Memento: More Than A Puzzle

         When it was independently released in March 2001, Christopher Nolan’s film Memento was screened in just eleven theaters (Memento, 2001 Box Office). Produced for a mere $5 million dollars and shunned by major distributors, Memento demonstrated an uncanny appeal that attracted filmgoers to see the film again and again. What was the cause? Memento is an intricate puzzle film that almost required its audience to watch it twice if they wanted “to figure out what the hell was going on” (Klein 1). This essay will examine Memento with attention to its unique narrative syuzhet, its chronological narrative structure, and a personal reaction to the film.

Unique Narrative Syuzhet. Upon one’s first encounter with the film Memento, the viewer is thrust into the confusing world of a non-linear narrative construction. More than being complex in the order of the scenes, which might be as simple as taking logical, linear plot elements (A,B,C,D,E,F) and scrambling them (B,E,C,F,A,D), writer/director Christopher Nolan split the narrative into two parts and juxtaposed those parts in a startling and disorienting way. He assembled that latter portion of the film in reverse order, so that the first scene is last and the last first. Then he assembled the former portion of the film chronologically between each of the latter scenes. For the sake of illustration, assume the former portion is represented by numerals (rendered on screen in monochrome) and the latter represented by letters (rendered on screen in color). The resulting presentation would appear as F,1,E,2,D,3,C,4,B,5,A,6 in the cinematic release of the film. Continuing this illustration as a loose representation of the arrangement of Memento, Scene 6 is a major turning point where the two narrative parts meet and coalesce into a continuous, linear component of the film. This junction is communicated through a change from monochrome to color and strangely carries the viewer to the end of the film. The significance of the monochrome and color device will be discussed shortly.

            Why would Nolan choose to produce such a convoluted syuzhet? In an online essay, Amrohini Sahay states, “the film provides a postmodern reworking of the classic elements of 1940s American film noir” and posits that the “film’s use of a visually ‘messy’ and complex post-linear editing style…presupposes a spectator who delights in negotiating a terrain of conflicting and fragmented information” (Sahay 1,2). No one can deny that the idea of a puzzle film is intriguing to a certain segment of filmgoers. Various reviewers invoked titles like The Sixth Sense, The Usual Suspects, and Last Year in Marienbad when citing comparative works.

            However, Nolan’s motivation is clearly deeper than just impressing cerebral moviegoers. Part of the answer is found in Linda Cowgill’s definition of the key ingredient in a great non-linear film – thematic unity, which is “the synthesis of thematic ideas and plot movements” (Cowgill 150). Previously she states that a “well-written nonlinear film exposes a character or a situation from a number of different vantage points; the use of more than one vantage point to construct the plot allows characters and their motivations, both conscious and unconscious to be explored in depth” (Cowgill 149). The unifying thematic idea in Memento is protagonist Leonard Shelby’s debilitating mental condition known as anterograde amnesia, a real disorder defined as “a selective memory deficit, resulting from brain injury, in which the individual is severely impaired in learning new information. Memories for events that occurred before the injury may be largely spared, but events that occurred since the injury may be lost” (Myers). Leonard became afflicted at the time of his wife’s rape and murder when, in an attempt to rescue her, he was shoved into a mirror, receiving a serious head trauma. The viewer is led to believe, through a series of flashbacks, that Leonard remembers who he is (was) and details before and up to the event, but is simply unable to create new memories from that time on.

            What about Cowgill’s assertion that there would be exposure of character from a number of different vantage points? The convoluted, non-linear syuzhet provides the brilliant perspective of a different vantage point every time the viewer rejoins the reverse order narrative. Nolan’s decision to intentionally code the narrative parts with monochrome on-screen for the forward continuity (essentially the exposition, inciting incident, and climax of Act I) and color on-screen for the reverse order continuity (Acts II and III) mercifully helps the viewer to begin to decode the fabula. This intentional structure was described in a documentary included in the Limited Edition DVD release:

NARRATION (V.O.) Memento’s structure is established in the first three scenes – a kind of road map for how to watch the film.

