Chapter One
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Zhora : are you for real ?

Questioning blade runner

At a loss, questioning Blade Runner

 

The quest for Being fits in with Blade Runner through philosophical reflection. Man, with his capacity for thought, responds with all his might to the universe. Indeed, the science fiction narrative unfolds in a time of dismay, of an interplay between author, text and reader. This time of dismay is also that of essential questioning.

This reaction opens up the quest for Being. It is the first step on a path that will allow man to find his position in relation to God and the world. It goes without saying that this attempt shall bring forth the feeling of a gap, itself entailing metaphysical anguish. Indeed, the man who becomes fully aware of his essence can thereby figure out the many facets and constraints bound to his condition. Man’s reflection rests upon two different entities, namely the object and Being. This is underlined through Blanchot’s study of the deepest question as opposed to the question of the whole[1]. Through this questioning, Man realizes he can overcome and master the object but that the latter cannot bring an answer to some of his questions. Man desires another truth which is not that of sensible certainty – he longs for a fullness of Being. Thereupon, consciousness takes over from thought and wonders about the gap of this overwhelming ‘presence-absence’.

More specifically, the Voigt-Kampff test stands for the deepest question – Replicants are required to answer questions which seem to be nonsensical. Their whole life is jeopardized through this odd questioning. Unable to pass such a test, they can only ‘replicate’ Holden’s questions, thus relying upon a Socratic-like debate[2]. Doing this does not get them anywhere and fleeing appears as the best compromise as they want to save their lives. Blanchot states it perfectly as he writes : ‘La fuite où nous attire la question profonde transforme l’espace de la question en une plénitude vide où, obligés de répondre sur notre tête à une question vaine, nous ne pouvons ni la saisir, ni lui échapper’[3]. The Replicants’ flight comes within the scope of wandering within a system of objects. It is equally narrowly connected to our concern with questioning. For instance, we can watch Zhora as she tries to flee from Deckard. The scene of her escape is a tangle of various items and sounds.

           

Strangely enough, the reader-spectator partakes in the same dismay suggested through the polysemy of objects and even sounds. This reminds us of the heideggerian theory of Verfallen and Geworfenheit[4] in Sein und Zeit[5]. These terms characterize the facticity of Dasein[6], of Replicants, as projects thrown into the world, and whose origin and destination are denied. As a result of this estrangement, Dasein flees and finds shelter in the comforting world of Verfallen. This action of diverting and turning round is not the work of the Replicants’ will, it stems from the fact that Dasein is being shifted around from one being to another, in an uneasy restlessness that Heidegger calls wandering, which is a fundamental mode of being, through which Dasein, losing sight of mystery, that is to say, the dissimulation of being as a whole, is insistent with the being found in the horizon of daily life concern. Wandering, Man confines his view to the being that can at once be found in his proximity and is diverted from what makes possible such a conjunction. On that point, Blanchot adds:

‘Dans tous les grands mouvements où nous ne sommes qu’à titre de signes interchangeables, la question panique est là, nous désignant comme n’importe qui et nous privant de tout pouvoir de question. Dans une foule notre être est celui de la fuite’[7]

Clearly enough, the transparency of the glass Zhora breaks through in her flight is not a positive one. It is not the open space of questioning. Rather, it is the flight from questioning[8]. The transparency of the glass is not even a place where she could find shelter out of sight. Still according to Blanchot,

‘La fuite panique est ce mouvement de dérober qui se réalise comme la profondeur, c’est-à-dire comme ensemble qui se dérobe et à partir de quoi il n’y a plus de lieu pour se dérober […] La fuite est l’engendrement de l’espace sans refuge’[9]

Indeed, flight makes every thing stand as if it were everything, it makes the whole of things erect neither as a safe order where we could find shelter, nor as a hostile one against which one has to fight, but as the action that conceals and slips away.

The Voigt-Kampff test unveils the crucial aspect of affective moods in Blade Runner and reshapes them into questioning. This is the experience of foundation which is here at stake. The naïve thematics of illusion and reality is reformulated, superseded in Blade Runner with the concept of the uncertainty of being. It is the theory of holding and carrying, of the ‘Getragenheit[10] that is put into question. The experience of a ground giving way – the flight of Replicants – questions the certainty of reality. The primary perception of reality would thus amount to the experience of hostility in front of life and its limitations. Hostility in front of strangeness and hurdles, just like Zhora seems to be threatened by Deckard, chasing and pressing her to a flight riddled with obstacles. These very hurdles are items asking to be overcome. The rigidity of the question of the whole must be passed through a violent test. A deeper kind of questioning has to be revealed through this violent experience. The Voigt-Kampff test debunks all illusion of certainty and prevents any possibility of support, allowing for nowhere to flee and hide. To Zhora, items are as many opportunities to catch herself in time during her flight. Her death is eventually a reminder that this experience is a dangerous relation to alterity. As we will see in our next chapter, alterity resists all attempt of assimilation and can only result in the deepest separation – death.

This experience of a foundation that slips away is the revelation of the question of Being, a ground gradually crumbling as this question gets closer to the Origin and whose lack of answer is a chasm, a beyond still unthought that would substitute itself for the foundation of reason. This robbing foundation is a harbinger to Deckard, the first flicker of doubt with regards to his certainties. This time of cowardice when all principle and foundation seem to vanish is the occasion, the decisive glimpse of some soul-searching. Deckard’s intentionality of consciousness, Deckard’s will to eliminate Zhora, then reverts into reflection – Zhora, as a Replicant, reflects Deckard’s consciousness.

