachment to their tools (like when I compare my iPod to “my child”) that, even if things never get so bad that artificial intelligence takes over the world, can still be dangerous in so far as that it calls attention away less from the human experience and makes all focus on technological achievement.

*When going to post my THX 1138 summary, I noticed that my 2001 summary never went through. (Maybe HAL had something to do with that?) I realize it probably is too late to count for a grade, but since I had it saved on my computer I thought I'd go ahead and post it anyway.