'Blade Runner': plot summary

This is a plot summary of director Ridley Scott's film 'Blade Runner'

Blade Runner is a dystopian Neo Noir science fiction thriller set in the city of Los Angeles in the year 2019 concerning 4 bioengineered humans called replicants who escape an off-world slave colony and return to Earth to find their Maker—the Tyrell Corporation. The Tyrell Corporation manufactures genetically engineered slaves for dangerous and menial work on off world colonies. Replicants are banned on Earth and if discovered are retired by special police units called Blade Runners. The story begins in an interrogation room at the Tyrell complex. The 4 fugitive replicants are suspected of breaking into Tyrell and a new employee named Leon is being interrogated. A Blade Runner named Holden subjects Leon (Brion James) to the Voigt-Kampff test, a test designed to distinguish replicants from humans based on certain physiological responses to a series of cross-referenced questions. Holden asks Leon a question about his mother and Leon shoots Holden with a gun underneath the table. 

Chinatown is under a steady downpour. Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a retired Blade Runner, is enjoying a bowl of noodles at a stand when he receives a tap on the shoulder from a fellow Blade Runner named Gaff (Edward James Olmos) who detains him and takes him to police headquarters. There, Captain Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh) brings Deckard out of retirement to hunt down 4 ‘skin-jobs’ (replicants) that have escaped an off-world labor camp. The replicants are a new generation called Nexus 6 that are indistinguishable from humans except that they lack human emotions which they develop after 6 years. For this reason, Tyrell engineered the Nexus 6 model to only live for 4 years. The fugitives’ leader is Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), a blonde, male combat model, incept date 2016. The other fugitives are a female assassin named Zhora (Joanna Cassidy) and a ‘pleasure model’ named Pris (Daryl Hannah), incept dates also 2016. Captain Bryant sends Deckard to Tyrell to do a Voigt-Kampff empathy test on a replicant there named Rachel.

At Tyrell, Rachel passes the Voigt-Kampff, however it takes Deckard more than 100 questions to detect her as being a replicant; ordinarily, it only takes 20 questions to spot a replicant. After the test, Rachel shows up at Decker’s apartment and he breaks it to her that she is a replicant and that all of her memories are false memories implanted in her brain by Tyrell. 

Meanwhile, Roy Batty and Leon visit an eye engineer named Chew at Eye World. Roy wants to know his incept date and Chew tells him to go see J.F. Sebastian who also works for Tyrell. 

Deckard and Gaff search Leon’s hotel room and Deckard finds a stack of photographs that leads him to Zhora who is working as a stripper. Deckard pretends to be with the Committee on Moral Abuses to gain access to her dressing room but she is not fooled and flees with him in pursuit. He shoots her and she dies. Later, Bryant congratulates him and lets him know that he only has 4 more replicants to hunt down, the 3 fugitives plus Rachel who has escaped from Tyrell upon finding out the she is a replicant. 

Now, things become complicated for Deckard. Leon appears out of nowhere. Deckard draws his gun but Leon slaps it away. Rachel picks up Decker’s gun and shoots Leon in the head. Deckard takes Rachel to his place and promises not to kill her for saving his life. She asks him if he saw her incept date at Tyrell but he doesn't say. He pours himself a drink and falls asleep. Later, he is awakened by Rachel who is playing the piano. Her hair which she kept up is down along her shoulders. He kisses her but she is afraid and runs away. He corners her and forces her to confront the new sensations welling up in her. He kisses her and she finally gives in. 

J.F. Sebastian lives alone in a dilapidated hotel called the Bradbury. His apartment is full of genetically engineered humans he refers to as “toys.” He’s only in his 20’s but he looks very old because he suffers from the Methuselah Syndrome which causes him to age at an accelerated rate. He finds Pris, the pleasure model, in a pile of garbage and takes her in. And later, Roy Batty shows up. He tells Pris that they are the only 2 left; the other replicants who escaped the slave camp are dead. They manipulate Sebastian to take them to see Eldon Tyrell. 

There, Roy asks Tyrell for more life but the coding sequence cannot be altered once it is set. Tyrell consoles Roy with praise--he is the best replicant the corporation’s ever produced. Tyrell goes on to say: “The light that burns the brightest, burns half as long.” But these words mean nothing to Roy. He kisses Tyrell then kills him. Afterwards, Roy kills J.F. Sebastian and leaves the Tyrell Corporation. 