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: “We wanted to just very simply express to the audience the rhythm of the piece, how these things were going to fit together, the difference between color material, black & white material and that kind of thing, and to suggest a relationship between those different story elements that was going to progress through the rest of the film.” (Anatomy of a Scene: Memento)

As far as exposing the character of our protagonist, Nolan’s syuzhet delivers. Like a fixed length tape loop, where the bias head “erases” previously recorded magnetic media by scrambling the ferrous oxide particles in preparation for new information being recorded by the record head, so is Leonard’s difficulty with creating and retaining new memories. Before he has a chance to recall the fresh memory it is “recorded over” by another cognitive event. David Julyann, the film’s composer, provides this additional thought: “The inter-cutting of the color and black and white scenes starts giving you a clue to the way the story’s told. The color scenes always end on the beginning of the following color scene, which is previous in time, if that makes any sense. Hopefully the audience is as confused as Leonard is.” (Anatomy of a Scene: Memento)

            The point? As presented in its cinematic release, the “against-the-grain” narrative structure of Memento generates a level of anxiety and confusion in the viewer that drags the viewer into Leonard’s mental mess. In the online journal Film-Philosophy, George Bragues surmises “that the audience shares in Leonard’s memory disability, unable to use their power of recall over previous scenes in the film to remember previous elements of the story being presented” (Bragues 65). J.J. Murphy corroborates this premise: “Memento succeeds in placing the viewer into the damaged mind of its protagonist, allowing us to experience the perceptual shift by which his questionable actions are made to appear perfectly logical” (Murphy 195). This is the motivation for Nolan’s convoluted approach to Memento’s syuzhet.

Chronological Narrative Structure. Reconstructing the chronological narrative of Memento from the fragmented pieces provided in the cinematic release of the film is not that easy. The screenplay enumerates nearly 200 scenes and the DVD contains 45 chapters alternating in Nolan’s monochrome and color syuzhet. As presented, Memento opens with the killing of a stranger by someone else we don’t know and the subsequent capture of the result on a Polaroid camera. This scene was shown in reverse – starting with the photo fading out and ending with the bullet returning to the gun. Chronologically this is the last scene of the film. Here, in the cinema release, it is the first.

             Fortunately, the Limited Edition DVD release provides a chronological rendering of the film, enabling the curious viewer to consider the fabula. In this form, Memento becomes slightly more accessible as a story, with clear structural elements driving the action.

            The film opens with the aforementioned black and white scenes which quickly establish that things aren’t quite normal for the yet to be identified protagonist. Within the context of a neurotic noir narration and cinematographic third person POV, the last name of this character is withheld for nearly five minutes; his full name is not uttered until 7:34 seconds into the chronology. It is notable that this information is contained within the flashback sub-plot of the Sammy Jankis story, as told by Leonard to an anonymous phone caller. Other key information is provided during this exposition including the fact that Leonard suffers from the same memory loss disorder as Sammy, that he was an insurance investigator looking for fraud (particularly in the Jankis case), and that he feels like he’s in touch with his disorder. He states: “Sammy Jankis wrote himself endless notes. But he'd get mixed up. I've got a more graceful solution to the memory problem. I'm disciplined and organized. I use habit and routine to make my life possible. Sammy had no drive. No reason to make it work.” As Leonard reviews his tattooed chest in the hotel room mirror, the reverse message across his pectorals rightly reads, “John G. raped and murdered my wife.” Then, as though he’s been asked a clarifying question, he says, “Me, I gotta reason” (Memento, The Script at IMSDb 16). This is the framing action, which, as Cowgill explains, “creates a continuity in the plot and establishes a context in which to tell the story” (Cowgill 152).

            As the conversation unfolds and the exposition continues, Leonard completes Sammy’s tragic story in flashback vignettes, demonstrates paranoia regarding phone calls, is won back to the phone by a Polaroid picture of him and eventually agrees to meet with the policeman on the other end of the line. That policeman is Teddy. This is the inciting incident, occurring at approximately 19 minutes in the chronology, that sets Leonard on his course. The climax of Act I is when Leonard strangles the drug dealer Jimmy Grantz.