The Voigt-Kampff test invalidates the apriorism of Getragenheit and disables the ‘holding sensation’ of certainty[11]. It relocates questioning in emptiness, thus stirring an insecure feeling that no answer could quell. The Voigt-Kampff test ultimately stumbles over a fugacity of Being. The ‘holding sensation’ of happy moods is nowhere to be felt in Blade Runner, the work putting all the emphasis upon the absence of a foundation and vying to theorize about the sense of loss. Still, Blade Runner does not only insist upon the mere loss of a foundation, but also stresses a wavering between security and insecurity, a sense showing through moods as well as a double temporality. A first temporality turns upon anxiety, obliging man to a restless resumption of questioning and underlining the temporary, transient condition of Replicants. More than flight, it is the calling into question by uncertainty as well as the necessity of decision-making which is specific to Replicants. Flight occurs with the lapse of memory, the lack of a past that could offer some stability, a temporal continuity which could alleviate the Replicants’ relentless flight as thrown pro-jects. Replicants make up for the non-holding sensation of an absent past with a increased tension towards a future.

The Voigt-Kampff test is not only meant to identify a gamut of sentiments but rather focuses upon affective moods, which pass through the subjects undergoing such a test and constitute the most passive, fundamental ground. Whereas sentiments are bound to an object, the unintentionality of affective moods reveal the close connection between consciousness and exteriority. The unspecified, uncertain nature of such moods, the lack of a foundation, of a supporting ground for questioning, are as many favourable instances for the matching of the Self into reality, as many un-locations propitious to self-knowledge. Self-knowledge occurs in the exteriority of un-location, of the unfamiliar or rather, of the strangely familar, the Elsewhere of questioning.

The authentic self-care, the insecurity conveyed by the Voigt-Kampff test, opposes the intentionality of a contents of consciousness, of a questioning designed to an object[12]. The nonsense and the strangely familiar dimension of the Voigt-Kampff ‘s questionnaire relocate the question into emptiness. Paradoxically, Replicants undergoing such a test are awakened to a staggering reversal. The contradiction of the Voigt-Kampff test has to do with the double action of revealing and concealing – the established order of techno-scientific knowledge ; the intentionality of consciousness must be reversed into reflection and pursuit of a cause, in this case their origin, and this very search can only happen in exteriority.

The music of Blade Runner partakes of this self-care – it is in harmony with a mood, a tune that stands aloof between Replicants and their environment. Musics in Blade Runner get together as Replicants find a cohesion with themselves. The Replicants’ integration into the world of Blade Runner is thus dependent upon their self-cohesion. The wistful thinking of separation, the Replicants’ longing for their origin, their humane craving for a return to the roots, is thus conveyed through Blade Runner’s music, through the expression of an infinite sorrow. Blade Runner’s music also echoes the Replicants’ deepest identity, that is, the other separative thought of ‘différance’. The relevance of the Replicants’ identity amounts to the ‘out of phase’ of transcendence. Dasein, as a thrown project, is always both ‘already there’ and ‘thrown before’. Only Angst, the experience of trembling affecting Roy, makes up the connection between the two. In their quest for an Origin and an End, Replicants find their own foundation giving way beneath their feet. This experience is therefore that of essential questioning, of the unquestionable.

The Voigt-Kampff test thus happens to be a means by which to measure affective moods and focuses upon the body, more accurately upon the eye, so as to detect every reaction to the test. More than the systematic tracking of Replicants, it stands for a yardstick by which to measure the subject’s appropriateness to the world. This assessment thus focuses upon the subjects’ cohesion with themselves. Then, the flight from oneself first goes through a coming back upon oneself[13]. In this way, the scrutinized body has to obey an imposed passivity. The Voigt-Kampff test thereby tries to snatch from the tested subjects emotions that could betray their own identity. This results in a sense of insecurity, the sensation of being chased, thus pressing Replicants to a flight. The fact remains that the body is not a monad enclosed upon itself, that it holds the possibility of an opening. To the Replicants, affective moods are just a first attempt at attuning themselves to the world of Blade Runner.

The wrong apprehension of transcendence through knowledge, through the question of the whole, is a danger to Replicants. As they intend to escape offworld slave colonies, as they long for a safe condition on earth, a coming back to their roots, Replicants paradoxically get stuck in this double exile. This situation results in a bewildering condition, owing to to the lack of a positioning with regards to their identity. Replicants are looking for inspiration, a means to find a place of their own[14]. This meets another lack – this first impulse towards the Other is delayed. The double exile of Replicants offers no decisive place to meet the Other. A resolution has to be found with the Replicants’ journeying. In their flight, Replicants are led to the ‘sightseeing’ of places. This can bring about a better self-positioning of their ‘I’. ‘Eyes’ are moreover the landmarks of such locations[15]. The decisive location of self-knowledge is thus the experience of pain in Blade Runner . The fact that Replicants put out the eyes of human beings so as to kill them is not a mere coincidence. Eyes reveal as much as they conceal. The asceticism of pain is a medium of confusion and lucididity[16]

To the spectators, Roy equally stands for a question that seems to flee before us, being essentially a figure of Otherness, the embodiment of the Sphinx, half-human, half-beast, assuming the features and behaviour of an animal (Roy imitates the cry of a wolf). He is also the one who asks questions – as a leader of his fellow Replicants, he is the question of the question. Indeed, every Replicant asks questions, the deepest ones ( ‘How much have I left to live ?’, ‘Have you ever retired a human by mistake ?’) These very questions, moreover, seem to escape the characters that are put to such a test – Roy looks for, then questions Chew, J.F. Sebastian, Tyrell and finally, Deckard. We do not know whether these characters essentially escape, that is, if they survive, for it seems these questions keep their life in suspense and foreshadow their sentence of death. Regarding this question mark, the movie remains ambiguous.