Back at J.F. Sebastian’s apartment, Deckard enters a room full of life-sized dolls. Pris blends in with these dolls and attacks Deckard. He manages to get his gun and shoots her. Roy returns to Sebastian’s apartment to find Pris dead. He torments Deckard, running through the rooms, ducking in and out of doorways, and howling like a wolf. Deckard climbs out of a window and pulls himself up to the roof of the building. Batty is already there, however, and Deckard attempts to leap across to an adjacent building. He barely makes it and struggles to pull himself up. Roy leaps to the other easily and pulls Deckard up with 1 hand. Roy then sits down and his shoulders slump. He says his last words: 

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shore of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost, like tears in the rain.”

He dies. Deckard rushes back to his apartment where Rachel is asleep in his bed. He wakes her and they rush out of the apartment. In the hall, he happens to look down and sees a tiny origami, the same unicorn he saw in his dreams. Gaff left it there. Deckard and Rachel flee; now, they are both fugitives. 

Themes from Ridley Scott's science fiction classic, 'Blade Runner'

These are some of the themes from the film 'Blade Runner'.

Blade Runner was and is ahead of its time. When this film was released in 1982, stem-cell research and cloning were unknown to most of the general public. Concepts like self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, interplanetary travel, off-world colonization and terraforming were the grist of fantasy and comic books. Today, most of the themes in Blade Runner have come to pass and others are rapidly materializing as I write this. Not since Fritz Lang’s 1929 masterpiece, Metropolis, has a film about our future explored social, existential, and political issues like Blade Runner, based on Phillip K. Dick’s 1968 novel ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.' Of course, Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey speculates on man’s origin, evolution, and God, but the future in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner takes it a step further and brings it closer to home, a future in which the past, present, and the future intersect in both soul and design. Everything in this film is both alien and familiar, an incongruous admixture of old and new, a real-world future that, unlike 2001's clean sharply defined aesthetic, looks touched, dirty, blurred, and urban. A future marked by the paradox of technological progress and of social and moral decay, a future in which man revisits the institution of slavery. These are the themes explored in Blade Runner:

God

The film explores questions relating to man and God

Roy Batty is man and Tyrell is God in this film. Their meeting is the paradigm of the creature rebelling against its creator as in the Biblical story of Lucifer’s fall. In scene 26 on the DVD edition of the film, 'The Prodigal Son Brings Death,' Roy Batty asks Tyrell the questions that mankind asks: “How much time do I have?” to which the Tyrell replies “Revel in your time.” And when Roy Batty is in the descending elevator looking up at the stars, he is Lucifer falling from Heaven.

Slavery

The film looks at the nature of slavery

American slaves were stripped of their cultural heritage and identity and then coerced to accept the cultural heritage and identities of their White masters. The replicants are the same way. They have no memories or experiences of their own so Tyrell gives them false memories to create a cushion for their emotions which enables them to be controlled easier. But once the replicants reach a certain age and develop emotions they become rebellious. The toys are also a metaphor for slavery or bodies without souls to be utilized and discarded.

From Wikipedia: ‘Genetic engineering’

• In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court in the Diamond v. Chakrabarty case ruled that genetically altered life could be patented (slavery i.e. clones, bioengineered humans, etc.)

Humanity

The film asks the question: what is human? 

In scene 17 on the DVD version of the film, Zhora, a replicant, is shot and is philosophically surrounded by lifeless and soulless mannequins, a metaphor which seems to ask “What is human? Is it the body? Or, is it the soul?” All of these questions are asked by this 1 scene, a scene that could have been shot anywhere but that Zhora is shot and killed among mannequins is significant. This scene, I believe, inspired Masamune Shirow’s and Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost In The Shell graphic novels and films.

In J.F. Sebastian’s apartment, Pris, posing among a roomful of life-size dolls, is indistinguishable from a doll herself. Throughout the film, the replicants show empathy-- a human characteristic--for each other and for Deckard who is trying to kill them. Roy cries when the other replicants are killed. Roy makes the poignant “tears in the rain” analogy at the end of the film.