            Brilliantly crafted cinematographically, as Leonard snaps a Polaroid of the dying Jimmy and shakes the photo, the screen changes from monochrome to color. This is the transition into the beginning of Act II. Despite Leonard’s continued restarts in the realm of short-term memory, he is treated to a quick download of information from Teddy. Leonard’s disorder impairs his ability to judge the veracity of this information, however he does conclude that Teddy lies and he shouldn’t believe him. This is a key fact, which Leonard revisits via his Polaroid photos and influences his responses to Teddy. He also notes Teddy’s license plate number. When Leonard takes Jimmy’s Jaguar, he drives away with the $200,000 from the botched drug deal; monies that Jimmy had offered Leonard to spare his life. This appears to be Teddy’s motivation for setting up Jimmy. Is Teddy a dirty cop or a cop at all?

            As the action rises through Act II, Leonard “meets” Natalie when she mistakes him for her boyfriend, the now deceased Jimmy Grantz. She seems to know more than she says and clearly is familiar with Leonard’s mental condition, despite that fact that the viewer doesn’t know of any previous meetings. In a notable interaction, Natalie brings Leonard to her home and sets him off with a series of obscene, cruel insults resulting in Leonard striking her and pushing her down. Having removed all writing utensils so Leonard cannot make notations of the event, Natalie temporarily leaves. After a few moments (and the restart of Leonard’s memory), she returns to feign an assault by an associate of Jimmy’s named Dodd. Natalie requests that Leonard help her by killing Dodd. Clearly she has manipulated the circumstances to take advantage of Leonard’s disorder. Is Natalie a good girl or a bad girl?

            In a poignant episode that leads to the midpoint, Leonard hires a prostitute to reenact the night his wife was killed using several personal items that belonged to his wife. When the difficult and emotional scene plays out to reveal the self-gratifying call girl snorting cocaine in the bathroom, Leonard tells her she can leave. The viewer is unsure of his motivation, but as he drives to a remote location and burns the items, he seems to want to close the door on his grief. He says, “Probably burned truckloads of your stuff before. Can't remember to forget you” (Memento, The Script at IMSDb 57). This moment occurs approximately 65 minutes into the chronology and is the midpoint. His contemplative innocence as he holds vigil through the night plays like a spiritual purification, preparing the warrior for what is next.

            As Act II races to a close, Leonard is chased by Dodd who recognizes Jimmy’s car, roughs up Dodd, frees Dodd, sleeps with Natalie (without a clear explanation of their level of intimacy), and is offered help to identify the license plate number tattooed on his thigh. In their final meeting leading the climax of Act II, Leonard receives an envelope containing the DMV report from Natalie. He is now holding the final identifying piece to the puzzle leading to John G. Natalie invites him to remember his wife and emotionally identifies with him by saying, “You know what we have in common? We’re both survivors. Take care, Leonard” (Memento, The Script at IMSDb 21).

            Parenthetically, Memento’s fabula unfolds the character integrity of both Teddy and Natalie so that the viewer senses there is something more to their relationship. Both use Leonard to get something they want. Teddy uses Leonard to kill Natalie’s boyfriend Jimmy Grantz. Does Natalie concur? Natalie uses Leonard to get at Dodd, clearly another part of the drug-dealing network. Does Teddy concur? Are they partners in this whole matter? Or, as revealed at the end of Act II, is Natalie more than happy to get the information implicating Teddy, thereby helping Leonard to find and kill his John G?

            Act III begins at approximately 97 minutes in the chronology as Leonard re-enters his room at the Discount Inn. There he updates his memory using his “mind map” on the wall. Next, he opens the envelope from Natalie that identifies John Edward Gammell (aka Teddy) as the John G. he’s been pursuing. His course is set and he leaves to find Teddy. In a classic moment of coincidence, Teddy arrives at the hotel lobby as Leonard is paying his bill, and the two set off on a mission under Leonard’s direction. He is in control now, despite his mental disorder. He doesn’t fall for Teddy’s attempt to switch cars or deflect their destination. In the end, Leonard confronts an unrepentant Teddy, who at the last moment realizes Leonard’s resolve and cries, “No.” The gun fires, Teddy dies, and Leonard snaps a Polaroid photograph. All that remains is for the photo to develop. This is the end chronologically and the beginning cinematographically.

