Blade Runner

From the time I was a teenager until my late twenties "Blade Runner" was my favourite film. Closely followed by "Rumble Fish". Odd choices for a  teenage girl really. Something about the films drew me to them. I didn't know why. Now I do. "Rumble Fish" is basically a story about a dysfunctional family. "Blade Runner" is about seeing a different reality. Recently someone lent me the DVD for "The Adjustment Bureau". I loved it too. Most of my acquaintances, when giving their opinion on the film (including the person who lent it to me) would say: "I didn't like it. It wasn't what I expected","Why? What were you expecting?" I'd ask. "A political thriller or conspiracy theory film". I found those answers really amusing. So many people I know watch a film with a preconceived idea. I don't. I go with the story and see where it takes me.  In this particular case  I knew that the film was based on a Philip K. Dick story so I already had a sense of what kind of film it would be. I have not read any of his books, though I've always wanted to, and I really don't know much about the writer. Before I went on my holiday, I listened to a BBC podcast about Philip K. Dick's life. Journalist Matthew Parris interviewed actor Michael Sheen ( yes, the guy that played the unbearable snob in "Midnight in Paris"). At one point in the interview, Michael Sheen says: "indicative of Dick’s writing is the moment where the central character begins to discover that maybe the reality that he’s living in and that he’s taking for granted may not be everything that’s going on and that maybe there’s something else going on behind it."

Maybe that's what draws me to all films based on Dick's stories. That central theme of being able to see a reality that nobody else sees.

As I'm listening to the podcast I start wondering if Philip K. Dick was an ACoN. You pick up on different threads once you know about Narcissism. There were a lot of clues in the things they were discussing about Dick's life even if they themselves weren't picking up on them. They spoke about Dick's relationship with his mother. For some reason this made me think of that scene in "Blade Runner" when Mr. Holden is running a VK test to see if Leon is a replicant:

Mr Holden says: "Describe in single words the good things that come into your mind about your mother."

Leon replies: "My mother? Let me tell you about my mother" and shoots Mr. Holden.

Well, if that doesn't reek of ACoNhood I don't know what does.