Empathy 

The film is about Deckard killing the replicants before he develops empathy

Once he reaches this level of emotional development, he can no longer kill his fellow replicants. As the film progresses he goes from being a cold killer to sympathizing with the fugitives. Tyrell engineers the Nexus 6 to die before developing emotions because it is easier to exploit or abuse something thought of as a machine or a thing than it is to exploit or, in Decker’s case, kill, something thought of as human or something you can empathize with. Tyrell realizes that once the replicant slaves develop feelings they will want more life. This explains why Deckard is brought back into the Force to hunt and kill replicants. Since he himself is also a Nexus 6 model he is also programmed to die before developing emotions and empathizing with his fellow replicants making it easier for him to kill them. Falling in love with Rachel changes this.

Dualism

The film explores the dualism of soul and matter

• J.F. Sebastian, who is a genius, is afflicted with a gland defect that causes him to age rapidly Roy Batty possesses super strength but has only a 4 year life expectancy. The message here is that you lose what you gain and gain what you lose 
• The advanced technology in this film is contrasted against urban problems like crime, prostitution, pollution, old buildings, and social stratification

Scene analysis of 'Dr. Strangelove'

This is an analysis of the sexual themes in Stanley Kubrick's classic film 'Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The Bomb!' 

 This is a scene by scene plot analysis of 'Dr. Strangelove' with a few notes and references from Wikipedia and Web MD. Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment:

DR. STRANGELOVE: Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb

Title 2 (3:15-11:33) (7:42) Stop after Kong says “Let’s get this thing on the hump.”

The SAC at Burpleson Air Force Base has a large force of B-52 bombers airborne 24 hrs a day. Each bomber carries 40 megatons worth of nuclear explosives, equal to 16 times of all the explosives used by all of the armies in World War 2. Jack D. Ripper (Sterliing Hayden) puts the base on Condition Red and orders Mandrake to transmit Wing Attack Plan R  notifying all bombers to attack Russia. Ripper then orders Mandrake to impound all the radios on the base immediately.

My viewpoint

The Doomsday Device is activated by Jack D. Ripper who acts on his own without authorization from the President, retroactively shutting down the base and confiscating all of the radios on the base to cut off any incoming our outgoing communications; then, he orders his Captain, Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) to transmit Plan R to all the bombers letting them know to be on standby. The only time the bombers receive Plan R is after America has already been attacked. And since no one on the base but Ripper has a radio, no one knows that he is actually lying about the Russian attack.

Wikipedia:

During periods of increased tension in the early 1960s, SAC kept part of its B-52 fleet airborne at all times, to allow an extremely fast retaliatory strike against the Soviet Union in the event of a surprise attack on the United States. This program continued until 1990 when the bomber wings were placed on quick reaction ground alert and were able to take off within a few minutes. SAC also maintained the National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP, pronounced "kneecap"), also known as "Looking Glass," which consisted of several EC-135s, one of which was airborne at all times from 1961 through 1990. During the Cuban missile crisis the bombers were dispersed to several different airfields, and also were sometimes airborne. For example, some were sent to Wright Patterson, which normally didn't have B-52s

Title 5 (14:54-19:17) (4:23) Stop at “Fused control-burst at 12,000 feet."

Ripper announces on the PA that the Russians are planning to invade the base and he orders all soldiers to shoot first and ask questions later. Back on the bomber commanded by Major Kong sets the CRM discriminator on the plane’s radio that will prevent any radio transmission that’s not preceded by the correct 3 letter prefix.


Title 7 (19:52—26:01) (6:09) Stop at “Far beyond the point I would have imagined possible.”

Captain Mandrake accidentally turns on one of the radios and realizes that America is not under attack and that Ripper lied. Ripper locks himself and Mandrake in his office. Meanwhile at the Pentagon, US President Merkin Muffley receives the news from Colonel Turgidson (George C. Scott) that 34 B-52 bombers are enroute to drop nuclear bombs on targets inside of Russia.

My viewpoint

The Doomsday Device is under the command of 1 man now that the only person who knows the 3 letter code is Jack D. Ripper. Not even the President can interfere with the planes. Now the Doomsday Device is set and as we will see in the following scenes, all attempts to stop it will fail.

Title 13 (40:43—45:29) (4:46) Stop at “A device which will destroy all human and animal life on Earth.”

President Muffley phones the Soviet President Dmitri Kissov who tells the President that if the American Planes attack Russia they will set off the Doomsday Device which will destroy all human and animal life on Earth.