A Personal Reaction. My first viewing of Memento occurred shortly after the film was released on DVD in late 2001. I was curious because of all the buzz created by its puzzle construction and wasn’t disappointed by the experience. In fact, my first response was to try and watch it again. Unfortunately, time was short and the DVD needed to be returned to the rental house.

            When Memento was offered as a film of choice for a graduate class and I realized it would provide a fertile analysis for an essay, the immersion process began in earnest. This paper is the result.  My research included reading the screenplay, reviewing recommended texts, combing the many online articles cited in this essay, and watching the film again – both the cinematic release and the chronological DVD Special Feature.

            As a work of cinematic art, Memento is very dense. It stands up to multiple viewings not only because of the puzzle it presents, but also because of the questions it continues to ask. On the one hand, there are questions like: Did Leonard really kill his wife by inducing a diabetic coma? Is this bizarre narrative a view to his psychological coping mechanism to cover for his guilt? Is Leonard the witless pawn of Teddy, Natalie, and others who drive him to perform heinous acts under the cloak of his own forgetfulness? These questions and other like them have “spawned a speculative maelstrom” online, in journals, and in film study classes (Sahay 3).

            Teddy suggesting that Leonard’s wife actually survived the attack and that Leonard killed her in the manner of Mrs. Jankis’ diabetic coma death further stokes the speculation. Additionally, writer/director Nolan included several subliminal visual hints that the whole affair might have been a fabrication of Leonard’s broken mental state. One particularly creepy moment is in telling the end of Sammy Jankis’ story, when the shot of Sammy in the asylum momentarily becomes Leonard. In another fantasy moment from somewhere in Leonard’s mind, Leonard’s wife is seen rested her head on his chest with an additional tattoo visible over his heart – I’ve Done It. Whose fantasy is this?

            On the other hand, it is the deeper questions of the frailties of humanity and our common, innate bent to be territorial, protectionist, and instinctual. As noted earlier, Leonard suggests that his discipline and organization is his secret weapon in the fight against his brain disorder. But he also states that habit and conditioning allow him to act on instinct (Memento, The Script at IMSDb 36). Is Nolan, through Leonard’s character, implying a connection to Jung’s “collective unconscious?” At strategic points in the film, Leonard does things that, although aided by his Polaroid photos and handwritten notes, appear to be instinctual responses. One example is when Teddy meets Leonard at the tattoo parlor and encourages him to change clothes, move the car, and come with him. Leonard’s response, after consulting the Polaroid photo and note, is to do the opposite, a reversal, by jumping out a back window and leaving Teddy behind. Is short-term memory lapse trumped by intuition? Is Leonard hard-wired to do certain things, regardless of what he actually remembers?

            The idea of truth being relative rather than absolute is suggested at several points in the film. Even Teddy scolds, “You don't want the truth. The truth is an f—king coward. You make up your own truth” (Memento, The Script at IMSDb 115). It is the strange phenomenon of “spin” in modern politics and shading of the facts to accomplish our own selfish goals that Teddy so prophetically proclaims. Bragues responds that the fact “that we all alter our memories to suit our purposes, signals that the uncertainty that Leonard confronts is not peculiar to him because of his disability, but applies to everyone” (Bragues 77).

            Leonard is hardly “everyman” but his pitiful condition and the manipulation of his disorder helps endear him to the viewers as a tragic protagonist. In the end (chronologically) he kills Teddy and takes a picture of the scene. Is this the end of his vendetta? The unanswered questions are what keep me coming back.

Conclusion. This essay set out to review the unique narrative syuzhet created by writer/director Christopher Nolan in the film Memento, examine its chronological narrative structure, and provide a personal reaction to the film. Will Memento stand the test of time to remain a noteworthy example of independent film breaking the rules and setting a new standard? Certainly Nolan’s notoriety has continued to grow with his subsequent cinematic offerings like The Prestige, Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight. The future of challenging, cinematic art looks bright.

Works Cited

Anatomy of a Scene: Memento (transcription). The Sundance Channel. November 2001. Limited Edition DVD. 26 May 2009.

Bragues, George. Memory and Morals in Memento: Hume at the Movies. Film-Philosophy, No. 12.2, September 2008. Web. 26 May 2009.

