Steven Spielberg: "I thought Ridley [Scott, director of Blade Runner] painted a very bleak but brilliant vision of life on earth in a few years. It's kind of acid rain and sushi. In fact, it's coming true faster than most science fiction films come true. Blade Runner is almost upon us. It was ultranoir."
http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/10.06/spielberg_pr.html
Alex
Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen): "I first saw Blade Runner when I was 16. It rocked my world. All those incredible images were burned into my psyche. It's one of those movies you can't help but quote, an involuntary reference source that will be recycled throughout cinema forever. It's like a lesson from the master saying, 'Go out into the world and do good.'
Hm, nice quote.
Alex
I like all these quotes Alex. Great stuff. I don't know where you're even finding them all. I've been searching and came up with only that first one I posted.
Have a better one...
Thanks! I thought nobody was interested.
How do I find them? Well, when I first started out, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. I was just muddling on. Then I heard of this new product called 'Google', and wow, since then my life has never been the same. It's like having a crystal ball, a window to the world. They offered me two for the price of one and let me tell you, I never regretted the purchase. I highly recommend it to everyone!
If you too want to impress your friends and family, call now, and receive a free gift!
Alex
Oh man Alex, I haven't even finished my first cup of coffee and already the sarcasm is so thick I can stir it with a spoon.
Well aparently you're better than I at stringing together search terms because that's where I went too.
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Indeed, little wing, the right search terms is what does the trick.
Paul Verhoeven: "I have to continuously run old movies to keep my faith in cinema. When I feel very depressed I look at Ivan the Terrible or The Rules of the Game or Metropolis or even Blade Runner, say, or The Terminator or something like that, or every Hitchcock movie – or maybe 50% per cent of them. I need them – sometimes I come home completely depressed and I have to put them on. It’s so difficult in an industry where the parameters have become so much those of pure entertainment, to still keep your belief that cinema is an art."
Alex
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Curtis Harrington: "One of my favorite films of the last 20 years or so is "Blade Runner." "Blade Runner" is just magnificent in its own way. But the director has directed a lot of guff too. So I can't say Ridley Scott is one of my favorite directors because he goes from directing a masterpiece like that to "G. I. Jane." So there's no consistency."
Alex
Joseph Kahn who is reputedly directing an adaption of Neuromancer:
"If you want to become an aesthetic filmaker there is no other way to cross that threshhold....unless you study Blade Runner."
"Blade Runner" is almost a playbook, I feel, for filmaking of the last 30 years."
Have a better one...
Alex
Is that for the fact that Neuromancer is coming to the big screen or that I finally found another quote
btw, the fact that Kahn is directing Neuromancer scares me not a little. But a discussion for another board perhaps.
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Oh yes, I applauded the fact that you finally found another quote. Keep them coming!
shareWilliam Gibson himself on Blade Runner:
“’Blade Runner’ came out while I was still writing Neuromancer,” he wrote in his online diaries a couple of months ago. “I was about a third of the way into the manuscript. When I saw (the first twenty minutes of) ‘Blade Runner,’ I figured my unfinished first novel was sunk, done for. Everyone would assume I’d copped my visual texture from this astonishingly fine-looking film. But that didn’t happen. Mainly I think because ‘Blade Runner’ seriously bombed in theatrical release, and films didn’t pop right back out on DVD in those days. The general audience didn’t seem to get it, relatively few people saw it, and it simply vanished, leaving nary a ripple. Where it went, though, was straight through the collective membrane . . . where it silently went nova, irradiating everything from clothing-design to serious architecture. What other movie has left actual office-buildings in its stylistic wake? Some of this was already starting to happen in the gap between my submission of the manuscript and the novel’s eventual publication; I noted with interest, for instance, the fact of a London club called Replicants.”
"I was a child of the '50s, so it wasn't as though I noticed science fiction as part of the culture, it was the culture... The post-war era was when the future was clearest and most real, flying cars and atomic refrigerators... The future we live in today is something not only the '50s could never have dreamed of, but I think would have regarded with deep and genuine horror. As far as the '50s is concerned, we're living Blade Runner and Neuromancer right now."