My viewpoint

The Doomsday Machine or Device corresponds to the plane under Major Kong’s command. Nothing will be able to stop it from carrying out its mission.

Title 15 (49:57—52:44) (2:47) Stop when Turgidson says “Gee, I wish we had one of them Doomsday machines!”

The US Director of Weapons Research and Development, Dr. Strangelove, explains how the Doomsday Machine works.

My viewpoint

You notice Soviet Ambassador Alexei De Sadeski’s says that the Doomsday device is “nothing a sane man would do.” He is referring to both the Doomsday Machine and to Jack D. Ripper who is not sane, also. Finally, we get to see the movie’s namesake, the Director of Weapons Research and Development, Dr. Strangelove who is a former Nazi patterned after a conglomeration of Nazi Scientists who were brought to America under a protection program called Operation Paperclip for employment after World War II. The most well-known of these Nazi scientists is former SS member Werner Von Braun who invented the Saturn V Rocket for NASA where he worked for decades. When Strangelove explains the machine notice the parallel between the machine and Ripper with the statement “Because of the automatic and irrevocable decision-making process which rules out human meddling..” Jack D. Ripper rules human meddling out of his mission by getting Mandrake to confiscate all of the radios and having all the planes to adjust their radios to only receive messages that had the special 3 letter code.

Title 16 (54:03—1:01:53) (6:50) Stop after Ripper kills himself

The soldiers at Burpelson shoot it out with the US Army but they are outmatched and surrender. Ripper knows that the government will torture him for the code and he commits suicide.

My viewpoint

This is the 1st attempt to stop the Doomsday device that was triggered by Ripper’s belief that Russia is polluting America’s water supply with fluoride, a theory he became aware of “during the act of love, a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness.” This statement is also a key to understanding the true meaning of the phrase “purity of essence” and why this phrase is the code to “withdrawing” the bombers. The bombers in this film are symbols for the male reproductive organs and the target is the female reproductive organ, in this case it is referred to as the Doomsday Machine, a machine that once triggered is irreversible. When Ripper admits to enjoying women but denying them his essence he is describing coitus interruptus and if you look at the bombers as penises the ‘recall code’ is the equivalent of pulling out. But, with Ripper, who represents the ‘head’ or consciousness, is killed, there is no intelligent agent to keep the planes from emptying their in loads Russia.

Title 18 (1:01:50—1:05:25) (3:35) Stop at “Give me full power!”

The bomber heading for Russia survives a missile strike and continues towards its destination.

My viewpoint

This is the 2nd attempt to stop the Doomsday Machine a.k.a. the 34 bombers headed for Russia. Russian missiles shoot down 4 bombers. Major Kong’s plane is badly damaged but survives.


Title 19 (1:05:27—1:07:43) (2:16) Stop at “All right, Charlie, I’ve been wasting too much time on you.”

Mandrake figures out the recall code from a recurring phrase Ripper had doodled on a piece of paper

My viewpoint

The recall code “purity of essence” in this film is a sexual metaphor for the act of coitus interruptus or what’s better known as the pull-out method. Earlier when Mandrake asked Ripper about his theory of Russia polluting our water supply, Ripper told Mandrake that he became aware his essence during the physical act of love, “a profound sense of fatigue” and a feeling of emptiness. This analogy fits perfectly when you look at the recall code (or pull out code) as another way of saying coitus interruptus or pulling it out before climaxing or ejaculation or, in this case, dropping the bomb. And you notice also that the so called Doomsday machine cannot be stopped once started. This means that one who loses himself in the act of lovemaking is totally committed and follows through to completion or total emptiness. But Ripper told Mandrake that he learned how to enjoy women without giving them his essence or allowing himself to ejaculate. In other words, he learned how to deactivate the Doomsday machine by using a ‘recall code’  or pulling out before his sex drive went to autopilot. The bombers are phallus’s or penises competing for one woman. A woman can only take 1 penis at a time which explains why only 1 bomber makes it to the drop point or climax which is what happens as a result of the Doomsday device being activated. This analogy of many penises or men competing for 1 woman also explains the fact that there is only 1 woman in this entire film. So, in a nutshell, the Doomsday Machine is a sexual metaphor for the involuntary forces that take place during the act of sex between a man and a woman and the recall code is coitus interruptus or the act of pulling out. The damaged radio is the inability to think rationally or to pull out during the act of ejaculation and the chain reaction of bombs going off is a metaphor for a woman having multiple orgasms. I say this because the bomber only drops 1 nuke, typical of males, and the Doomsday Machine responds to this “bombing” with multiple eruptions.