Cowgill, Linda J. Secrets of Screenplay Structure: How to Recognize and Emulate the Structural Frameworks of Great Films. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1999. Print.

Klein, Andy. Everything you wanted to know about “Memento”. Salon.com. Web. 26 May 2009.

Memento, 2001 Box Office Data. Box Office Mojo. Web. 31 June 2009.

Memento, The Script at IMSDb. The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb). Web. 26 May 2009

Murphy, J.J.. Me And You And Memento And Fargo. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc., 2007. Print.

Myers, Catherine. "Anterograde Amnesia, Glossary Entry." Memory Loss & The Brain. 2006. Memory Disorders Project at Rutgers-Newark. Web.1 Jun 2009

Sahay, Amrohini. Memento and the Cultural Production of the New Corporate Worker. The Red Critique. Web. 25 May 2009.

Blade Runner: The Fusion of Film Genre

           When Philip K. Dick penned Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep in 1968 the world was a frightening mess of dramatic polarity. Dick’s work envisioned a future world framed by “philosophical speculation, in what's real, what's fake, what's human, what's inhuman, and he used things like aliens, androids and time travel to explore all of that” (Bernstein). Considering the massive social and technological changes Dick lived through (Cold War paranoia in the 1950s, the rise of electronic mass media and the counterculture in the 1960s, and the advent of surveillance society in the 1970s), his epistemological and spiritual journey is clearly borne out in his writing. “He distrusted the world that he saw developing and had the uneasy sensation that it was not real” (Said). It is not surprising that Dick would plot his escape by looking forward in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

            Fast forward to 1982 and the cinematic release of Blade Runner, director Ridley Scott’s and screenwriters Hampton Fancher and David Peoples’ loose adaptation of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Billed as a “visually striking science-fiction” follow-up to Scott’s successful 1979 release Alien (McCarty), the film received a tepid response at the box office. Yet, Blade Runner garnered an underground fan base that gave the film new life in subsequent releases. Why did Blade Runner become such a hot property? Because it was more than a science-fiction genre film. This paper will examine the fusion of film genre types presented in Blade Runner and consider the generic idiosyncrasies of its various theatrical releases.

Fusion of Film Genre in Blade Runner

In undertaking any discussion of film genre one must be cognizant of the similarity and differences between two or more films to enable generic classifications. Thomas Schatz addresses genre critics by saying “we understand genre films because of their similarity with other films, but we appreciate them because of their differences” (Schatz 567). 

            Robert McKee’s Story contains a list of 25 film genre and subgenre types, which he refers to as the “system used by screenwriters” (McKee 80-86). Blade Runner easily fits into several film genre types – Science Fiction and Crime (including Film Noir, Detective or Thriller subgenres). It also contains the elements of Horror and Redemption Plot as well.

Blade Runner as Science Fiction. This genre type centers on “stories whose central struggle is generated from the technology and tools of a scientifically imaginable world” (Pearson). As previously stated, the 1982 release of Blade Runner was heavily positioned as a science fiction film.  Theatrical trailers showed overpopulated Los Angeles 2019, flying cars, futuristic weapons, vid-phones, surreal cityscapes and androids, known in this world as replicants. Its fabula focused on the struggle between humans and replicants, in a world where humans want to escape off-world (due to pollution, overpopulation, infertility, etc.) and where replicants were syntho-genetically created as workers for more inhospitable off-world environments. Scott’s interpretation of Dick’s gritty is a dystopian vision of life locked in a struggle with technology gone awry in the case of a band of escaped Nexus Six replicants.

            In many ways, the post-apocalyptic artistic vision of Blade Runner became a science-fiction benchmark for subsequent cinematic offerings like Brazil, Dark City, and The Matrix, as well as inspiring a host of other films based on other Dickian science-fiction literature.

Blade Runner as Crime (Film Noir, Detective or Thriller). McKee’s broad category for the crime genre poses a question to direct the assignment of the correct subgenre: “From whose point of view do we regard the crime?” With regard to the film noir subgenre, he qualifies the point of view as that “of a protagonist who may be part criminal, part detective, part victim of a femme fatale” (McKee 82). Rick Deckard fits this description like a glove. Without the confirmation of a criminal past, the dirty work of being a “blade runner” who “retires” replicants seems to require its share of nefarious dealings. His rouse to get into Zhora’s dressing room indicates his willingness to use any ploy – legal or illegal to accomplish his goals.