Obviously, human existence gives birth to numerous question marks. Life, like philosophy is the ground for an essential questioning. And this is especially relevant when pondering over P.K.Dick’s concern with the nature of literary creation : embedded structures of illusion and reality, which underline uncertainty concerning life or the act of creation. Humanity is caught in a maze of questions to be answered, but we are not allowed to penetrate the secrets of divine creation.

Deckard comments: All they’d wanted were the same answers the rest of us wanted, where have I come from ? Where am I going ? How long have I got ? 

Roy (addressing his creator as he kills him): I’ve done … questionable things.

Tyrell : Also extraordinary things. Revel in your time.

Roy: Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn’t let you into heaven for

 

 

At pains questioning Blade Runner – Angst as a prior, violent question towards Authenticity

 

The experience of a slipping foundation questions the capacity for truth of the self, and this very capacity matches that of long-suffering through time lasting. The subject’s maturity finds its completion through ageing, a data still out of reach to the Replicants – or on the contrary redoubled, owing to an accelerated decrepitude. Although experiencing pain many times throughout the movie, Replicants witness this painful experience as the impossibility for them to die. Pain aims at authenticating the Replicants’ existence. Whereas the experience of a lost foundation causes ontological certainty to collapse, the tension of risk, of the accident[17], relocates questioning into the unquestioned. It is an instance of the unpredictable whose enrichment through questioning is source of a reconciliation of the Self to the Other. The keeping at a distance, through flight, of this event, is a first danger threatening Replicants. The responsibility to take on is thus differed and will find a resolution in Chapter II. Blade Runner sets Replicants up as vehicles of such an incidence. The laying bare of Being is carried out at the expense of a painful questioning. The riddle symbolised by Replicants is thus a medium of visibility, a revelation of the deepest question.

Blade Runner conveys the secretive nature of death, an escaping issue that Replicants try to flee. This secretive aspect escapes all questioning, it is always in wait of a Statement, of a revelation one has to account for. The remaining part of the secret has to be disclosed at a decisive moment. The painful experience of Roy’s ‘not yet’ is in close connection with a heaviness of responsibility. The wait of a statement always in gestation, the weight of self-abnegation, is the painful withholding of a secret. It has to do with an essential indecision, the impossibility of sharing this pain finds an outlet in death. The decisive moment of death is always postponed, and the expected answer remains unanswered. The necessity of violence in this process justifies the scenes of fight in Blade Runner. Blade Runner’s fights bring about the possibility of a decisive encounter. Fights always bear the possibility of speech. Still, these fights always seem to get drowned under the flood of population, of a systematic environment. This pollution has to do with the notion of tolerance, a notion constantly delayed in Blade Runner. The tolerance of the other always offers a glimpse of the infinite, but it is drowned under an entropic system, smothered by the question of the whole. All the relevance of Blade Runner therefore dwells in its capacity to unveil death as the vanishing point of an infinite dialogue.

If pain is the experience of the impossibility to die – the sense of pain asserts life – it nevertheless foreshadows death. Roy’s self-inflicted crucifixion partakes of such a staging – the keeping at arm’s length of Roy’s proper death underlines a will to power, but, at long last, the resolution of will finds its alter ego in the resolution of death. Roy’s will to power, the choice of a decisive moment (‘not yet’) reverts into the possibility of the impossible – the indefinable and unpredictable aspect of death is an element that cannot be assimilated.

To Deckard, the synthetic threat of Replicants is a condition of a better self-knowledge. The dolorist view of Blade Runner, the threat to the body is an alternative to a systematic mind and its will to hegemony. The thought of incidence offers the possibility of some soul-searching to the Replicants whose irreducibility to a system is also a questioning to Deckard.

Should there be an assimilation, it would amount to understanding[18]. We can thereupon appreciate the close connections intertwining pain with freedom. Through pain, the body opposes synthesis and opens up a better self-knowledge[19]. The pain experienced by Replicants enables a coming out of a totalitarian system. Freedom is conditioned by a sense of danger. The thought of incidence, of the accident, enables an opening onto a new possibility. As synthetic organisms, Replicants are supposed to experience pain as a piece of information, but the Replicants’ conception aims at perfection. Pain means information to Replicants but more, pain is subject to a representation issue. It accounts for a double process of authentication and  falsification, as Deckard feels his gums before a mirror. The revelation of Deckard’s identity is thus ambiguous. Just as cinematic illusion is a portent of events to come, Deckard’s identity needs authentication and thus summons the spectator.

