in the 1982 film blade runner, the los angeles of 2019 is a dark, sprawling dystopia. judging by the los angeles of 2009, we have yet to fulfill ridley scott's expectations. yet, when harrison ford walks through an abandoned warehouse, perusing photographs that provide a substitute for robot memories, the photographs are printed from film. polaroid 600, even. curious that the makers of blade runner could imagine the degradation of the planet, biomorphic technology, the conquest of space--yet they could not foresee the obsolescence of film photography.
most science fiction films of the 80s and prior temporally locate their narratives between the years 2000 and 2100--years that our generation now have the potential to live through in its full reality. a strange temporal disjunction, then, occurs when watching these older science fiction films. you look into the past, for a future that you will not live, waiting for the year 2020, at which time this unrealized 2019 future will have been relegated to not only your cultural but your temporal memory. because these films occurred before the advent of computer special effects, there's still a common physical quality to the interplay of light and gravity that makes these events seem tangible, within our world and yet so far away.
No comments:
Post a Comment