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| Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty in the film |
This month
my attention is drawn towards Roy Batty, the leader figure of the replicants in
Ridley Scott’s masterpiece Blade Runner (1982)
as his birthday (inception date) is on 8th January 2016. He turns two
this month and this post will pay homage to him. In the film, this Nexus-6 cyborg
(Rutger Hauer), alongside other three androids, dwells in Los Angeles after
escaping the off-world colonies where they worked as slaves for humans. Their
aim on Earth is Dr. Eldon Tyrell, their creator, since they want to demand a
modification in their mechanism so that they can live longer than their four year
life span. The picture is freely based
on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids
Dream of Electric Sheep (1968) where Batty (in the novel spelled ‘‘Baty’’)
is presented as a spiritual figure: ‘‘Given to mystical preoccupations, this
android proposed the group escape attempt, underwriting it ideologically with a
pretentious fiction as to the sacredness of so-called android ‘‘life’’’ (160). Remarkably,
in the film Batty switches from being the main villain the blade runner Rick
Deckard (Harrison Ford) has to ‘‘retire’’, to become a Jesus-like redemeer. This
blog post will focus on Batty’s religious representations, and how his
transformation is influenced by major oeuvres from the English Romanticism with
authors such as William Blake, Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well
as by Ingmar Bergman’s film The Seventh
Seal (1957). I have chosen three key scenes to explain Batty’s
metamorphosis[i]
and his religious allegories: Batty’s first on-screen speech, the confrontation
of Batty with Tyrell, and Batty’s death as a crucifixion with Deckard as his
only witness.
In one of the first scenes in which Batty appears, he recites:
"Fiery the angels
fell; deep thunder rolled around their shores; burning with the fires of
Orc" (Minute 23:43 )
This is a misquotation
from William Blake’s America, a Prophecy,
in which the following line can be read. "Fiery the angels rose, and as
they rose deep thunder roll'd. Around their shores: indignant burning with the
fires of Orc"(Blake Plate 11).
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| William Blake's Plate 11 |
Roy
mentions Orc, a character who appears in Blake’s America, Europe, The Book
of Urizen and The Four Zoas. Orc
is a fallen angel, the personification of rebellion against the oppressive tradition
of the god Urizen in Blakean mythology. Orc transforms from a worm into a
serpent (the serpent is present in the film as the
animal replicant Zhora performs as Salomé for her show and she also has the reptile
tattooed on her face), and he echoes Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost
(1667) as he is also ‘‘condemned to
‘‘Adamantine chains and penal fire’’’’(Milton I, 48). Similarly to Milton, it
can be stated that Blade Runner involves the account of the Fall of Man,
with a Satan (Batty) in a hellish 2019 Los Angeles. Nonetheless, the main
purpose Scott wishes to display is the ‘‘moral blindness’’ (Macarthur) humans
possess in the film regarding replicants. Androids are seen as a business, a
product to dispose of if they cause trouble, their feellings and coercion as
slaves are not even considered by humans. The replicants who return to Earth yearn
for a revolution, and aspire to be free from the trade they belong in, in the
same way that Blake exposes slavery in his poems. ‘‘Blake depicts the American
Revolution as a revolt not only against imperialism, but against oppression itself,
a revolt against the equivalent tyrannies of earth and heaven’’ (Harley 63). Blake
refers to the French and the American Revolutions, yet his rebels ‘‘rise’’ to
defend themselves against their despotic rulers. The English poet and artist
worried about the enslavement and colonisation the British Empire embodied
during his time, and Blade Runner echoes his message via Batty, even
though the insurgents seem doomed as ‘‘ the fires of Orc are still burning-the
film opens with a dark, polluted cityscape (that of the City of Angels)
punctuated by sudden upward vomits of flame- but the Revolution, now two
hundred years old, has not fulfilled Blake’s prophecy, the revolutionary angels
have fallen’’ (Harley 64).
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| Plate 12 of America, a Prophecy, with Orc |
It is noteworthy that the replicants’ leader Roy (which means ‘‘King’’)
Batty (‘‘mad’’) undergoes a physical alteration to resemble the blonde Orc, as
in the novel he is described as a man with ‘‘Mongolian features which gave him
a brutal look’’ (132-133). Yet in this scene, not only is his connection to the
Blakean character important, his link to a vital element in the storyline is
also outstanding: eyes. When, later on, Roy tells the Asian manufacturer:
‘‘Chew, if only you could see what I’ve seen with your eyes’’(Minute 25:59), he
establishes a connection present from the very beginning of the film, in which
an eye (probably Roy’s, minutes 2:24 and 2:38) can be seen with fire in it,
Orc’s fire and eyes therefore intertwine.