Angst, metaphysical anguish, is a first step in this quest for authenticity. It differs from fear inasmuch as it does not focus upon an object external to the subject experiencing it. Rather, it stems from the subject himself. Indeed, the question revealed through Angst is pervasive in Blade Runner. The film brings out the Angst of human consciousness that must go beyond itself so as to cover the path towards real knowledge – in every step of its history, human consciousness must fight over itself and realize what it formerly thought to be true is a mere misappreciation. Actually, and according to Hegel, this realization results in the loss of consciousness itself for, through this awareness, it loses its truth[20]. This path is therefore the path of doubt, or more exactly despair.

 Hegel states in The phenomenology of Spirit that if human consciousness forces itself, it is not through any external means :

‘Ce qui est limité à une vie naturelle n’a pas, par soi-même, le pouvoir d’aller au-delà de son être-là immédiat ; mais il est poussé au-delà de cet être-là par un autre, et cet être-arraché à sa position, est sa mort. Mais la conscience est pour soi-même son propre concept, elle est donc immédiatement l’acte d’outrepasser le limité, et quand ce limité lui appartient, l’acte de s’outrepasser soi-même […] La conscience subit donc cette violence venant d’elle-même […] Dans le sentiment de cette violence, l’angoisse peut bien reculer devant la vérité, aspirer à conserver ce que la perte menace’[21]

Hegel therefore sees Angst as the feeling of consciousness that must do violence to itself. This aspect is thoroughly developed in Blade Runner. The theme of violence is indeed narrowly connected to the experience of one’s existence, of feeling one’s reality. In Blade Runner, the scenes featuring fights are meant to introduce an essential questioning. The very first words uttered in Blade Runner are questions demanding answers. Indeed, this is a police questioning between Holden (the cop) and Leon (the Replicant).  Despite our expectations, the questions give rise to other ones, thus entailing the calling into question of what has just been asked before :

 

Holden: Reaction time is a factor in this, so please pay attention. Now, answer as quickly as you can.

Leon: Sure.

Holden: One-one-eight-seven at Hunterwasser.

Leon: That's the hotel.

Holden: What?

Leon: Where I live.

Holden: Nice place?

Leon: Yeah, sure I guess--that part of the test?

Holden: No, just warming you up, that's all.

Leon: Oh. It's not fancy or anything.

Holden: You're in a desert, walking along in the sand when all of the sudden-

Leon: Is this the test now?

Holden: Yes. You're in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down-

Leon: What one?

Holden: What?

Leon: What desert?

Holden: It doesn't make any difference what desert, it's completely hypothetical.

Leon: But how come I'd be there?

Holden: Maybe you're fed up, maybe you want to be by yourself, who knows? You look down and you see a tortoise, Leon, it's crawling toward you-

Leon: Tortoise? What's that?

Holden: Know what a turtle is?

Leon: Of course.

Holden: Same thing.

Leon: I've never seen a turtle. [ pause ] But I understand what you mean.

Holden: You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back Leon

Leon: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden, or do they write them down for you?

Holden: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't, not without your help, but you're not helping.

Leon: What do you mean I'm not helping?

Holden: I mean, you're not helping. Why is that Leon? [ pause ] They're just questions, Leon. In answer to your query, they're written down for me. It's a test, designed to provoke an emotional response. [ pause ] Shall we continue? Describe in single words, only the good things that come in to your mind about: your mother.

Leon: My mother?

Holden: Yeah.

Leon: Let me tell you about my mother. [ shot fired ]

 

In point of fact, Leon only ‘replicates’ Holden’s question. We can see that this questioning is a violent one, questions are put bluntly and are to be answered quickly. Yet, these are relative questions and do not stand for an essential questioning. It is only an introduction to the thematics of the movie – right from the beginning we can see that Replicants are not any different from their creator. Their perpetual questioning is meant to underline their human nature. They are equally in search of  answers as far as their existence is concerned. More exactly, we could state that Replicants are in search of answers whereas human beings have long forsaken this quest for meaning. Replicants are therefore playing the part of a mirror, they are in other words elements of reflexion / reflection towards humanity. Replicants indeed awake human beings to the lost sense of their condition. Such an awareness is blatant upon seeing Deckard feeling his gums before a mirror after his fight with Leon. We can therefore almost witness a reversal of condition between human beings and Replicants in the beginning of the movie.

The question of knowing who is really human in Blade Runner would not be complete, should we forget to state the importance of the term Blade Runner. What does Blade Runner mean ? It is indeed the job of Deckard personifying death to the Replicants, and what is death but time. Time is exactly what Replicants are looking for, but instead they are tracked by a Blade Runner personifying time. We can see that the movie is filled with paradoxes, but these paradoxes are to be worked out in the end of the movie with the meeting of Roy with Deckard.

Be that as it may, every Replicant as well as Deckard is concerned with Angst. There remains the assumption that man is all the more man since his Angst is deep. The ‘in front’ of Angst is the world as it is. The threat does not spring from a being pertaining to the world, rather Dasein experiences Angst. According to Heidegger, the ‘in front’ of Angst is nothing and is nowhere : ‘ce qui menace est déjà là – et n’est pourtant nulle part, il est si près qu’il étreint et coupe le souffle – et n’est pourtant nulle part’[22]. So, there must be something that causes anguish but one does not know what. Anguish is the anguish of something. It is turned towards the future, it is an expectation. Nevertheless, it is indeterminate and has no object.

