Blade runner – Ridley Scott

Postmodern elements

Hyperreality

• Blade runner is a great example of hyper reality. This can be seen in the opening scene where the recognisable city of LA is shown. Futuristic elements i.e. space crafts and explosions. These shots of the city create a reality we can easily believe.

Consumerism

• Jameson states that there is not clear distinction between what is real and what is not in the media. In blade runner, this boundary is blurred, through the use of real advertisements i.e. coco cola being advertised on the skyscrapers. This highlights the fact the world today is so revolved around advertisements in the media and also shows that this is potentially down to consumerism which encourages the purchase of goods on a large scale i.e. through films, telly, magazines, music videos etc.

Simulacra

• The ‘replicants’ are a perfect example of simulacra. They are in fact ‘a copy of a copy’ i.e. they are copies of humans. The film is revolved around killing the replicants and how hard it is to tell whether they are infact a replicant or a human.

Pastiche

• Blade runner imitates the city of LA in American and what they feel it may be like in 2019.

Temporal distortion

• This is when there are many historical and cultural references that do not fit. For example there is a futuristic set, with people dressed in clothes from the 1940s who have punk rock hair styles.

• This is also shown through the mix of languages spoken in the film, for example English, German, Japanese and Spanish.