The Blade Runner - the Directors Cut
In this the director Ridley Scott finally reveals the answer to a plot which has been a topic of fierce debate for almost 2 decades. Fans have been divided over whether Harrison Ford's portrayal of the hard boiled cop character Deckard was not human but a genetically engineered 'replicant' the very creatures he is tasked to destroy.
The clue is the appearance of a unicorn on screen while Deckard is lost in thought. Yet another hint comes from the number of 'replicants which Deckard is hunting. We see that six had made their way to earth one of whom was killed. Deckard is then looking for 4 begging the question "Who is the 5th 'replicant?
In the film The Matrix which can be interpreted as a criticum of the unreal consumer culture we live in, a culture that may be distracting us from the reality (that we are being exploited by someone or something ) just as the machines exploited the humans in the Matrix for bio-electricity.
The film bought up two references to the work of Baudrillard. The first being near to start of the film - when Neo grabs the authors book 'Simulacra and Simulation' to retrieve some mind altering substances hidden in it. The second is Morpheus when he shows Neo the "real world" - saying "welcome to the desert of the real"
In fact the 1997 script had Morpheus saying to Neo "as in Baudrillards vision, your whole life has been spent inside the map not the territory. This is Chicago as it exists today the desert of the real".
In an interview entitled "Baudrillard decodes the Matrix" in the Le Niuvel Observatur after the release of the movie, Baudrillard said he had been contacted by the production team regarding his contribution, "It was not really conceivable" he pointed out that the movie failed to investigate the implications of Simulation.
Notes on Baudrillards book Simulacra and Simulations
In the 1980 Baudrillard moved from economically based theory to the consideration of mediation and mass communication (media) he still retained his interest in Saussurean Semiolies and the logic of symbolic exchange (as influenced by Marcel Mauss). Baudrillard turned his attention to the work of Marshall McLuhan on ideas how the nature of social relations is determined by communications that society employs.
" The simulacrum is never what hides the truth- it is truth that hides the fact that there is none. The simulacrum is true".
Badrillard was concerned with the cultural impact of mass/electronic media. Our culture of simulation has progressed to the point that simulation no longer refers to the world. Reality has been replaced by nested systems of signs, all referring to one another. Baudrillard calls " precession of simulacra". These images began as a reflection of reality, are now not related to reality (but now to other images).
An example of this is Disneyland an imaginary world, set up to mask the fact that America is itself only a simulation in which people take on roles but never truly interact. In some ways electronic media makes everything a simulation e.i. political scandals that mask broader truths about the capitalist system.
Baudrillard also mentions historical movies which are more "real" that the reality was history is no longer an active force all cultures are congealing into one, and all that is left is nostalgia taken on the extreme e.i. culture content in museums is merely a support for the sedium to operate ( the visitor experience) the point is to encourage visitors, not to transmit the culture, this applies in advertising and propaganda which are more and more becoming powerful fractures of mass media publicity all that matters not ideas or meanings.
Baudrillards book argues that late 20th century consumer culture is a world which simulations or imitations of reality have become more real then reality itself (he called this "hyper-real" one example of this is walking and running are not nearly as important as they were in pre-modern times, but jogging is a recreational pastime (with special shoes, clothes, books etc) Whereas before you made do with what you had these days you must be using or wearing the best that money can buy to be considered worthy of pursuing your sport etc.
Another example is not much of our food is produced locally, as in days gone by, but we have "health food" that enables to replicate the experience of a peasants diet. Though "jogging and health food is somewhat dated the point still holds today.
Baudillard goes on the say that the consumer culture has gone from a state of being surrounded by representations or imitations of things that really exist to a state of which our lives are filled with simulations. In this situation the world of simulations takes on a life of its own and reality erodes to the point that it becomes a desert.
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