Anguish is a way of opening up onto the world, it sets man at the crossroads of his possibilities, puts him in a situation of choice. He is sent back to a decision regarding the authenticity or inauthenticity of his life. Indeed, anguish underlines the inexorable finitude of life and obliges man to face it, or at least shows him the necessity of such an attitude. It stresses that man must accept his existence and drag himself away from distraction.

Deckard’s use of the ESPER system underlines his dereliction. Indeed, we could view Deckard’s apparent lack of concern as a diversion from his essential being-in-the-world.

 

Deckard: Enhance 224 to 176. Enhance, stop. Move in, stop. Pull out,  track right, stop. Center in, pull back. Stop. Track 45 right. Stop.Center and stop. Enhance 34 to 36. Pan right and pull back. Stop. Enhance 34 to 46. Pull back. Wait a minute, go right, stop. Enhance 57 to 19. Track 45 left. Stop. Enhance 15 to 23. Give me a hard copy right there.

The philosophical notion of distraction is closely akin to the idea of babbling triggered by Roland Barthes[23]

‘On me présente un texte. Ce texte m’ennuie. On dirait qu’il babille […] impératif, automatique, inaffectueux, petite débâcle de clics […] : ce sont les mouvements d’une succion sans objet, d’une oralité indifférenciée, coupée de celle qui produit les plaisirs de la gastrosophie et du langage. […] rien d’autre que cette adresse […] seulement un champ, un vase d’expansion. […] et ce texte-babil est en somme un texte frigide, comme l’est toute demande, avant que ne s’y forme le désir , la névrose’

The world of Blade Runner is just like ours, it seems to feature a whole mess of items – among which most relevant are photographs from which man has to make the most of it.

Roy: Did you get your precious photos ?

Let’s call this whole tangle of items the system of objects. This system appears as the ground for the characters’ existence in the movie. Their whole life indeed rests upon what they consider as evidence of their being-in-the-world. Replicants try to assert their humanity as they rely upon photographs which are merely mental constructions of their past and thereby of their history :

‘L’ Histoire est hystérique : elle ne se constitue que si on la regarde – et pour la regarder, il faut en être exclu […] Le temps où ma mère a vécu avant moi, c’est ça, pour moi, l’Histoire (c’est d’ailleurs cette époque qui m’intéresse le plus historiquement). Aucune anamnèse ne pourra jamais me faire entrevoir ce temps à partir de moi-même (c’est la définition de l’anamnèse) – alors que, contemplant une photo où elle me serre, enfant, contre elle, je puis réveiller en moi la douceur froissée du crêpe de chine et le parfum de la poudre de riz’[24]

That is history for Roland Barthes and history for the Replicants of Blade Runner. Replicants are perfect ‘skin jobs’, they look like human beings, they talk like them, they even have feelings and emotions – in science fiction the ultimate sign of humanity. What they lack is a history. For that they have to be killed. Seeking a history, fighting for it, they search for their origin, for that time before themselves[25]

           

 Does Rachael succeed in her attempt ? She has a document – as we know, the foundation of history. Her document is a photograph, a photograph of her mother, hugging her, a child, against her. History is hysterical ; it is constituted only if we look at it, excluded from it. That is, my mother before me – history.

Leon is dismayed by questions revolving around his history :

Holden : Describe in single words, only the good things that come in to your mind about: your mother.

Leon: My mother?

Holden: Yeah.

Leon: Let me tell you about my mother. (shot fired)

Leon is in a situation from which he can’t find shelter in his memories. We could assume he hasn’t been endowed with memories of a time before himself. But more than that, his position is that of dereliction. The shot that is fired echoes in our memory so as to stress the emptiness of his situation. The unfortunate outcome of this police questioning is stated several times as if history would repeat itself. Indeed, we can find Deckard viewing the video of the incident as he flies his way between different locations in his ‘spinner’. Leon finds himself in a position where he cannot derive help from any object such as a photograph. The world is no longer a root to his actions. Hope and safeness are nowhere to be found.

In the same line of thought, Heidegger argues that our ontic feelings of anxiety testify to the ‘groundlessness’ of human existence, revealing an inescapable insecurity which he connects to the fact that our existential trajectories, the life-projects, roles and identities that define who we are, have ‘always already’ been shaped by a past that we can never get behind and head off into a future in which these self-defining projects will always be incomplete, as if cut short by a death we can neither avoid nor control. In Heidegger’s famous sentence we exist as a ‘thrown project’ : thrown out of a past we cannot get behind, we project ourselves into a future we can never get beyond. ‘Existence’ from the latin word ‘ek-sistere’ – to stand out – is this standing out into time, a temporal suspension between birth and death. Being deprived of such ground for action, Leon and other Replicants, are stuck in their condition of runaways. Their state of wandering does not point to a mere mistake – strangely enough, Replicants seem to grasp a deeper apprehension of life than most human beings in Blade Runner.

Considering the few human beings we have at hand in the movie, none of them seems to enjoy a vision of life that would go beyond  ‘being-in-the-world’. Indeed, their primary comportment to ‘entities’ within the world is one of use. For instance, we can see that Gaff and Bryant are only concerned with their job, which consists in eradicating Replicants. Their whole world is obsessed with this concern, so much so that they are only left with things ‘present-at-hand’ which can be found at nearmost proximity. As an example, the only questions Gaff raises are relative ones as to the fact that death is a fate common to everyone – Replicant or not.

