Back in January of this year I stated this weekly Saturday series, following year long ones from previous years- Saturday live (live performances) and VA Saturday (various artists compilations). Saturday Soundtrack is drawing to a close and I need to think of something new for 2026.
Soundtrack Saturday started with Blade Runner and then went on to cover Wings Of Desire, Paris Texas, 20th Century Women, Walker, Lost In Translation, Performance, Bullitt, Midnight Cowboy, High Fidelity, Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, The Rockford Files, The Sheltering Sky, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, Shopping, Absolute Beginners, Salvation, Repo Man, Trainspotting, The Beach, Flashback, The Wicker Man, Brian Eno on Jubilee, Heat and We Are As Gods, Ennio Morricone's Dollars trilogy, Sid And Nancy, Amongst Friends, Rockers, Mystery Train, Betty Blue, Goblin scoring Profondo Rosso, Suspiria and Zombi- Dawn Of The Dead, Butch Cassady And The Sundance Kid, Apocalypse Now!, The Clangers, Chris Massey's live re- scoring of silent films from 1920s Germany (The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari, Metropolis and Nosferatu), Brush Strokes, Out Of Sight, Down By Law, The Ipcress File, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (The Road, The Assassination Of Jesse James BY The Coward Robert Ford and La Panthere De Neiges), various Western TV and film themes Rawhide, Bonanza, The High Chaparral and The Magnificent 7), On The Road and most recently Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid.
You don't need me to tell you how great Blade Runner is and how perfectly Vangelis' music fitted with Ridley Scott's visuals. One of the joys of the Blade Runner soundtrack is the use of dialogue from the film on the OST album. Harrison Ford's voice adds a lot to the Vangelis' synths here, sci fi noir and symphonic drama in sync...
I think it's now pretty clear that Ford's Deckard isn't really the hero of Blade Runner. Deckard's job is to 'retire' replicants. In 2019, when the film is set (made in 1982 when 2019 seemed impossibly far away), most work has been outsourced to replicants, human seeming androids made with an expiry date. These replicants have reached a pint where the manufacturers can even give them memories, enabling them to believe they are human. Early on Deckard meets Rachael (played by Sean Young), a replicant who has no idea she is not human. Deckard falls in love with Rachael, further adding to the complications. 'Too bad she won't live forever', he is told at the end, mockingly. 'But then again, who does?'
What it means to be human is central to the film as is the question of the morality of creating beings that believe they are human and giving them the jobs that humans won't do. Pris, played by Darryl Hannah, is described as 'a basic pleasure model'. Roy Batty, played by Rutger Hauer, is the leader of a four replicant gang, AWOL on earth and needing to be retired. Batty and the other replicants are the real heroes of Blade Runner. At the film's end Batty demonstrates his humanity, saving Deckard despite the Blade Runner trying to kill him. Batty's monologue, partly improvised by Hauer, is legendary...
In 2013 Grumbling Fur released a song, The Ballad Of Roy Batty, a cosmic, choral, psychedelic song with Hauer's words sung by the band. It sounds like it could a bad idea on paper but actually works really well, the monologue's message- life is short, experiences are fleeting, we all die, make the most of it- as apt now as it was when a fictional character muttered it on film back in 1982. More in fact.
2 comments:
Thank you for this series, which has given me great pleasure throughout the year. If you can't think of anything better, how about a Saturday Bookshop, since you surely have enough books about music, bands, and biographies?
That's a good idea Water, thank you. Got a couple of others half formed.
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