Not a director but revelent
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Joel Schumacher: When I watch a movie, I like to have the feeling that the person (Jordan Cronenweth) who brought the look to the photography had a real vision, whether it's Blade Runner or The Wages of Fear. You feel you're there, inside that world. I appreciate that talent the way I appreciate a great piece of music.
PS: It's funny Joel mentions 'The Wages Of Fear' because, just like Blade Runner, it's one of my favorites.
Alex
Brian Lonano: I definitely wanted "Attackazoids!" to be very experimental with its imagery, special effects and story structure. I don't think this will limit its appeal because science fiction is very impressionistic and image-driven to begin with. '2001: A Space Odyssey' is a great film that is image-driven and its story is simple (in a good way, of course). 'Blade Runner' is another great example. Not that I can compare myself with the greats .. hehe.
Alex
PS: It's funny Joel mentions 'The Wages Of Fear' because, just like Blade Runner, it's one of my favorites.
I like The Wages of Fear also. It's not only funny Joel mentions it - it's odd when anyone mentions it. You don't hear it mentioned much, although it has an 8.4 rating on imdb.
There is a parallel to Blade Runner too. The ending of The Wages of Fear was changed to a happy ending at some point. I've only seen the proper ending, but I've heard there was a happy one also.
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Where it went, though, was straight through the collective membrane . . . where it silently went nova, irradiating everything
Guillermo Del Toro on Blade Runner: "This movie is one of the movies that changed my life. I came out of it and I was not the same person."
"This movie, to me, embodies the elegance, the power, the uniqueness, of a film experience."
This one may have been posted on another thread - it sounded familiar, but it's really a good one - bears repeating.
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Mark Romaneck: "Of all the big, influential, science-fiction films, the ones that made a real serious stab at predicting the way things would be, this film [Blade Runner] has been the most accurate."
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Very good, little wing, I never heard of that one. I remember I liked the photography of Romanek's 'One Hour Photo'.
Andrew Dominik (The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford): "The problem with director's cuts is that no one really sees them. I'm not even sure if I believe in them per se, because you can't really give somebody back the first experience of seeing a movie. I don't know how I feel about them, really. I guess there's no doubt that the director's cut of Blade Runner is better than the version that was released in the theater, but I saw that version when it came out and it still had a big impact on me."
Is that another vote for the Theatrical Version? Anyways, I'm a big fan of Dominik.
Alex
Hear, hear. Jesse James was excellent. After seeing it only twice, though, I'm not sure I'm qualified to comment upon it. Sure, it's Malickian, but when a film...
(a) is unbelievably beautiful
(b) is filled with great performances
(c) contains such a moving ending
...it seems to demand at least a few years before being definitively evaluated. Hell, that's certainly what happened with BR.
I agree with you balthazer, re: TAoJJbtCRF, but we seem to be in the minority. I can see why Ridley Scott was interested in the project. I'd add that it was quite underviewed and underrated.
Thanks for the quote Alex to remind me of this excellent film.
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I'd add that it was quite underviewed and underrated.
I think that Andrew Dominik has already distinguished himself as one of best directors of this decade. I believe that with this film alone he placed himself at lonely heights next to such 'auteurs' like Paul Thomas Anderson.
Alex
I think that Andrew Dominik has already distinguished himself as one of best directors of this decade. I believe that with this film alone he placed himself at lonely heights next to such 'auteurs' like Paul Thomas Anderson
Try as I might, I have been unable to find one single instance of Alex Proyas commenting on Blade Runner. I do however have a quote by Will Smith when asked by Tom Charity at lovefilm.com about I, Robot.
Will Smith on Alex Proyas I, Robot:
TC: Was Blade Runner an influence?
WS: Yes, Blade Runner definitely. That was the film that we all really looked at as far as trying to capture both elements, to create a film that pleases the sci-fi audience and also, anyone that walks into a movie theatre there's a story that can be followed. You don't have to like science fiction to like the movie.