            

Gaff: You've done a man’s job, sir. I guess you’re through, huh?

Deckard: Finished.

Gaff: Its too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?

Only Deckard is awakened to a positive sense of dismay, that is, only when his position is reversed from the hunter to the hunted. Gaff’s question is not only here to cast doubt on Deckard’s identity – there indeed remains this assumption that Deckard could be an android created to train real policemen like Gaff, which would shed light upon the ironical statement ‘a man’s job’. Rather, Deckard seems at last to grasp the essence of his being, that is, Time. The primary concern he previously affected towards his job is changed at the end of the movie into an essential Care, which is the Being of Dasein, the real nature of human being.

With that being said, we can state the importance of the ESPER system in Blade Runner. The manipulation of photographs is an aspect of paramount importance in the movie. Not only does it stress the discontinuity of being but it also puts the emphasis upon the discontinuity of its representation – photographs are instrumental in Blade Runner. This whole act of scanning photographs as if searching one’s memory is relevant in that it indicates a quest for an Openness. We are invited to travel throughout the lines of video scanning as if we would be invited to make sense between the lines of a text. Most relevant is the figure of the glass : scanning the photograph he has retrieved from Leon’s hideaway, Deckard first tarries upon the vision of a glass, but to no avail, there is no clue on this item.

          

[THE ESPER SYSTEM : A FIRST REFLECTION TOWARDS TRANSPARENCY]

[THROUGH WANDERING, THE DOUBLE QUEST FOR TRANSPARENCY LEADS ZHORA TO RUIN]

Before proceeding further on, we should remember that glass is pervasive in the movie. For instance, we can see Zhora, wearing a transparent raincoat, shattering several windows before she dies, or we can see Deckard feeling his gums before a mirror or offering a glass of alcohol to Rachael. Nevertheless, this quest for transparency does not get us anywhere. The flight, the dissimulation of Zhora’s being is not an answer to the quest for an authentic Being.

          

[ZHORA’S CONFUSION : HER DISSIMULATION OF BEING]

 Eventually, it is only upon a reflection in the mirror of the photograph that Deckard is allowed to carry his analysis to a successful conclusion.

It is indeed narrowly connected to the idea that Blade Runner is a movie about the communication of consciousness. This reminds us of Replicants playing a revealing part just like a developer is supposed to do with photographs. In fact, both photographs and Replicants are enlighteners. This is the revealing aspect of the Other which is at stake here, the remedy to the pervasive state of discontinuity.

Let’s write it again : this is the Care structure that works out the discontinuity of Being, as well as the discontinuity of representation. Truth, indicates the opening or the dawning of Being itself that allows Dasein to appear as it is and that enables representation to model itself on it.

 

The Question of the Whole : A Subversive One ?

 

The Derridean ‘ différance ’ questions us. It is equally narrowly connected to Levinas’ notion of ‘ imperialism of the Same ’. The introductory dialogue between Holden and Leon, which we have already discussed at the beginning of this study, also recalls the idea that it is the unity of the same that is questioned and at best, endangered. A basic ‘ difference ’ is put into question through Holden’s words.

 

Leon: Tortoise? What's that?

Holden: Know what a turtle is?

Leon: Of course.

Holden: Same thing.

 

To differ is not to be the same, and it equally amounts to a postponement. To take account of the notion of ‘ différance ’ is to debunk the illusion of presence. Still, the doubles, reproductions and other simulations resist such a reduction. When being carefully examined, these doubles always  harm the identity that we thought was primary.

Indeed, such a basic notion seems to come under the yoke of Holden, the latter being the warrant of Order in Blade Runner (isn’t Holden’s name specific in this regard ?). Interestingly enough, any dictionary defines a turtle as the encompassing term for tortoise, thus bringing grist to our mill : Holden’s definition is an attempt at assimilating Otherness into the Same. Nevertheless, this very attempt is kept at bay through Leon’s killing of Holden – there again, an ambiguity remains for we do not know whether Holden has survived. Still, we can state this attempt of assimilation is being contested and strongly opposed. And who could best enforce this opposition but Replicants, which are considered as replications but at the same time are being denied their right to difference – they are tracked down although their life-span is already limited. Replicants are fighting for their right to difference.

Besides, physical contention, that is, scenes featuring fights, as well as intellectual one – the game of chess between J.F. Sebastian and Tyrell, in which Roy interferes – is perhaps an embedded structure for another broader conflict, that is, an ideological one, which would be the preliminary condition to the occurrence of Derrida’s concern with ‘différance’.

Indeed, two systems of thinking are being opposed in Blade Runner – hence the relevance of fights between human beings and Replicants. Even Deckard saves his words, he simply tracks down Replicants. Avoiding words, circumventing them, therein lies his interest. That seems to make sense as he works on the ESPER system, trying to bypass the façade of photography, zooming in and out, at last circumventing it and eventually finding evidence on the other side of the picture. In this case, his work recalls film-editing and its relentless motion and rhythm. The reader-spectator can here witness a real work of deconstructive reading.

Subversion can also be tainted with humour as is the case with Roy making a sexual innuendo : ‘No, knight takes queen, see. No good’. Disturbance of a well-established order is also adding to humour. Most interesting, though, is the continuation of the speech :

 

           

[Sebastian and Roy at chess board]

 

Sebastian: No, knight takes queen, see. No good.

Roy: Why are you staring at us Sebastian?

