Blade Runner (Ridley Scott,1982)
Qualsiasi artista, cantante, deisgner ha attinto a piene mani da questo capolavoro, ma chissà se Charles Knode, il noto costumista si sia ispirato a Siouxsie per lo stile di Pris (Daryl Hannah), la nostra replicante post-punk.
[/column] [column grid=”2″ span=”1″]In 1980 Siouxsie Sioux sang “We’ve come to play in the happy house and waste a day in the happy house-it never rains”. Two years later, the forerunner of cyberpunk course released in cinemas. That is Blade Runner.All the artists, all the singers, all the designers have taken something from this work, but who knows if Charles Knode, the famous costume designer, was inspired by Siouxsie for Pris style (Daryl Hannah), our post-punk double.[/column]
Ma dimentichiamoci del brutto che ci circonda, ci sono sei prestanti e bellissimi modelli che vagano per la metropoli, non da passerella, ma modelli replicanti Nexus 6. Hanno corpi scolpiti, agili, superiori alla razza umana, e hanno ispirato i più grandi designers, a cominciare da Margiela e Rick Owens, affascinati dalle giacche tecno-plastificate di Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), a Jean Paul Gaultier e Yves Saint Laurent, attratti dal look sfatto ed emaciato di Pris, ad Armani a Balmain, stregati dai tailleur squadrati ed esasperati di Rachel (Sean Young).
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[column grid=”2″ span=”1″]Pris doesn’t exactly arrive in a “happy house”, and neither in a happy world. It always rains, constantly. We are in Los Angeles, in 2019, the atmosphere is post-apocalyptic and the air is rarefied. The decant buildings are decorated at the best by super-technologic structures, a constant semi-darkness swallows every citizen of every ethnic group. They can move in the fog thanks to the lights of posters or thanks to the colorful fluorescent lights of clubs and of Asiatic restaurants. Most of them is poor or ill, they aren’t admitted in extra-world colonies.
But let’s forget the bad that is around us, there are six handsome and nicest fashion models that are wandering in this metropolis, not on the catwalk, but they are the Nexus 6 double fashion models. They have sculptured, agile bodies that are much better than the human race’s ones. Then, they inspired the most famous designers, like Mariangela and Rick Owens, the fascinating techno-plastic jackets by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), Jean Paul Gaultier and Yves Saint Laurent, attracted by the emaciated and unmade Pris’ clothes, Armani and Balmain, bewitched by Rachel’s (Sean Young) squared and exasperated suit.
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[column grid=”2″ span=”1″]Il cambio d’abito di Rachel è senza dubbio il più interessante. Lei non sa di essere replicante ed è curioso notare che più prende coscienza di essere tale, grazie a Deckard (Harrison Ford), più si umanizza: abbandona la corazza, si innamora, scioglie i capelli, prima raccolti in un’austera acconciatura androide-androgina. Si presenta a noi con una giacca di pelle di serpente nero dalle spalle larghe e spigolose, passando gradualmente all’algida pelliccia nera, ancora irrigidita dal collo ampio e circolare, per giungere all’armoniosa pelliccia grigia.
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[column grid=”2″ span=”1″]Rachel’s dress changing is doubtless the most interesting. She doesn’t know to be a double and it’s queer observing that when she understands to be that, thanks to Deckard (Harrison Ford), she becomes more and more human: she lowers her defenses, she falls in love, fist she combed her hair in an austere android-androgynous hairstyle then she gets her hair undone. She shows up with a black snakeskin jacket that is large and angular on the shoulders, then she gradually starts to wear a cool black fur coat that is still stiff because of the big and circular neck, in the end she reaches the harmonious grey fur coat.
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[/column] [column grid=”2″ span=”1″]Metamorphosis is evident in the middle of the film: a jacket that is large on the shoulders but softer than before, it shows us the colour graduation and the progressive surrender that is happening in her, from the black to the grey, from the bright color of her blouse wore when she yields to Deckard kiss.
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Ridley Scott ha scelto una casa di giocattoli viventi come location per la gothic Barbie e il Cyber Ken, posto ideale per tracciare la loro vera identità. E’ qui che avviene il cambiamento di Pris: se in principio sfoggia un modaiolo cappotto leopardato e un collare di borchie, una volta entrata nel paese dei balocchi si trucca con lo stesso make up destinato ai giocattoli: qui sembra ammettere la sua natura artificiale. Abbandonerà del tutto la sua condizione di umana/ post-umana sul finale, quando sarà costretta a camuffarsi, tra grotteschi pagliacci e bambolotti, con un velo da simil-sposa cadavere, per sfuggire a Deckard, che gli farà esalare l’ultimo epilettico respiro.
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[column grid=”2″ span=”1″]The same humanization doesn’t arrive for Roy and Pris. In fact, more they try to reach their objective, that is extending their expectations of life, more their human features waver.
Ridley Scott chose a home of living toys as location for gothic Barbies and for the Cyber Ken, a perfect place for drawing their real identity. It’s here that Pris changing starts: if at the beginning she dressed a leopard-skin coat and a collar full of studs, when she goes in Toyland, she makes up with the same make up used by the toys: here it seems that she admits her artificial nature. She will completely leave her human and post-human (in the end) condition , when she will be forced to hide herself among grotesque clowns and dolls, with a veil of a cadaver bride, for escaping to Deckard. He will make her to exhale her last epileptic breath.
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Come percepiva già Oscar Wilde un secolo fa, bisogna giudicare sempre un libro dalla copertina. Oggi ciò che conta è ciò che appare, oggi “l’abito fa il monaco” e la nuova regola è “vesto dunque sono”.
[/column] [column grid=”2″ span=”1″]It is not important the rule “I think so I am”, because doubles think, remember, feel, but they aren’t. We won’t talk about these existential arguments on the weakness of the labile border between what is true and what is not, we want only to focus what is on the surface and to underline the upsetting made by the producer. He chooses the flawless physical perfection for doubles and illness and poorness for human survivors. So the conclusion is that also the android hunter is too perfect to not be an android. One century ago, Oscar Wilde perceived: one always had to judge a book from its cover. It was right. Today what is important is appearance, today “clothes make the man” and the new rule is “I dress so I am”.[/column]