Wikipedia

Coitus interruptus, also known as the rejected sexual intercourse, withdrawal or pull-out method, is a method of birth control in which a man, during sexual intercourse, withdraws his penis from a woman's vagina prior to orgasm (and ejaculation), and then directs his ejaculate (semen) away from the vagina in an effort to avoid insemination.

Title 22 (1:13:14—1:19:11) (5:57) Stop at “Give me a heading on that just as soon as you get it worked out.”

The recall call works and 30 of the 34 planes turn back. At first it was assumed that 4 planes were hit by missiles but 1 of those planes, the plane under the command of Major Kong, survived and is still heading towards Russia. But the hit the plane took from the missile damaged it badly and it’s leaking fuel and won’t make it to its primary target. Instead, it selects a closer target.

My viewpoint

Again, the Doomsday machine defies any attempts to reverse it. Its radio is damaged and unable to receive the recall code. This is the disconnection of the body from the mind’s conscious ability to control the act of sex as represented by Ripper’s suicide earlier in the film. Also, still looking at this from the standpoint of sex, the plane is running out of gas or in a humanistic sense, getting tired and unable to reach its primary target and selecting a “closer” target, in other words, premature ejaculation. I know this sounds strange but what is this film’s namesake—Strangelove? And every metaphor I’ve used in this presentation lines up perfectly with the clips I’ve compared them to.

Title 25 (1:21:58—1:27:45) (5:47) Stop after bomb explodes.

The bomber’s bomb doors are stuck and Major goes down into the bomb bay to open them. He crimps some wires together in the bomb door’s circuit box and the bomb doors open and he rides the bomb out of the bay and down to its target. The nuclear bomb sends a giant mushroom up above the clouds.

My viewpoint

Again, something comes up to prevent the bomber from dropping its payload but fails. The bomb doors, damaged by the missile earlier, are stuck and Major Kong has to open them manually. In the sexual context of this presentation, the stuck doors are the inability to ejaculate due to fatigue. Remember, the plane is running out of fuel. Major Kong getting the doors to open and riding the missile (you notice that the "Bomb" is between Kong's legs? The bomb is a penis) like a rodeo cowboy into its target .

Title 28 (1:32:58—end)

The Doomsday Device sets off many explosions all over the world.

My viewpoint

In response to the bomber, or the male, dropping the bomb or, in the context of this presentation, climaxing, the Doomsday bomb reciprocates Kong's bomb by setting off multiple bombs or orgasms engulfing the world in flames.

The sex in 'Dr. Strangelove'

Here, I'll examine the sexual themes in Stanley Kubrick's film 'Dr. Strangelove'

I am not a historian on the Cold War; I'm just a guy who loves movies and this analysis is my way of showing respect and appreciation to Kubrick and his collaborators for making this film. Thanks for stopping by:

There is a correlation between Jack D. Ripper ordering the bomber to nuke Russia, coitus or sexual intercourse, and the Doomsday Machine, described as a machine that can’t be shut off once triggered. Once Ripper sends the go-code to the 843rd Bomb Wing for the bombs to be dropped on Russian targets, every attempt to stop the bombers fails. In other words, the Doomsday Machine is 1) the Russian device itself; 2) a metaphor for Jack D. Ripper’s commitment to bombing Russia; and 3) sexual intercourse and the point of ejaculation and loss of control. Ripper explains it to Mandrake this way: 

“Women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake. But I do deny them my essence.”

Denying women his essence means that during the act of sex, he pulls out prior to the moment of ejaculation or, in keeping this idea in the context of the bombers heading towards Russia, Ripper sends the recall code to the bombers carrying his essence which are the bombs themselves. This explains the fact that he commits suicide before being captured by the Army. Because in order for the bombers to drop their "loads," there can be no interference from the mind (he kills himself fearing he’d give up the recall code under torture) which also explains why none the radios in all of the bombers can receive messages. At a certain point in the act of sex, the mind shuts off which is why the radio on Major Kong’s plane gets damaged. The fact that all of the planes except for this one plane gets recalled is also an analogy of fertilization. (Web MD):

“The average ejaculation contains about 150 million sperm, but the majority of them will prove unfit for travel. Only 1 will actually penetrate."

