Midway through, the Guardian ran an interview in which Scott said that he preferred British crews, because he could give them orders and they'd say, "Yes, guv'nor!" The crew printed up T-shirts that read "YES GUV'NOR MY ASS!" Scott and his British compatriots tried to quell the insurrection by wearing T-shirts reading “XENOPНОBIA SUCKS." The budget ran two million dollars over. The final days were a frenzy, with the last scene - Rutger Hauer's moody android death - shot against the last sunrise to dawn before Scott's cameras would be taken from him. In postproduction, Scott was fired - twice - but worked his way back.
When preview audiences expressed confusion, Scott, against his better judgment, added a voice-over and a happy ending in which Deckard and his android paramour flee Los Angeles; Kubrick gave him helicopter footage left over from The Shining.
Blade Runner came out in June 1982, two weeks after E.T., which synched better with the sunny Reagan era than Scott's bleak dystopia did. [Pauline] Kael wasn't its only detractor; another critic wrote, "I suspect my blender and toaster oven would just love it." After making six million dollars on its opening weekend, the film all but disappeared. Although it grew into a cult classic and became a touchstone for such filmmakers as Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve (who directed the 2017 sequel), Scott still speaks of Blade Runner with an ache. Asked what it taught him, he sounded like a defiant general routed by an undeserving enemy: "I learned that the only opinion that matters, when all is said and done - even with failure in your face, and you're lying on the mat, crushed - is, What did you think of it?"
- Michael Schulman, 'Napoleon Complex', New Yorker, 13 November 2023, p.43
See also:Movies: The refreshingly brutal candour of The RKO Story, 27 July 2021
Movies: Parker Posey on working with Christopher Guest, 31 August 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment