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Movie analysis: Postmodernism in Blade Runner

got'(19). So apart from their appearance, the replicants are human simulacra. Animals like the snake and Tyrell's owl are also imitations of the real thing. Blade Runner' is full of imitations, the Pyramid of the Tyrell Corporation has a mish mash' (20) of style from its Egyptian shape to the classical columns that decorate the interior, and this also mixes the future with the past. Furthermore Rachael, a replicant who doesn't have a four year life span and becomes Deckard's lover, reminds us of a femme fatale when we first see her at the Tyrell Corporation. We are uncertain about her at that point yet she is attractive and stylishly dressed. Pris, another replicant, looks like a punk, another reference to the 1980's, and Zhora wears a transparent jacket over a very revealing and sensual outfit which looks futuristic; so the film clearly plays with time and intertextuality. Space is also a factor, with the buildings and signs consuming most of it, and the crowd squashed between what little is left on the ground. The idea of corrupt authority, the corrosive effects of capitalism',(21) the films use of levels to demonstrate differences between rich and poor; and lastly the look of the city with its huge mega-structures demonstrates that it is undoubtedly influenced by Metropolis, which was made at the height of Modernism. Uncertainty, unreliability, questions about reality and identity are also elements evident in Blade Runner. All these features allow the film to not only be considered extremely postmodernist but also influential in the evolution of postmodernism and its effect on film. In the words of Robert Stam: Postmodernism as a discursive/stylistic grid has enriched film theory and analysis by calling attention to a stylistic shift towards a media-conscious cinema of multiple styles and ironic recyclage -for example the relation between Madonna's Material Girl'' and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Much of the work on postmodernism in film has involved the positing of a postmodern aesthetic, exemplified in such influential films as Blade Runner' (1982), Blue Velvet' (1987) and Pulp Fiction' (1994)' (22).

(1)Cristina Degli-Esposti, Postmodernism', p.4.
(2)Cristina Degli-Esposti, Postmodernism', p.4.
(3)See: Cristina Degli-Esposti, Postmodernism'.
(4)Robert Stam and Toby Miller, Film and Theory: An Anthology (New York: Blackwell, 2000),p.753.
(5)Stam and Miller, Film and Theory, p.754.
(6)David Lyon, Postmodernity (London: Open University Press, 1994), pp.1-3.
(7)Lyon, Postmodernity, pp.2-3.
(8)Danny Peary, Cult Movies Three (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1988), p.35.
(9)Danny Peary, Cult Movies Three, p.32.
(10)Lyon, Postmodernity, p.1.
(11)Danny Peary, Cult Movies Three, p.35.
(12)Danny Peary, Cult Movies Three, p.35.
(13)Scott Bukatman, Blade Runner (London: BFI, 1997), p.80.
(14)Scott Bukatman, Blade Runner, p.82.
(15)Scott Bukatman, Blade Runner, p.83.
(16)David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989),p.311.
(17)David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, p.311.
(18)Danny Peary, Cult Movies Three, p.37.
(19)David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, p.313.
(20)David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, p.311.
(21)Lyon, Postmodernity, p.2.
(22)Stam and Miller, Film and Theory, p.756.

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