This analogy can’t be ignored given the offbeat nature of the plot. Everything in this film is calculated and nothing in it is random. And remember also Ripper comparing the loss of his essence with a “profound sense of fatigue,” and compare this with the plane running out of fuel or becoming “fatigued” and unable to reach its target. Major Kong going down into the bomb bay to ‘manually’ fix the damaged doors is masturbation within the sexual context I use here. 

Chronology Of The Doomsday Machine

• Jack D. Ripper perceives that America is under attack by Russia
• He orders Mandrake to confiscate all of the radios on the base
• Ripper orders Mandrake to send the 3 digit standby code to 843rd bomb wing. 
• Major Kong double checks and confirms the code. He assumes the worst, that Russia’s already made a sneak attack on Washington
• Major Kong initiates the attack profile which involves setting the plane’s radio system to a 3 letter code prefix to protect communications between the bomber and base command. The only person who knows the 3 letter code prefix and can communicate with the bombers is Jack D. Ripper
• Ripper calls General Buck Turgidson to tell him that the 843rd bomb wing has been put under alert and that the planes are not able to get radio contact with base commander. Ripper, then, launches a preemptive attack on Russia.
• The US Army lay siege to the command base and overwhelms its security force. Fearing that he will give up the 3 letter code under torture, Ripper commits suicide with a gunshot to the head
• First, Russia hits the plane with a missile that hits but only succeeds in damaging the bomb door. Actually, the missile served to make stopping the bombing even more difficult by damaging the plane’s communication system
• Next, Mandrake figures out the 3 letter prefix to communicate with the bomber but with the communication system on the blink, that’s now impossible
• Next, even though the plane is low on fuel and unable to make it to its primary target, there’s just enough fuel to make it to a closer ICBM target
• Next, Major Kong goes down into the bomb bay to get the doors to open. The doors were damaged by the missile. He crimps a couple of wires and the doors open directly over the target

The sequence of events initiated by Jack D. Ripper ordering the planes to bomb the Soviets; Russia’s Doomsday Machine; the sexual act of ejaculation that the bombing of Russia represents—  All three of these elements illustrate processes that cannot be stopped until they are completed, thus, all 3 are the Doomsday Machine.

Video Analysis of 'Ali: Fear Eats The Soul'

This is an analysis of Rainier Werner Fassbinder's film Ali: Fear Eats The Soul

Emmi (Brigitte Mira) is a 60 year old housecleaner who works all day and lives by herself. She is White, German, and her parents were Nazis. One day, Emmi enters an Arabian Bar seeking shelter from the rain and, there, meets a 39 year old Muslim  named Ali (El Hedi ben Salem). Taking a dare from his friends, he asks the old woman to dance. He buys her a Coke. Then, he escorts her home. She invites him in for a drink. He's a guest-worker from Morocco, single, and shares a room with 6 other men. And, like Emmi, he is also very lonely. They become friends and eventually lovers in a most unlikely relationship. 

Fassbinder drew inspiration from Douglass Sirk's 'All That Heaven Allows'  and shot this film in just 2 weeks! This is a very tender little movie by one of my favorite directors. 

My scene-by-scene plot/ analysis of 'All That Heaven Allows' starring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman

This is a scene by scene analysis of Douglass Sirk's film 'All That Heaven Allows'.

Title 1 (00:00-11:50) (11:50) Stop at “What a horrid thing to say, Mona.”

Cary attends a dinner where she is subjected to criticism for wearing a red dress. 

My viewpoint

The 1st shot of the film shows a clock on a church tower beside an overhead view of a New England suburb. The leaves are turning indicating the season and the theme of the film which is not death but change going with the fact that Cary, whose mourning her husband, is going to fall in love with another man again. We are also introduced to other elements of the plot that foreshadow elements later in the story. At around the 2:47 point on the DVD, Cary invites Sara to have lunch but Sara is attending a dinner and doesn’t have the time. She arranges a date for Cary. This establishes the film’s theme of other people running Cary’s life. Ron is finishing up some yard work for Cary and when she invites him to coffee and lunch, he accepts—this contrast between Sara and Ron—she, being too busy and he, not being too busy—sums up the entire film. This also is an illustration of what Alida says later about her and Mick getting off life’s merry-go-round. The opening shot of the clock and the neighborhood is also a metaphor for people living their lives on the clock. 