Batty and Leo go to request answers to Chew, the eye manufacturer.Chew creates eyes for those cyborgs who do not express empathy or the human reactions expected by the so-called Voight-Kampff test, a set of questions focused mainly on the eyes' responses. This leads to the association between the ''eye'' and the ''I'' of individuality and personality the replicants demand. The motto of Tyrell Corporation being ''More Human than Human'' (Minute 19:30) as Tyrell himself explains to Deckard once he has finished the test on Rachel, the conclusion is that replicants cannot pass the test because they feel much more than humans, their empathy is much deeper. Eyes have been present in this scene in which Roy has been introduced as a villain, yet in the following one that body part is also vital even if the character becomes the ''prodigal son'' to his creator, Tyrell.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and The Seventh Seal
The second
scene I will comment on here is the meeting between Tyrell and Roy Batty and
how Batty is seen as an Adam (a creation of God) with the rage of a Satan.
Batty enters the Corporation with the aid of genetic designer J.F. Sebastian
and this encounter echoes Victor Frankenstein’s reunion with his Creature at one
of the glaciers of Mont Blanc, in Chapter 10
of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
(1818). While in the original novel the action takes place in a Burkean sublime
in the mountain, the artificial industrial cityscape with echoes of Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis (1927) introduces the action in the picture. Batty and
Sebastian enter the ziggurat-like temple and Batty confronts his creator,
copying Shelley’s defiance. While in the novel, the lonely creature requests
that his maker build him a female creature, Batty wants Tyrell to lengthen his
lifespan. This scene was edited in the 1992 Director’s Cut and, interestingly,
Batty says ‘‘I want more life, fucker’’, making a pun between ‘‘father’’ and
‘‘fucker’’.
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| Illustration of Victor Frankenstein and his Creature by Bernie Wrightson, 1983 |
It is
remarkable that in Shelley’s novel, the Creature is cultured and he learns to compare
his existence to the Adam and Satan of Milton’s Paradise Lost, the above-mentioned epic poem: ‘‘I often referred
the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own. Like Adam, I
was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence… Many times I
considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him,
when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within
me’’ (Shelley 125). Likewise, Batty and the other replicants are seen as
outcasts, yet while Frankenstein rejects his creation due to his appearance,
Tyrell seems to be proud of his cyborg: ‘‘Look at you, you’re the prodigal
son’’(Minute 1:20:55), to which Roy answers: ‘‘I’ve done questionable things’’
(Minute 1:21:08) and ‘‘Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn’t let you in
heaven for’’ (Minute 1:21:21), claiming Tyrell’s lack of ethics. This is
followed by Tyrell’s murder, ‘‘the climax to the encounter is one of nothing
less than Shakesperean majesty and horror, though Oedipus is even more to the
point: he kisses Tyrell on the lips, mercilessly pushes his eyes out with his
bare hands, and, in effect, kills God (his father/creator) and commits suicide
in one and the same act’’ (Williams 387). Therefore, as it has been depicted,
eyes play an important role here, as in gouging Tyrell’s eyes out, Roy
emphasises his creator’s incapacity to see
replicants as humans. (In Blade Runner
2049 replicant manufacturer Niander Wallace, played by Jared Leto, is
blind).
Nevertheless, Frankenstein is not the only influence
I find in this scene; to enter Tyrell’s Corporation, Batty uses the game of
chess Sebastian is playing with the scientist. His aim, to extend his lifetime,
is also illustrated in Ingmar Bergman’s
iconic film The Seventh Seal. The
film is about a knight, Antonious Block, who, after having fought in the
Crusades, returns to his homeland Sweden only to find it devastated by the
Black Plague. The cavalier is afraid that there is nothing in the afterlife and struggles to maintain his
religious beliefs. Set in the fourteenth century, the plot begins with the confrontation between the knight and Death, who comes after
him. To gain time, he tries to deceive Death by playing chess, just as Roy
tells Sebastian the steps to follow in the game so that his creator can give
him more life. Furthermore, chess is also present in Blade Runner as the
pattern of the wall Roy breaks with his head when hunting Deckard (Minute
1:36:30) is that of a chess table.
