Blade Runner --> Beetlejuice
May. 8th, 2005 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneWorked all day on my Blade Runner paper yesterday and finally finished a draft around 1 a.m. 26 pages, 7,414 words. And my conclusion kicks ass:
But whether you agree with Heldreth or Sammon, Peoples or Scott; whether you prefer the International or the Director’s Cut—or, who knows, the Workprint—the existence of so many different versions, says Heldreth, “does add a final appropriate twist to the film’s history by incorporating the questions of the message into the medium itself. The viewer now confronts an original and a replicant version of the film, and, given the tangled chronology of the various releases, must decide which is the more authentic.” I can’t watch the Director’s Cut without my memories of that battered VHS copy and that snowy Vermont night—“false” though they may be—infringing on the experience. I hear Deckard’s words—“...sushi...” “...what the hell was happening...” “...a woman in the back...”—whether Scott wanted me to or not; I see—I feel—Deckard as human whether Scott intended me to or not. Ridley Scott may have made Blade Runner, but he can’t control it. My battered VHS memories are mine, not his, and I’ll take them with me into the wilderness.
The most amusing part of the whole experience was when I took a dinner break. I got my pizza and settled down in front of the TV, figuring I'd watch something to take my mind off my work. I turn on the TV--and guess what's on? (Hint: It wasn't Gone With the Wind.) I actually watched it for a while, because as sick as I was of writing about it, it's a fucking great movie.
Today I've wasted most of the afternoon downloading tracks from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
audiography because the theme this week is movies, and I want everything. My favorite catch, though, has been two Harry Belafonte tracks from Beetlejuice, which I'll pass on to you:
Day-O (Banana Boat Song)
Jump in the Line
I love Beetlejuice and I'm especially amused by these because when my brother was little, the only way we could get him to fall asleep in the car was by playing this soundtrack.
Now...A CONTEST! Whoever can make the shortest, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon-style link between Blade Runner and Beetlejuice wins! GO!
But whether you agree with Heldreth or Sammon, Peoples or Scott; whether you prefer the International or the Director’s Cut—or, who knows, the Workprint—the existence of so many different versions, says Heldreth, “does add a final appropriate twist to the film’s history by incorporating the questions of the message into the medium itself. The viewer now confronts an original and a replicant version of the film, and, given the tangled chronology of the various releases, must decide which is the more authentic.” I can’t watch the Director’s Cut without my memories of that battered VHS copy and that snowy Vermont night—“false” though they may be—infringing on the experience. I hear Deckard’s words—“...sushi...” “...what the hell was happening...” “...a woman in the back...”—whether Scott wanted me to or not; I see—I feel—Deckard as human whether Scott intended me to or not. Ridley Scott may have made Blade Runner, but he can’t control it. My battered VHS memories are mine, not his, and I’ll take them with me into the wilderness.
The most amusing part of the whole experience was when I took a dinner break. I got my pizza and settled down in front of the TV, figuring I'd watch something to take my mind off my work. I turn on the TV--and guess what's on? (Hint: It wasn't Gone With the Wind.) I actually watched it for a while, because as sick as I was of writing about it, it's a fucking great movie.
Today I've wasted most of the afternoon downloading tracks from
audiography because the theme this week is movies, and I want everything. My favorite catch, though, has been two Harry Belafonte tracks from Beetlejuice, which I'll pass on to you:Day-O (Banana Boat Song)
Jump in the Line
I love Beetlejuice and I'm especially amused by these because when my brother was little, the only way we could get him to fall asleep in the car was by playing this soundtrack.
Now...A CONTEST! Whoever can make the shortest, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon-style link between Blade Runner and Beetlejuice wins! GO!