In this scene, we meet Cary’s children who remind her of what’s acceptable and not acceptable for a woman her age, expressing their approval of whom she chooses to date and expressing disapproval of a low-cut dress she wears out on a date. Cary is bombarded in this scene by what others like and don’t like. The dinner party is full of gossipers. 

This film makes excellent use of technicolor. The colors or deep and saturated. Criterion did a great job on this movie as they always do. 

Title 5 (16:32—20:49) (4:17) Stop at “It was probably thrown there because the pieces were missing. Better leave it.” 

Ron finishes up some final landscaping on Cary’s property and tells her that he plans on giving up the business to raise trees full-time. He invites her to his place to show her some trees and she accepts. 

My viewpoint:

Ron’s place is out in the woods with nature away from civilization and Cary’s world of materialism. Cary is taken by an old mill there, an old mill that hasn’t been used in a while. This mill, like Ron, is sturdy but empty because he doesn’t have a steady woman. The broken tea server is a metaphor for his heart which some woman has broken. Only love can fix it which is why he tells her to leave it. 

Title 7 (26:20-33:39) (7:19) Stop after Ron opens bottle with his teeth

Ron introduces Cary to his friends, Mick and Alida who also have a nursery business. Mick and Alida live a simple life like Ron and Cary wants to know why. Alida, Mick’s wife, explains to Cary how Ron helped them to get out of the rat-race. 

My viewpoint:

It is no coincidence that both Ron and Mick are in the nursery business. This society is so materialistic that we tend to connect our happiness to how much stuff we own. The message in this scene is that the closer we get back to the basics and nature the happier we become. All of Mick’s friends in this scene have occupations that have something to do with nature: 

• There’s Manuel, the lobster catcher
• There’s Grandpa Adams, a beekeeper and artist
• Then there’s Mrs. Edna Pidway, head of the Audubon Society and bird-watcher

Also notice how easily Cary is accepted by Ron’s friends who aren’t judgmental and contrast this with how Ron is rejected by Cary’s society.  Ron’s friends are diverse while all of Cary’s friends are lily-white.

Title 10 (47:49-57:34) (9:55) Stop as Ron and Cary leave party

Cary announces to her children that she is going to get married to Ron Kirby and they aren’t happy about it. What will everybody think of her marrying a gardener? Cary takes Ron to an evening dinner to meet her friends and things don’t go well there, either. 

My viewpoint: 

Cary’s society rejects Ron in direct contrast to how his society accepts her. First, her children are more concerned with what people think of Cary’s decision to marry Ron than they are with her happiness. At the party, Ron is treated as a novelty and a gold-digger. There is a lot of class discrimination here and it is easy to see from this scene and others how this film inspired Rainer Werner Fassbinder to make Ali: Fear Eats The Soul 19 years later.

Title 12 (59:46—1:06:38) (6:52) Stop after Ron and Cary break up and he sits on stair

Ned tells Cary that he won’t accept Ron as his father or come to the wedding; Kay blames an argument with her boyfriend on her mother’s decision to marry Ron. Cary calls off the wedding.

My viewpoint:

Cary is confronted with making a choice between being what her society expects her to be and pursuing her own happiness. She chooses, what she feels at this time, the best route by living her life as others want her to.

Title 17 (1:12:14—1:15:31) (3:17) Stop after “Drama, life, comedy, life’s parade at your fingertips.”

Ned and Kay come home for Christmas. Kay is engaged to get married and shows her engagement ring to Cary. Ned is going off to Paris to study for a year and off to Iran afterwards to work for a company. He plans to sell the house. He and Kay buy her a TV set for Christmas. 

My viewpoint:

Now, Cary sees that her children, who ran her life, are living their lives and are completely unconcerned about her. Cary realizes the mistake she made in living for others instead of seeking her own happiness. The TV set means that while she’s at home by herself she’ll be watching others live their lives, happy and not the least bit concerned about what she thinks. 

Title 19 (1:19:57—1:21:35) (1:38) Stop after Rod falls in snowbank 

Cary realizes her mistake and goes by to see Ron but he’s not in the mill. He sees her and tries to get her attention. He loses his footing and fall off a ledge and lands face first in a snowbank. 