            Deckard does demonstrate an aptitude for being a detective, although he is a little hesitant to sign on again for another tour as a “blade runner.” Plus, he clearly is the “victim” of Rachel’s beauty and innocence, despite knowing that she’s a replicant and could turn on him before he does his job and turns on her.

            McKee’s categorization is not the only way to define film noir. When French film critics coined the term in the 1940’s, it meant black or dark film, particularly with regard “to a newly emergent quality in wartime Hollywood films” (Film Noir). Typically, this definition of film noir pointed to a film like The Maltese Falcon released in 1941. As described in Matthew Foster’s online article, Blade Runner lives by its flawed anti-hero, a wretched population, darkly lit scenes, memorable dialog, and a cynical philosophy (Foster).

            Regarding the crime thriller subgenre, McKee specifies the point of view of the victim as the defining perspective. In the climatic battle between Deckard and Batty, Deckard’s position changes from hunter to the hunted and is the potential victim of Batty’s last grasp at impacting his surroundings. In a stunning reversal, Batty saves Deckard from falling, demonstrating a level of humanity that is unexpected and riveting. 

Blade Runner as Horror. McKee divides his categorization of the horror genre into three subgenres, of which “uncanny” bears a striking resemblance to the human and replicant narrative conflict in Blade Runner.  He defines an uncanny horror film as one “in which the source of horror is astounding but subject to ‘rational’ explanation, such as beings from outer space, science-made monsters, of a maniac” (McKee 80).  The film’s antagonist Roy Batty fits all of the aforementioned criteria: he escaped from an off-world colony; he is a android creation of the Tyrell Corporation; and he has developed a maniacal drive to outlive his generically encoded four year life span. Each of the Nexus Six fugitives exhibits a violent strength beyond that of the average human being. They were created for off-world labor and programmed with particular attributes like combat, pleasure, etc.

            The parallels to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein are also striking, if not intentional. Dr. Eldon Tyrell becomes a type of Victor Frankenstein, bent to circumvent the primal laws of life and in his own words boasts “‘More human than human’ is our motto” (Blade Runner, The Script). The replicant creations were made human in every way except for memories, which allows them to be fully function without a history to prompt emotional reaction. Deckard’s first encounter with Rachel, the latest Nexus model who has been given embedded memories, leaves Deckard enamored with her beauty, charm and wit. While discussing her with Tyrell, Deckard quips about his own memories while alluding to the cinematic Frankenstein when he says “I saw an old movie once. The guy had bolts in his head” (Blade Runner, The Script).

            Like Frankenstein’s monster, Batty longs to be restored in relationship to his creator. He goes to Tyrell and pleads to him for more life. Batty says, “It’s not an easy thing to meet your Maker,” to which the self-exultant Tyrell responds, “And what can He do for you?” (Blade Runner, The Script). When the creator refuses to comply, Batty feigns an embrace and crushes Tyrell’s skull. Now driven to make the most of his final hours, Batty stalks Deckard (who has just killed his replicant partner Pris), howling like a wolf, exhibiting super-human strength, and, in the his final act of seeking human significance, saving Deckard from falling to his own death. The monster saves the tragic protagonist, only to reach the end of his pre-determined life span. In broken humility, Batty delivers the classic lines – “I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."

Blade Runner as Redemption Plot. For McKee, the redemption plot is found in a film that “arcs on a moral change within the protagonist from bad to good” (McKee 81). At the beginning of the film, Deckard is introduced as just another lost soul in a sea of lost souls. Called upon to come out of retirement to tackle the task of retiring four defiant replicants, Deckard “comes to the conclusion that his task of mercilessly hunting and striking down these creatures whose only crime is a belief in their humanity has dulled his own humanity” (McCarty). Another motivational explanation for Deckard’s redemptive transformational arc can be found in his discovery of Rachel. “Deckard has hunted replicants all his life. His mission is to protect humans from replicants. Yet here is a replicant who is for all intents and purposes human. Rachel awakens Deckard’s protective instincts, and he begins to reconsider what he does for a living” (Cavagna).