Sebastian: Because. You're so different. You're so perfect.

Roy: Yes.

 

A confirmation on J.F. Sebastian intuition as far as Roy’s identity is concerned can be found upon reading Jean-François Mattéi’s work entitled L’Etranger et le Simulacre 90 :

 

‘L’Etranger est un exilé, l’ Etranger est un parricide. Malgré une crainte sacrée, il n’hésite pas à porter la main sur son père Parménide. Et, de fait, cet homme dont on ne sait s’il est fils prodigue ou bâtard, ne porte pas de nom ou le cache soigneusement à ses compagnons. L’Etranger est un homme sans identité.’

 

Such a statement draws our attention to the fact that Tyrell would personify Parmenides whose offspring  could then be Roy. This makes sense when pondering over Parmenides’ inclination of thinking – he formulates his fundamental proposal of ontology, which is : Being is one, continuous and eternal[26]. In short, we could posit that this ideological contest features two schools of thinking divided on the nature of ontology. Human beings would be the disciples of Parmenides and monism, people concerned with the creation of things made in their own image. In this respect, Tyrell is viewed as a semi-God, elevated in the tallest building, his abode appears as the only one bathing in light so much so that he is obliged to draw a curtain as he receives Deckard. This sharply contrasts with the world of Blade Runner as a whole, with the teeming, down to earth, nocturnal life of the movie. On the other hand, Replicants are representatives of a dissemination of meaning whose nature is much more complex to understand for they can be viewed as the ‘differing’ re-plication, not the identical du-plication of human being. Their discontinuous state of being, as discussed earlier on, is at least a support for Deckard, whose siding of the contest is rather difficult to apprehend. Indeed, he is the embodiment of time, put it more simply he means death to the Replicants – he is the Blade Runner, although he is constantly challenged by them through their desire of eternity. Nevertheless, and we have already discussed it, Replicants awake Deckard to a sense of dismay, arising doubt in his mind, a doubt that is a first step towards the recognition of his authentic Being. Replicants are the warrants of the dissemination, multiplicity, plurality of beings, of difference as a whole and are the most aware of the ‘differing’ of their death sentence. They are being disseminated against their will. Strangely enough, through his process of re-collecting evidence for his investigation, Deckard is also led to re-establish a unity as far as multiplicity is concerned, deconstructing Leon’s photograph with the ESPER system. Deckard is required to make sense of what is left behind by Replicants, that is, physical evidence such as photography but also language in that Replicants are not only physical replications but also discursive ones : Roy makes use of an intertertext with Blake :

 

Roy: Fiery the angels fell. Deep thunder rode around their shores, burning with the fires of Orc.

 

Blake’s original lines being :

 

‘Fiery the Angels rose, and as they rose deep thunder roll’d Around their shores : indignant burning with the fires of Orc …’[27]

 

 In Blakean symbolism, the Angels were those with imaginative vision, working to bring humanity back to a sense of union, through an apocalypse of a kind.

Broadly speaking, Replicants play a revealing part which comes to echo the real ideological issue that is at stake throughout the movie : the space of Blade Runner is the representation of a wound, that something went wrong in the course of  history regarding modern thinking, that is, the confusion within the concepts of  ontic and ontological planes, between ontic and ontological differences. This points to a mistake that has generated conspicuous evils pervasive in Blade Runner : moral resentment – relevant in many ways – desire of eternity and political totalitarianism as a zeppelin watches over the population and imparts its propaganda :

 

           

 

Overhead blimp: A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure.

Sushi Master: Nan-ni shimasho-ka? [ Japanese for: ‘What would you like to have?’ ]

Overhead blimp: A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure. New climate, recreational facilities ...

Overhead blimp: absolutely free... Use your new friend as a personal body servant or a tireless field hand - the custom tailored genetically engineered humanoid replicant designed especially for your needs. So come on America, lets put our team up there ...

 

Clearly enough, propaganda makes itself fully understandable whereas a simple sushi cooker speaks in a language we can hardly make out. And this is the case with Deckard,  who has to repeat his words, muffled by the speech of the blimp, to eventually disagree with the cooker. The repetition of the blimp speaker is in sharp contrast with the redundancy of Deckard’s dialogue with the sushi master :

 

           

[‘give me four’ / ‘two must be enough for you’]

 

Sushi Master: ...akimashita, akimashita. Irasshai, irasshai. [pause] Sa dozo. Nan-ni shimasho-ka? [Japanese for: ‘Now you can sit here. Come on. Well, what would you like to have?’]

Deckard: Give me four.

Sushi Master: Futatsu de jubun desuyo. [Japanese for : ‘Two must be enough for you’]

Deckard: No, four. Two, two, four.

Sushi Master: Futatsu de jubun desuyo. [Japanese for : ‘Two must be enough for you’]

Deckard: And noodles.

Sushi Master: Wakatte kudasai yo. [Japanese for: ‘Please understand me.’]

 

Most philosophers have denounced this ideological overwhelming of the Same as a millstone around our necks and have shed all the light upon the concept of  ‘différance’ – and this is relevant in Blade Runner through the scenes featuring crowds, the hearing of different languages, the question of identity as far as Replicants or human beings are concerned, and so on. Lyotard, in particular, views the demise of the great unifying ideals, be they political or religious ones, as the origin of the dissemination of meaning[28].

