"Seven Days in May" - the movie - Is being shown on the Turner Classic Movies (TCM-TV) in one hour

[Charles Drago]

Jan:


If he lives a hundred years [Ridley Scott] will never make something like Tess. Because the beauty in that film is not there for its own sake or to support something as shallow as an android hunter story.

Blade Runner -- the "android hunter" film to which I believe you refer -- is a masterpiece of its genre. Based upon Philip K. Dick's short story "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", the film asks the most profound questions about consciousness and spirituality. Its overt dystopian sensibilities -- brilliantly envisioned and brought to cinematic life -- are counter-argued in the penultimate scene: the generation of a soul within the replicant/android Roy.

Roy's soul announces its birth via the creation of a metaphor and manifests as a white dove, which suddenly appears in his hands as he delivers his own eulogy:

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. [laughs] Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like [coughs] tears in rain. Time to die."

When Roy, the artificial life form, creates a metaphor -- "like tears in rain" -- his totality becomes greater than the sum of his parts.

The dove, released, flies toward the heavens.

Sell Scott and Blade Runner short at your own peril.

[Charles Drago]

P.S. -- Rutger Hauer is acknowledged by Ridley Scott and screenwriter David Peoples to be the author Roy's final speech.

Peoples's original, which Hauer later characterized as "opera talk" and "high tech speech," pales by comparison:

"I've known adventures, seen places you people will never see, I've been Offworld and back... frontiers! I've stood on the back deck of a blinker bound for the Plutition Camps with sweat in my eyes watching the stars fight on the shoulder of Orion...I've felt wind in my hair, riding test boats off the black galaxies and seen an attack fleet burn like a match and disappear. I've seen it, felt it...!"

[Keith Millea]

Oh Natasha:

Born under a bad moon rising.

Was that really Sir Christopher Lee watching.

ALL,there in your naked splendor,and young...

To the Devil a Daughter.....

Hammer sez

[Jan Klimkowski]

P.S. -- Rutger Hauer is acknowledged by Ridley Scott and screenwriter David Peoples to be the author Roy's final speech.

Peoples's original, which Hauer later characterized as "opera talk" and "high tech speech," pales by comparison:

"I've known adventures, seen places you people will never see, I've been Offworld and back... frontiers! I've stood on the back deck of a blinker bound for the Plutition Camps with sweat in my eyes watching the stars fight on the shoulder of Orion...I've felt wind in my hair, riding test boats off the black galaxies and seen an attack fleet burn like a match and disappear. I've seen it, felt it...!"

Indeed.

The dove soaring heavenwards is allegedly stolen from the rushes of one of his brother Tony Scott's films, just as the end sequence contains rushes lifted from Kubrick's The Shining.

Movies are absolutely creative collaborations.

However, directors can choose whether to make films or not.

After the grisly murder of Sharon Tate and their unborn child, Polanski chose to make a film of Macbeth, heavily adapting Shakespeare's text.

Here's the notorious and highly graphic assassination scene, filmed in 1971, two years after Sharon Tate was mercilessly sliced up.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Oh Natasha:

Born under a bad moon rising.

Was that really Sir Christopher Lee watching.

ALL,there in your naked splendor,and young...

To the Devil a Daughter.....

Hammer sez

Poor child Nastassja indeed.

From Mad Klaus Kinski to Roman Polanski.

She was just 18 years old when Polanski, ahem, cast her as Tess.

Here's the wiki account of Nastassja's comments on her father, Klaus:

In 1999, she [Nastassja] denied that her father had sexually molested her, but confirmed he molested her "in other ways".[6] In 2013, when she was interviewed about the allegations of sexual abuse made by her half-sister Pola Kinski,[7][8] she confirmed that he tried with her, but unlike with her sister, he did not actually succeed with her. She stated: "He was no father. 99 percent of the time I was terrified of him. He was so unpredictable that the family lived in constant terror." When asked what she would say to him now, if she had the chance, she replied: "I would do anything to put him behind bars for life. I am glad he is no longer alive."[9]

[Jim DiEugenio]

I beg to kind of disagree, but doves escaping into the night sky is not really a very subtle artistic concept. Its kind of antique and cliched. But that is Ridley Scott. And that is why I say listen to his comments on Gladiator.


With Polanski, take a look at the whole long last scene of Chinatown. Which is now an agreed upon high point in post war American film. Not just the film, but that particular scene. Watch how beautifully directed it is, shot by shot, composition by composition. Not by production design, a la Ridley Scott, but by the director's vision of what is happening. All culminating in that lonely horn honking in the night as the car comes to a halt and the other participants run up to see what has happened. And then, Nicholson has that memorable line, "As little as possible." As he realizes the tough guy detective has been both duped and victimized by forces beyond his control. He then tries to turn back to straighten it out. But his partner says, forget it Jake, its Chinatown. One of the great last lines in contemporary American film.

Here is just a part of this great and memorable scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uSz0mEtEsQ

And now, after all that, consider this: NONE OF THIS WAS IN TOWNE"S FINAL SCRIPT!