            This is a complicated situation for Deckard, for while pursuing the retirement of replicants he has fallen in love with one. Clearly Deckard and Rachel move closer together to the point of engaging in a physical relationship at about the midpoint of the film. The conclusion of the film brings the battered hero back to his apartment to get Rachel. Together they leave the life of a “blade runner” behind.

Blade Runner as Genre Fusion. What does it mean to be a “science-fiction/crime-noir-thriller/horror/redemptive plot” film? The multiple generic categories that can be assigned to Blade Runner reveal the film’s (and Dick’s) implied desire to provide a more universal message to a broader audience. “Ultimately, whatever criteria one uses to establish a genre should allow for a productive discussion of the stylistic and thematic similarities among a group of films, and definitions should be flexible enough to allow for change” (Elements). Combining existing genre types like “science-fiction/horror” or “detective/redemptive” are like speaking in ecstatic tongues with no one to interpret. New terms like “future noir” and “cyberpunk” speak to the establishment of new generic designations, but are not completely adequate. Even the designation of cinema as art trumps its potential role as a commentator on dominant ideologies of nations and people groups. Dick’s future as rendered by Scott in Blade Runner is closer to our present than they might have imagined. Of Philip Dick, Jonathan Lethem writes:

Dick’s visions – though he wasn’t interested in being a predictive writer, and he wasn’t systematically trying to be predictive in his extrapolations – his instincts about where the media, where commercial culture were headed was unerring.  We live in a world precisely full of the kind of invasive, mind-colonizing advertising, viral marketing notions that he predicted when it seemed absurd to do so. (Library of America 5)

The fusion of genre provided audiences then and now the opportunity to consider them warned and to prepare for what is coming.

            Another way of looking at the results genre fusion is as a modern morality play. One of the central themes in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and by extension Blade Runner is that of dehumanization. In his own words, Dick explains: “The purpose of this story as I saw it was that in his job of hunting and killing these replicants, Deckard becomes progressively dehumanized.  At the same time, the replicants are being perceived as becoming more human” (Philip K. Dick). It is not beyond reason that Blade Runner provides its audience with the moral mandate to live more humanly and to afford others the opportunity to do the same.

Permutations of Genre in Theatrical Releases

The evolution of Blade Runner through its various modifications is both a study in studio politics and the fact that an artist is never really finished with his work. From the perspective of a study in film genre these permutations reflect minute changes in the generic perception of the film. The Wikipedia article entitled Versions of Blade Runner lists seven version of the film.  This section will examine four major versions in the order of their presentation to the public, rather than creation date to facilitate discussion of audience reaction and response.

U.S. Theatrical Release (1982). Caught in the studio’s system of budgets, guarantors, and executive producers, Ridley Scott had only completed a work-print of Blade Runner for test screenings before the rug was pulled out from under him. Buoyed by confused test audiences, the ambivalent wrap-up of various storylines and the need to release the film, the studio took creative control and made several dynamic changes that set this version of Blade Runner firmly on the path of receiving a label heavily weighed toward “film noir.” Changes included the eleventh hour addition of Harrison Ford’s voice-over interspersed throughout the story like a 1940’s detective film. Another change was the shooting of a romantic happy ending scenario. Finally, the studio mandated cuts to the film removing or shortening many scenes that were too ambivalent. Supervising Editor Terry Rawlings summarized the studios cuts in this way: “If it doesn’t really mean anything we’re going to cut it out…the things that go first when they think too long are the subtleties” (Dangerous Days).

            Marketed as another Ridley Scott science-fiction thriller like Alien, but delivered as the studio’s worked over “detective noir” version caused most audience members and reviewers to walk away from theaters still wondering what they just had seen. Blade Runner did poorly at the box office not surpassing its $28 million production budget in U.S. earnings (Cavagna).

Ridley Scott’s 1982 Work-Print. In 1990 and 1991, Scott’s original 70mm work-print was screened before several festival audiences in Los Angeles and San Francisco under the unauthorized title The Director’s Cut. Suddenly the public was made aware of dynamically different cut of the film that reflected Ridley Scott’s unadulterated vision of Blade Runner. Gone were the noir voice-overs (save for the one immediately after the death of Batty) and the sappy happy ending. The pace of the film was more visually driven, without the distracting voice-overs. Its futuristic artistry better befits the science-fiction genre.