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| Bengt Ekeroth(‘‘Death) and Max von Sydow (‘‘Block’’) in The Seventh Seal, 1957 |
Nonetheless,
to focus on the Swedish film, the first similarity I find is the appearance
between Roy and Block: both are Aryan men, both have failed to believe in their
Creator; they come from far away to a wasted land, and they want to live
longer, no matter what they have to do for it. There is also the fact that
Block, when he makes a confession and reveals his move in the game to Death, he
says: ‘‘This is my hand. I can turn it. The blood is still running in it’’
(Minute 23:10), looking at
his right hand, the hand Batty will have nailed in the last scene I will
comment on. Furthermore, there is a moment when the knight meets a girl accused
of being a witch and he explains to her that he wants to meet the devil to ask
him about God. The girl is finally burnt,
but Death remarks to the knight ‘‘Will you never stop asking questions?’’ (Minute
1:15:11), since Block has questions in the same way Batty has: both want to
have more knowledge to improve and lengthen their lives.
Therefore,
in this second scene, Batty has mainly been analysed as an Adam, a creature waiting
for answers, yet his Creator does not want to fulfil his request. Finally, Roy
will learn to accept his condition, as the following fragment shows.
Percy
B. Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound
(1820), Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven
and Hell (1790) and Jesus
Following
the Romantic texts analysed so far, the final redemption Batty experiences at
the end of the picture can lead to the following conclusion:
‘‘While
narratological elements of the film confirm the structural influence of Mary
Shelley’s novel, the ethical transformations of Batty and Deckard define a
promethean plane less conversant with
Frankenstein but more connected to the subtitle of the novel, which is
better explored through the elements borrowed from William Blake (in America, A Prophecy) and Percy Bysshe
Shelley (in Prometheus Unbound)’’
(Lussier and Gowan 169).
 |
| ‘‘Prometheus Brings Fire to Mankind’’ by Heinrich Friedrich Füger, circa 1817 |
Percy
Bysshe Shelley’s drama exploits the Greek mythological figure that Romantics adored, yet, if Mary presented Victor
Frankenstein as the modern Titan, Percy focuses on the release of Prometheus,
and also on Jupiter’s (Zeus) fall. Once Prometheus is free, he isn't reconciled
with Zeus, who had chained him up, but leaves with Asia to live peacefully.
Prometheus, similarly to Blake’s Orc, was bound to a mountain, and now Batty is
the new liberated rebel. Batty’s final ‘‘renunciation’’ of his longer lifespan
and his ‘‘inner revolution’’, as in the case of Prometheus, illustrate that
concept, especially with the idea that harm may not always be caused due to
cruel intentions:
‘‘It doth repent me: words are quick and vain
Grief for a
while is blind, and so was mine,
I wish no
living thing to suffer pain’’ (Shelley 22).
Batty
echoes this message when he saves Deckard’s life before his outstanding
monologue; even so the blade runner seems unable to understand why the
replicant does so, as can be heard in the first version of the film in which
the special agent narrates the events.
 |
Title page of Marriage
of Heaven and Hell, by William Blake, 1790
|
Nevertheless,
this final appearance of Batty in the film, abounds with religious imagery,
with similes which make him resemble Jesus. To conclude the blog as I began,
that is, with William Blake, I will pay special attention to the poet’s
depiction of Christ in The Marriage of
Heaven and Hell when the narrator explains an encounter between one of the
guardian angels, protector of the established order, and a Devil, who insists
that ‘‘there is no other God’’ outside the human. The Devil says:
‘‘did he
not mock at the sabbath, and so mock the sabbaths God? murder those who were
murdered because of him? turn away the
law from the woman taken in
adultery? steal the labor of others to
support him? bear false witness
when he omitted making a
defence before Pilate? covet when
he pray'd for his disciples, and
when he bid them shake of the dust of their feet against such as refused
to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments. Jesus was all virtue, and acted from
impulse: not from rules’’(Plate 23)
Therefore,
this vision of a sinful Christ is echoed by Batty in the postmodern Los
Angeles. Roy has murdered and done ‘‘questionable things’’ (as I have already
mentioned), but it is clear at the end of the film when he ‘‘ feels his body
seizing up, he pierces the palm of his hand with a long metal nail’’ that we
can see an ‘‘ obvious allusion to the crucifixion, only exceeded in biblical
redolence by Roy’s death, his utterance, ‘‘ Time… to die’’ (Minute 1:43:06)
(evoking Christ’s tetelestai- ‘‘ it
is finished’’), and the white dove miraculously released from his hand’’
(Harley 70). By bowing his head and
giving up the dove, Batty frees his spirit,
copying what Jesus does (John 19:30).
