RSS

Contact us

FAQs

Sunday 27 May 2012

The Spectator’s 50 Essential Films: Part Two

Peter Hoskin and Matthew d’Ancona count down the final 25 of The Spectator’s 50 Essential Films

17.
Blade Runner
(Ridley Scott, 1982)

Make no mistake: Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is a triumph of substance over style. Every dystopian vision since may have been informed by its unforgettable look: vertiginous towers, shadowy streets and the sickly glow of a thousand neon lights. But none has come close to matching its essential profundity. For at the core of this tale about renegade androids — replicants — and the ‘blade runner’ tasked with hunting them down is an uncompromising meditation on mortality and all its associated side-issues: the afterlife, the nature of the creator, and the possibility of cheating death. It gives the film a tragic power which peaks when the replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) comes to the end of his four-year lifespan. He sits down in the rain, and utters three simple words that speak to a dread we all share, humans and replicants alike: ‘Time to die.’ PH

More articles from: Peter Hoskin and Matthew d'Ancona | this section

Print this article  |  Email to a friend  |  Permalink

Advertisement

Apollo Magazine | Corporate | Advertising | Privacy | Terms

Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP

All Articles and Content Copyright ©2012 by The Spectator | All Rights Reserved