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Try as I might, I have been unable to find one single instance of Alex Proyas commenting on Blade Runner.
Which is strange because Dark City looks like it has been greatly influenced by BR. It has that same cyber-gothic-punk-German Expressionism feel about it. Dark City also uses photographs and memories as a theme. The humans (instead of replicants) have implanted memories.
Alex
Which is strange....
Yeah, that was my thought too. I found several interviews where he was asked about or talked about films that had an influence on him. It was almost as if he instructed interviewers not to ask about BR as it was conspicuously missing in both the questions and his answers.
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Matthew Nourse: "I've always been involved in filmmaking whether I was shooting shorts on a video camera and music videos for friends. But really by high school I became so immersed in American Independent film that I realized I wanted to become a filmmaker. I didn't see Blade Runner and decide I wanted to be a director..."
I thought that was funny.
Alex
Michael Crichton: But by "Blade Runner" in the 1980s, a different image of the future had emerged - a hodge-podge city that had grown organically, and was full of chaotic disconnects. It envisioned an Asian model of urban growth, and indeed many urban landscapes today look as if they are right out of Blade Runner.
RIP
Alex
Michael Crichton:...RIP
How sad. With the election going on news of his death was overlooked here in Chicago. I enjoyed his books and many of the films adapted from them. 13th Warrior is on my all time favorite list (likewise the book it was adapted from). The film's not rated too highly but I've probably it watched more times than any film except BR. We all have our foibles, .
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Tony Scott: "Blade Runner for me is...Ridley's movie. Cause Blade Runner took a piece of his soul as well. Yeah. It was very hard. He did Blade Runner at a time when the film community, Hollywood was not ready for...that sort of obsession with detail."
Alex
Cause Blade Runner took a piece of his soul as well.
I would have to believe Tony Scott's statement. Even though Ridley never comes out and says so, if you read/listen to enough interviews it's there between the lines.
Matthew Nourse: "I've always been involved in filmmaking...
That was an odd sort of reference to BR. Almost a left handed compliment, lol. But what really intrigues me Alex, is how you came up with such an obscure director. The guy's only directed one film which aparently had a very small viewing community (87 votes) and produced one with even less of a viewing audience. Not saying they weren't good (I haven't seen them) just really obscure.
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But what really intrigues me Alex, is how you came up with such an obscure director.
I don't remember. I know I was looking for something else but ended up with Matthew Nourse. Of course, he was jokingly commenting on the fact that so many directors said they stepped into this profession because of Blade Runner.
John Alan Simon (director of the upcoming 'Radio Free Albemuth', also based on a Philip K. Dick novel): "When I first saw Blade Runner (when it was originally released), I was disappointed that it lacked the humor of the novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". I thought it was a bit dull, though visually stunning. On viewing the Director's version (or versions), I've really upgraded my assessment."
Alex
It is widely reported that Tom Tykwer (Perfume: Story of a Murderer, Lola Rennt) would lock himself in the theater and watch the copy of Blade Runner that belonged to the theater over and over again. This is the quote I found from him on that subject:
When an art theater opened in town, Tykwer hired on as a 16-year-old projectionist. "This was paradise," he recalls. "We had our own print of 'Blade Runner' because we showed it every week. I had the key to the cinema, and I could close the door after the last person left and watch movies."
How cool would that be to have a cinema to yourself every night?
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I didn't know that about Tom Tykwer. Good find, little wing! I guess I must see his films now. I heard that Lola Rennt is pretty good.
Alex
I guess I must see his films now.
Of the three I've seen (the two I listed and The Princess and the Warrior) I liked Perfume the best. At the time it was made it was the most expensive film ever made in Germany and it shows. It's a beautiful production; dark and a bit disturbing. At the time I saw it I thought it was one of the better movies I'd seen in my life. I'd like to see it again to see if I still feel the same. Stanley Kubrick was interested in adapting it from the book at one time, but said he thought it was unfilmable. So it's to Tykwers credit that not only did he make it but he made it well.
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