Polanski wrote and directed it all himself. Because he and Towne had a disagreement about that last scene. Towne actually left the project and Polanski did the writing of the last scene alone. Towne later admitted that he was wrong and Polanski was right. But yet it was Towne who got sole screen credit. Which is kind of too generous since if it was not for that last scene, I doubt if Towne gets the award.

That is talent. Not production design.

[Phil Dragoo]

A friend with whom we went to Chicago in a meshed up hatch-sawn '63 Econoline and his new Beaulieu for Days of Rage
said there's only one story line
and I have to note even Huxley's Ford T was a lop-off of it

Now comes Roamin' to take a big dump on the Catholic Church and Mia Farrow is the perfect defilee
with big bellee
and Roamin'
the pig
plumps her by devil
and presents her
with a little devil

It's really craptastic folks
and Leni Reifenwill was only obeying art

The Manson-Tate event was the death of the 'sixties
arranged by those who do these large psychic operas
like Deadly Plaza Afternoon

Blade Runner touchingly dealt with consciousness

What is conscious about leering Roamin'
slipping the thirteen-year-old girl sopors
and schtupping her rump pump pump pump

I spent hours with a such a girl talking her out of a dark closet corner
when our silkscreen schmuck
slipped her what was sold to him as
acid
so he could deflower the flower child

I can tell a honkie from a chainsaw

Roamin' needs to go be Bubba's BFF

He's the reason this
"culture"
is stuck in the amber
of
unexperienced
sex
brutality

Everyone
Matrix-like
wears 400 layers
of Humphrey Bogart

bogus
art

Reel art
should peel back
all of that

[Charles Drago]

I beg to kind of disagree, but doves escaping into the night sky is not really a very subtle artistic concept. Its kind of antique and cliched. But that is Ridley Scott. And that is why I say listen to his comments on Gladiator.

Gladiator is irrelevant: The depth and sophistication of the artistic vision powering Blade Runner speaks for itself. That collective vision is not qualified in any meaningful way by examination of any of it's creator's other works.

Apparently, Jim, you either have not seen Blade Runner or your grasp of semiotics leaves a bit to be desired.

First of all: ONE dove.

Second: Try not to over-simplify to support your arguments. Follow your own advice: "[T]ake a look at the whole long last scene." Within the context of that scene, it is the sudden, wholly inexplicable appearance of the dove in Roy's grasp as it is timed to coincide with his creation of metaphor -- which is to say, artistic expression -- and revelation of his sense of personal mortality that in the aggregate comprise the filmmakers' commentary on the nature of human existence and the mystery of the soul/spirit.

The machine evolves before our eyes. Spirit manifests, then survives the demise of its earthly vessel, before our eyes.

The most profound questions confronting humankind are posed -- and, of course, left unanswered -- in the broader and unique generic language of science fiction.

Direct me, if you can, to a more succinct yet deep examination of the philosophy of mind within the history of film.

3. The production design of Blade Runner is appropriate to the film's genre and themes. The production design of Chinatown is appropriate to its genre and themes. Your comparison is inapt and, basically, brings little of value to the discussion.

And perhaps if you were more familiar with Blade Runner, you would recall that Roy's death scene was shot in L.A.'s landmark Bradbury Building prior to its restoration. It is on a bare, ruined rooftop, in the rain, sans effects, that Roy prepares to meet his other Maker. Not a whole lot of sci-fi production evident here.

I'm barely scratching the surface of Blade Runner. Favor yourself with another viewing, and then let's talk again.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Charles, the idea was expressed in plural because that idea, a dove or other bird in flight, has been used so many times in art that its hackneyed. In fact, I used it in my first student film. But I felt that even in my film it was more organic and therefore digested and not added on; to the point where you can see the propmaster giving Hauer the thing right before the clip board snapped.

As for not seeing Blade Runner, I was there at the theater on Ventura Blvd in Sherman Oaks for its opening week in LA. I have since seen it on VHS, and DVD and the rereleased version on the big screen. I own the recut DVD. So please, do not presume I don't know the film.

You missed my point about the long last scene in Chinatown. My point in mentioning it was not just because it is so memorable and compelling but that Polanski made it up there on the set! Towne was so against it that he left the trailer and refused to write it. So Polanski had to write the whole thing, dialgoue and action, willy nilly. And it includes two all time one liners. Although Towne deserves credit for the first one.

You also miss my point about production design. Scott's films, especially Blade Runner, are visually striking because of their design, because he started his career as a production designer. If you actually examine his films shot by shot, scene by scene, they really aren't that exceptional, except for that element. That is why I say, Scott could never make something as exquisite as Tess. Or a scene with the originality or impact of the last shot of Repulsion. He just is not that concerned with those elements. And this is why the general quality of the acting in his films is not really superior. And in fact, actors have complained that he spends too much time on the visuals and not enough helping them find their characters.

So, anyway, I always liked Blade Runner. But I understand its strengths and weaknesses. Chinatown, on the other hand, really does not have any weaknesses. Its pretty much a completely fulfilled artistic intention. Further, it is based upon facts. There really was a heist by LA of the Owens Valley water. And the John Huston character is based upon the mastermind of that swipe: Harry Chanlder of the LA Times.

[Magda Hassan]

The doves in scenes at 1.53 and 1.55. Maybe hackneyed but impressed a nation.