In Project 26 we had to read an extract of Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulations from The Visual Culture Reader. While Frederic Jameson’s ideas on the postmodern were applied to the film Blade Runner, Baudrillard’s ideas were directly used in The Matrix.
There is a tradition of popular films taking contemporary ideological, philosophical or political ideas as their themes; Blade Runner and The Matrix are no exception. For example, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis used the ideas of German Expressionism to explore the relationship between capital and worker and Jean-Luc Goddard’s A Bout de Souffle uses some aspects of Sartrian Existentialism.
Postmodern issues are central to the reading of Blade Runner and The Matrix .
Here are my notes from The Visual Culture Reader:
Blade Runner Notes: Is Deckard a Replicant?
For this I watched the final cut rather than the original theatrically released version.
Though the film is ambiguous regarding Deckard’s humanity, I believe in this version of the film it is more than implied that Deckard – the Blade Runner who is assigned to “retire” replicants – is a replicants himself.
This is mainly done the unicorn dream sequence. Is this a dream implanted like Rachael’s memories? This seems to be confirmed with the silver origami unicorn placed outside Deckard’s apartment at the end of the film. This suggests that Gaff knew all along that Deckard was a Replicant as he is aware of his dream.
A Replicant could be seen as an embodiment of Baudrillard’s simulacra. They are a copy in which no original exists. Like the unicorn, they are hyper-real.
It would be interesting for me to further examine Frederic Jameson’s view of the postmodern – particularly the end of history – and the way he borrows from Baudrillard. I’d also like to note an analysis of parody and pastiche – Jameson’s definition – in Blade Runner.
The Matrix: How far do the ideas of the simulacrum inform the film?
After watching the Matrix I made a few notes as how far the ideas of simulacrum inform the film.
The world of The Matrix – not the “real” but the Matrix itself – is a complete simulacrum; a copy of something that never was, created by the machines. Unaware to humanity the Matrix imprisons and thus allows them to be enslaved. The Matrix is a complete artificial construction; a copy of a ‘reality’ which never existed. Baudrillard believed the world in which we live in was becoming this.
I think the use of CGI – especially in the latter films – supports Baudrillard’s ideas as it facilitates simulacrums to be created. This creation of artifice makes one question reality more and more. The Matrix demonstrates the idea of the ‘avatar’; the cyberspace dwelling alter-ego of oneself.
I’d like to explore Baudrillard’s definition of postmodernism further and then be able to analyse the way in which The Matrix engages with other key concepts.
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| A direct reference to Baudrillard in The Matrix. |
Further Study
I will have to admit familiarity with both films. They were studied as part of the Open Studies Certificate I took with the University of Warwick (‘Introduction to Film and Cinema Studies’).
When studying both films we were asked to consider some of the theories discussed in relation to postmodernism. This was done on a very basic in class but I took it on myself in my last assignment to tackle these ideas in relation to Blade Runner. In the essay I wrote I explored the question: “Blade Runner is now repeatedly described as an example of a ‘postmodernist’ text. Do you agree?”. Backed up with evidence – both textual analysis and quotes from various academics – I came to the conclusion to agree with the question.
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| The first two page of my Blade Runner essay. No it's not a fiction of my imagination! |
I would have preferred to have a written an essay exploring voyeurism within Blade Runner but instead I chose postmodernism as I knew it would help my understanding of this part of the Visual Studies course.
The bibliography following my reference list reflects the amount of wider reading and note-taking I undertook when I wrote this essay just a couple of months ago.
Further Reading:
Baudrillard, J. (1988) America. Translated by C. Turner. New York: Verso.
Booker, M. K. (2007) Postmodern Hollywood: What’s new in film and why it makes us feel so strange. Westport: Praeger Publishers.
Constable, C. (2009) Adapting Philosophy: Jean Baudrillard and The Matrix Trilogy. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Jameson, F. The nostalgia mode and nostalgia for the present. In: Brooker, P. and Brooker, W. (eds.) Postmodern After-Images: A Reader in Film, Television and Video (1997). London: Arnold, pp. 23-35.
Jameson, F. (1991) Postmodernism or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. New York: Verso.
King, G. (2000) Spectacular Narratives: Hollywood in the Age of the Blockbuster. London: I.B. Taurus.
Reference List
Baudrillard, J. (1988) Simulacra and Simulations. In: Mirzoeff, J. (ed.) The Visual Culture Reader. (1998) Abingdon: Routledge pp. 145-147.
Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, The Ladd Company/ Shaw Brothers/ Warner Bros. Pictures, USA, 1982)
The Matrix (Wachowski Brothers, Warner Bros. Pictures/Village Roadshow Pictures, Australia/USA, 1999)
Bibliography
Baudrillard, Jean. 1967. The Hyper-realism of Simulation. In: C. Harris and P. Wood eds. 2003. Art in Theory: 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 1018-1019.
Baudrillard, Jean. 1994. Simulcara and Simulation. Translated from French by S.F. Glaser. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Boozer Jr, Jack, Crashing the Gates of Insight: Blade Runner. In: J.B. Kerman ed. 1991. Retrofitting Blade Runner: Issues in Ridley Scott’s ‘Blade Runner’ and Philip K. Dick’s ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. Pp. 212-228.
Bruno, Giuliana. 1987. Ramble City: Postmodernism and Blade Runner. In: A. Kuhn ed. 1990. Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema. London: Verso, pp. 183-195.
Bukatman, Scott. 1997. Blade Runner. BFI Modern Classics. London: British Film Institute.
Carroll, Noel. 1985. Film. In: S. Trachtenberg, Stanley ed. 1985. The Postmodern Moment: a handbook of contemporary innovation in the arts. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Church Gibson, Pamela and Hill, John. eds.. 1998. The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harris, Charles and Wood, Paul. eds..2003. Art in Theory: 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Hayward, Susan. 1996. Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts. Abingdon: Routledge.
Hill, John. 1998. Film and Postmodernism. In: P. Church Gibson and J. Hill, eds. 1998. Oxford Guide to Film Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 96-105.
Kerman, Judith B. ed.. 1991. Retrofitting Blade Runner: Issues in Ridley Scott’s ‘Blade Runner’ and Philip K. Dick’s ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Kuhn, Annette. ed.. 1990. Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema. London: Verso.
Lyotard, Jean-Francis. 1979. Introduction to The Postmodern Condition. In: C. Harris and P. Wood eds. 2003. Art in Theory: 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 1122-1123
Lyotard, Jean-Francis. 1982. ‘What is Postmodernism?’ In: C. Harris and P. Wood eds. 2003. Art in Theory: 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 1131-1136.
Pierce, John J. Creative Synergy and the art of World Creation. In: J.B. Kerman ed. 1991. Retrofitting Blade Runner: Issues in Ridley Scott’s ‘Blade Runner’ and Philip K. Dick’s ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 201-211.
Stam, Robert. 1999. Film Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
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