What I find
fascinating is what he describes to the astonished Deckard before dying; his
experiences, his life, his identity: ‘‘I’ve SEEN things YOU PEOPLE wouldn’t
believe’’(Minute 1:42: 22). This is an expression of singularity, of an
identity humans deny to replicants. Again, vision is vital. Mentioning again,
the connection between the ‘‘eye’’ and the ‘‘I’’, Pris says to Sebastian
previously in the film: ‘‘I think, Sebastian, therefore, I am’’ (Minute 1:13:14),
echoing Descartes ‘‘Cogito, ergo sum’’. Batty is highlighting his thoughts
before Deckard, whose name that can be considered a homonym of Descartes
(Macarthur 388), and thus, of his own identity.
When blade
runner Gaff emerges after Batty’s death and he says ‘‘You’ve done a man’s job,
sir’’ (Minute 1:44: 17) as he believes Deckard has killed the replicant, this
leaves open the question as of whether Deckard would have saved Batty’s life or
whether he would have murdered him had he had the opportunity.
In
conclusion, this blog post has examined the figure of Roy Batty in Blade Runner in religious terms. To do
so, main Romantic writers such as William Blake, Mary Shelley, and her husband
Percy Bysshe Shelley, have been considered. Since Batty depicts a
transformation in his behaviour, literary works as well as Ingmar Bergman’s
spiritual The Seventh Seal have been
investigated to study the replicant’s attitude. One of my favourite cinematic
characters ever, Batty embodies the blurring of the archetypal villain. One
thing is for sure, his moments, will not ‘‘be lost in time like tears in
rain.’’ (Minute 1:42.48)
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Bergman, Ingmar,
The Seventh Seal, Svensk Filmindustri
(SF), Sweden, 1957
Dick,
Philip K., Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep? (London: Orion Publishing Group, 2007) (First published in 1968)
Harley,
Alexis, ‘‘America, a Prophecy: when Blake meets Blade Runner’’ https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/SSE/article/viewFile/586/555
(Accessed 3rd December 2017)
Lussier,
Mark& Gowan, Kaitlin, ‘‘The Romantic Roots of ‘‘Blade Runner’’’’, The Wordsworth Circle, Vol.43, No 3 (Summer 2012, pp. 165-172 http://www.jstor.org/stable/24043987
(Accessed 3rd December 2017)
Macarthur,
David, ‘‘A Vision of Blindness: Blade
Runner and Moral Redemption’’, Film-Philosophy,
Volume 21, Issue 3, Page 371-391, Sep 2017 http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/pdfplus/10.3366/film.2017.0056
(Accessed 20th December 2017)
Scott,
Ridley, Blade Runner, Ladd Company, The,
Shaw Brothers, Warner Bros, USA,1982
Shelley,
Mary, Frankenstein (London: Penguin
Books, 1994) (First published in 1818)
Shelley,
Percy Bysshe, Prometheus Unbound https://archive.org/stream/prometheusunbou00scudgoog#page/n90/mode/2up/search/grief+for+a+while+is+blind
(Accessed 2nd November 2017) (First published in 1820)
Williams,
Douglas E., ‘‘Ideology as Dystopia: An Interpretation of ‘‘Blade Runner’’’’, International Political Science Review,
Vol. 9, No.4, (Oct., 1988), pp. 381-394 https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/Ideology%20as%20Dystopia%20-%20An%20Interpretation%20of%20Blade%20Runner%20-%20Douglas%20E.%20Williams.pdf
(Accessed 3rd December 2017)
IMAGES:
''Roy Batty'', http://assets1.ignimgs.com/2016/01/08/1280-roy-batty-blade-runnerjpg-c73928_1280w.jpg
''William Blake's Plate 11'', https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/William_Blake_-_America._A_Prophecy%2C_Plate_13%2C_%22Fiery_the_Angels_Rose....%22_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg, Public Domain
''William Blake's Plate 12'', https://jamesrovira.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/blake_america_12.jpg?w=217&h=300, Public Domain
''Frankenstein and the Creature'', source: http://freakcionario.blogspot.com.es/2012/08/frankenstein-segun-bernie-wrightson.html
The Seventh Seal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ingmar_Bergman-The_Seventh_Seal-01.jpg, Public Domain
''Prometheus Brings Fire to Humankind'', https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Heinrich_fueger_1817_prometheus_brings_fire_to_mankind.jpg, Public Domain
''Title page of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marriage_of_Heaven_and_Hell#/media/File:MoH%26H_title.jpg, Public Domain
[i] I have employed the Final Cut
version of the film (2007) for my research, though I also mention some
important changes presented between the original Theatrical Cut (1982), and
the Director’s Cut (1992).
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