            In a curious tidbit of decision making while editing, an alternative take was used when Roy Batty kills Tyrell. In this version, Roy says “I want more life, Father,” instead of the phrase “fucker.” This change added a greater literary connection to Shelley’s Frankenstein and the theological horror of a creature being rejected by its creator. The cut also included additional violent footage of Tyrell’s eyes being gouged out by Roy (Versions).

The Director’s Cut (1992). The buzz created by the work-print being leaked prompted the studio to authorize an official Director’s Cut of Blade Runner and codified much of the work represented in Scott’s work-print with one exception – the inclusion of the unicorn dream sequence while Deckard sits daydreaming at his piano.  The surreal sequence, coupled with the Origami unicorn left by Gaff at the end of the film, opened a completely new plot angle, fueling the theory that Deckard himself was a replicant. This reinforced a science-fiction generic categorization.

            The science-fiction world picked up the ball and catapulted Blade Runner into notable volume in VHS and Laserdisc sales and from there into mainstream awareness.  Since several notable science-fiction and modern noir films had been made since the initial release of Blade Runner, uninitiated viewers had an existing body of work to refer to for genre comparisons and found the film more approachable and meaningful.

            One small discrepancy occurred with the return to the previous, more profane take of Batty’s words to Tyrell – “I want more life, fucker.” 

Blade Runner: The Final Cut (2007). For the 25th Anniversary of the release of Blade Runner: The Final Cut focused mainly on Ridley Scott’s desire to make slight corrections to timing of scenes that were too long due to initial extension for the noir voice-over and to fix several visible flaws in the practical visual effects like wire removal on several spinner flying shots. He did provide a more extended edit of the unicorn dream sequence and a scene where Deckard’s eyes glow in an eerie way lending further credence to the Deckard as replicant theory held by many science-fiction proponents.  And the original work-print render of the Batty line to Tyrell was restored to the more profound version: “I want more life, Father.”

            With its theatrical release, a new generation of film-going public was exposed to this genre rich, artistic masterpiece on the big screen.

Conclusion

For more than a quarter of a century, Blade Runner has remained in the AFI Top 100 Films of all time. Despite the turmoil surrounding its post-production and the permutations of theatrical versions released, the primary vision and message of Philip K. Dick’s work is aptly transmitted through the cinematic artistry of Ridley Scott. The discussion of fusion of film genre point to the words of Thomas Schatz: “Films produced later in a genre’s development tend to challenge the tidy and seemingly naïve resolutions of earlier genre films…” (Schatz 575). Blade Runner represents both the latter evolution of several genres and the primordial emergence of something seminal and new. How will we view its lessons in 2019? I, for one, hope we will take its advice.

Works Cited

Bernstein, Richard. The Electric Dreams of Philip K. Dick. The New York Times Book Review, November 3, 1991. Web. 23 June 2009.

Blade Runner, The Script. BRMovie.com. Web.  23 June 2009.

Cavagna, Carlo. Blade Runner. About Film (aboutfilm.com). Web. 23 June 2009.

Philip K. Dick – The Last Interview. The Official Blade Runner Online Magazine (www.devo.com). Web. 23 June 2009.

Elements of Genre. Film Reference (filmreference.com). Web. 23 June 2009.

Film Noir. Film Reference (filmreference.com). Web. 23 June 2009.

Library of America Interviews Jonathan Lethem about Philip K. Dick, The. The Library of America, 2007. Web. 23 June 2009.

McCarty, John. Blade Runner. Film Reference (filmreference.com). Web. 23 June 2009.

Pearson, Barry. Movie Genre Example. Create Your Screenplay (createyourscreenplay.com). Web. 27 June 2009.

Said, SF. How Hollywood woke up to a dark genius. The Daily Telegraph. Web. 23 June 2009.

Schatz, Thomas. Film Genre and the Genre Film. Film Theory & Criticism. Ed. Leo Baudy and Marshall Cohen, Seventh Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.

Versions of Blade Runner. Wikipedia (wikipedia.com). Web.  28 June 2009.