My viewpoint: 

Title 20 (1:24:52—end) (3:55)

Rod is in the mill under doctor’s care, unconscious since falling off the ledge into the snowbank. He has a concussion. Cary understands now, how she’d let other people come between her and Ron. He comes to and the 1st thing he sees is her face over his. 

What 'Ali: Fear Eats The Soul' is really about

An analysis of Ali: Fear Eats The Soul by Rainer Werner Fassbinder 

Ali: Fear Eats The Soul is a bittersweet film about the destructive ways in which informal norms such as racism and age affects relationships and health of those who violate these norms. The film's central characters are Ali and Emmi, a Black Moroccan guest-worker and an older White domestic worker who fall in love following a chance meeting. Their cultural differences are challenged by society at every turn. Ali holds things in and doesn’t express his feelings. Emmi, who does express her feelings openly, acts as the safety valve in the relationship. Ultimately, the strain of society’s cultural expectations causes Ali and Emmi to drift apart and Ali's stomach ulcers to worsen. 

Emmi's own children become hostile when they find out that she is involved with a Black man. Her son calls  her a whore and kicks in the television set. The employees of a restaurant stare at her and Ali. The neighborhood grocer refuses to serve Ali. Her friends avoid her and make racist comments about Ali. He invites some friends over and Emmi’s neighbors call the police about their music being too loud. Throughout all of this abuse, humiliation and rejection, Emmi cries for both of them but Ali is a rock. 

The second half of the film begins with the racist grocer making up to Emmi after his wife talks some economic sense into the man. One of the female neighbors that made racist remarks earlier in the film, comes to Emmi smiling and needing a favor and Emmi helps this friend, so relieved to be accepted after being rejected for marrying Ali. Next, Emmi’s racist son stops by for a favor. His demeanor is completely different from when she told him she was marrying Ali. This son’s wife had taken a part-time job and they needed someone to keep their kid. Again, Emmi is relieved and glad to do this for her son who’s obviously using his mother’s need for acceptance to his advantage. She forgets about Ali’s needs and this is when he begins to express his feelings. He asks Emmi to make a north African dish called couscous. This is his favorite dish she used to make for him. But now that she feels accepted by those who once rejected her, she won’t make couscous anymore. Emmi is the only tenant in her building with a man and she puts Ali to work for her friends. When a couple of these friends visit her, one of them—in the presence of Ali—makes a racist remark about his good hygiene. Ali has on a T-shirt and one of the women makes a comment about his physique. They walk around him feeling his muscles. This is the last straw for Ali whose hurt is now obvious. Without the safety-valve provided by the comfort Emmi gave him or the emotional outlet he had through her, Ali begins to show the effects of racism. 

He escapes this pain by having sex with Barbara. She is nice to Ali and cooks him couscous, his favorite dish. She’s young, beautiful, well-built and lives in a nice apartment. By contrast, Emmi is old, not very attractive, and lives in a crumbly low-rent apartment. But Ali loves her and most, importantly, Emmi shares his pain with him. But now, in order to fit in with her society she conforms by going along with things she knows are wrong. At 57:54 minutes into the film, Emmi’s friends refuse to eat lunch with her because of Ali;  at 1:16:00 into the film, Emmi and her friends refuse to eat with a woman who earns less money than they do. 

Despite the physical comfort Barbara provides, the ulcers in Ali’s stomach are becoming worse and when he comes home late knocking on Emmi’s door, he doubles over in agony on the floor. Emmi mistakes his condition for being drunk and ignores it. At this point of the film, Emmi has become a true German. But when Ali stays out for a number of days, she goes looking for him and finds him at work. His co workers make cruel remarks about her age, one referring to her as his’Grandma from Morocco.’ 

Later, at the bar, Ali gambles away his money. He slaps himself in the bathroom mirror. Emmi, as she did in the beginning, drops by the tavern and Ali asks her to dance. He apologizes for having sex with another woman. Then he falls to her feet groaning. Later, we find out that he has perforated ulcers caused by stress. On the outside, Ali seemed fine, even under the racism he and Emmi faced throughout the film. But in reality, stress and the fear has eaten away his soul. Sitting at his bedside and holder his hand, Emmi cries as she did before Ali became ill, when she had cried for them both and they shared their pain with each other.