The ‘wound’ of modern thinking is this confusion of the notion of ‘différance’, it refers to the appropriation of Otherness by the Same through knowledge, this to the detriment of mystery whose essence is to remain secret. This shows in the same way through Blade Runner and Eyes Wide Shut– quoting Derrida :

 

‘De même le rôle joué dissimule sous le masque social l’authenticité du moi irremplaçable [Eyes Wide Shut], de même la civilisation de l’ennui produite par l’objectivité techno-scientifique dissimule le mystère [Blade Runner]’[29] (my brackets)

 

Still according to Derrida,

 

‘La civilisation de l’ennui produite par l’objectivité techno-scientifique dissimule le mystère :  les découvertes les plus raffinées sont ennuyeuses pour autant qu’elles ne mènent pas à l’exacerbation du Mystère qui s’abrite derrière ce qui est découvert, derrière ce qui nous est dévoilé’[30]

 




[1] Maurice Blanchot, L’entretien Infini 12-21.

[2] ‘Cette primauté du Même fut la leçon de Socrate. Ne rien recevoir d’Autrui sinon ce qui est en moi, comme si, de toute éternité, je possédais ce qui me vient du dehors … La liberté ne ressemble pas à la capricieuse spontanéité du libre arbitre … Connaître ontologiquement, c’est surprendre dans l’étant affronté, ce par quoi il n’est pas cet étant-ci, cet étranger-ci, mais ce par quoi il se trahit en quelque manière, se livre, se donne à l’horizon où il se perd et apparaît, donne prise, devient concept. Connaître, revient à saisir l’être à partir de rien, ou à le ramener à rien, lui enlever son altérité … L’idéal de la vérité socratique repose donc sur la suffisance essentielle du Même, sur son identification d’ipséité, sur son égoïsme’ Lévinas, Totalité et Infini 34-35.

[3] Maurice Blanchot, L’Entretien Infini 25.

[4] For a better understanding : Fallenness and Thrownness. Verfallen or Fallenness is the mode according to which Dasein is daily to the world. Geworfenheit or Thrownness is the facticity of Dasein as a project into the world, whose origin and destination are denied.

[5] Matin Heidegger’s philosophical work.

[6] This term indicates existence. Hence the relevance of the translation Da-Sein, to be there. It equally means an examplary being whose mode of Being is scrutinized.

[7] Maurice Blanchot, L’Entretien Infini 25.

[8] What Blanchot coins ‘le détour de la question’

[9] Maurice Blanchot, L’Entretien Infini 29

[10] Heidegger’s word to underline the ‘holding sensation’ of happy moods.

[11] ‘Le privilège conféré à l’aspect inhibiteur du réel n’est pas inscrit dans la nature de celui-ci. Il résulte d’une manière de l’interroger. Or celle-ci est suscitée par une situation vécue […] Notre relation de la réalité n’a pas une origine théorique ; elle repose sur une épreuve existentielle, elle-même liée à une tonalité affective. Or, il y a une relation entre l’expérience de la résistance et le doute. Une réalité non portante et non secourable s’avère branlante. Elle provoque un sentiment d’incertitude. L’incertitude d’abord éprouvée dans les assises de l’existence, se transforme facilement en l’attitude qui consiste à s’assurer de la réalité. Comme si son existence n’était pas établie. On doute de la réalité comme fondement. La résistance était pourtant d’abord le critère de la réalité. Mais elle fait s’ébranler les bases de la vie et libère la possibilité intellectuelle du doute.’ Christian Chambon, Logique de la Finitude 21.

[12] According to Elden Tyrrell, the Voigt-Kampff test is ‘designed to provoke an emotional response’.

[13] See Chapter II, ‘The Eye/I Questions’.

[14] This issue is developed in chapter II (see subchapter 2.2.3).

[15] Hence the relevance of our next chapter entitled the ‘Eye/I’ questions.

[16] This explanation finds a continuation in our chapter devoted to the theory of cinema – the divination of enigma is made possible through the ‘eye/I’ of the spectator (see chapter 3).

 

[17] Rachael’s question is most relevant in this respect : ‘have you ever retired a human by mistake ? But in your position, that is a risk’.

 

[18] Verstehen, Heidegger’s notion of understanding, which conveys the visibility of Being to Dasein.

[19] ‘Le corps menace la synthèse et en même temps la parachève dans la mesure où il offre à la connaissance de soi une saisie plus juste’ Cynthia Fleury, Pretium Doloris, L’accident comme souci de soi 31.

[20] ‘Ce qui est la réalisation du concept vaut plutôt pour elle comme la perte d’elle-même ; car, sur ce chemin, elle perd sa vérité.’ Hegel, La phénoménologie de l’Esprit (Tome 1) 69.

[21] Hegel, La phénoménologie de l’esprit (Tome 1) 71.

[22] Heidegger, Etre et temps 236.

[23] Roland Barthes. Le Plaisir du Texte 11.

[24] Roland Barthes, La Chambre Claire 102.

[25] See Roy’s final statement : ‘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 darkness near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like … tears … in rain. Time to die’.

 

[26] In On Nature

[27] In America – A Prophecy, Plate 11 by William Blake.

[28] See La condition Post-Moderne, Jean-françois Lyotard.

[29] Jacques Derrida, Donner la Mort 58.

[30] Jacques Derrida, Donner la Mort 58.

 

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