Sean Young's Polaroids

May 27, 2011 7:44 AM

Some Polaroids belonging to Sean Young.

Previously, some of her Super 8.

posted by xod (76 comments total)

Enhance 34 to 36. Pan right and pull back. Stop. Enhance 34 to 46. Pull back.
posted by srboisvert at 7:48 AM on May 27, 2011 [39 favorites]

Why did I think Sean Young was dead? Not snarking: I seriously did.
posted by everichon at 7:54 AM on May 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

Me too! So I looked her up and man, her Wikipedia page is surreal.

"She was cast as Vicki Vale in Tim Burton's successful 1989 film Batman. During rehearsals, however, she broke her arm after falling off a horse and was replaced by Kim Basinger. In an unsuccessful attempt to win the role as Catwoman (which was offered to Annette Bening but ultimately played by Michelle Pfeiffer after Bening became pregnant) in the sequel Batman Returns, Young constructed a homemade Catwoman costume and attempted to confront Burton and actor Michael Keaton during production."

"In January 2008, Young checked herself into rehab for alcohol abuse the day after an outburst at the Directors Guild of America awards in Los Angeles. Young was removed from the awards ceremony after repeatedly heckling director Julian Schnabel, who was on stage giving his remarks regarding his Best Director nomination for his work on the film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:56 AM on May 27, 2011

Sean Young
posted by DU at 8:03 AM on May 27, 2011

There's also the rumor that her relationship with James Woods ended with her supergluing his (evidently impressive) penis to his thigh.
posted by incomple at 8:04 AM on May 27, 2011

I've always thought she was stunningly beautiful. Blade Runner, Dune and that horrid Kevin Costner thing I won't name. Looking at the polaroids in the post it's just stunning what they were wearing and what surrounded them in the real world back then vs. what they filmed and what wound up on screen. I think there should be a round of Oscars for Blade Runner again, right now.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:06 AM on May 27, 2011 [6 favorites]

You liked to the Blade Runner photos on purpose DIDN'T YOU?! Thank you!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:08 AM on May 27, 2011

Oh my...she has a 2012 doomsday countdown timer on her site. That's possibly more disconcerting than the terribly homemade looking website template.

She was terrific as Rachel, though. The "liberty rolls" alone are pure bliss, but her vulnerability was enchanting.
posted by ShutterBun at 8:08 AM on May 27, 2011

Sean Young always seemed like pretty, pretty trouble. I hope she's happy out there somewhere.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 8:09 AM on May 27, 2011 [6 favorites]

The catwoman thing was really a downer.
posted by OmieWise at 8:10 AM on May 27, 2011

I think a lot of people felt she had died because she essentially murdered her acting career.

I remember growing up to all the crazypants escapades of Sean Young: leaving a dismembered doll for James Woods after their affair ended, etc. This article, I think, does a good job of separating the wheat from the chaff (whoa...was there really an urban myth about her supergluing Woods' penis to his thigh?!).

Young had a drinking problem and she was really impulsive, so her off-camera behavior cost her roles, as well as bad timing (pregnant when offered a Sharon Stone role, broke her arm and had to back out of Batman Returns). Oliver Stone could not stand her but Rob Reiner liked her just fine.

She was, and still is, really attractive. And she was a good actress, too, though I always felt her Rachel in Blade Runner was more wooden than it had to be. I know there's always this question, "Is she a replicant or is she not?" So she has a lot of 'looking pretty while being very still and perhaps too-perfectly posed' moments.

But when you have Rutger Hauer, larger than life and just tearing up the screen, his dying speech moving you to the point of tears in one scene, and then Sean Young, all pompadoured and decorative, in the next...well, she can't help but suffer in comparison.
posted by misha at 8:14 AM on May 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

I haven't seen a lot of movies with her in them, but I've always had a soft spot for her Chani (as well as the entire movie). "Tell me of your homeworld, Usul."
posted by kmz at 8:20 AM on May 27, 2011

There's also the rumor that her relationship with James Woods ended with her supergluing his (evidently impressive) penis to his thigh.

When he tells the story it's his ankle.
posted by dobbs at 8:22 AM on May 27, 2011 [21 favorites]

I think there should be a round of Oscars for Blade Runner again, right now.

Sadly it was only nominated for two Academy Awards (art direction and special visual effects) and lost those to Gandhi and ET respectively.
posted by octothorpe at 8:25 AM on May 27, 2011

I like her. She has sort of a fuck you, Frances Farmer-vibe about her.
Also, if you go to her YouTube page from the Super8 link above, her home videos of her family are just nice and real and charming, if a little too psychoanalytical at times.
posted by chococat at 8:25 AM on May 27, 2011 [4 favorites]

I know there's always this question, "Is she a replicant or is she not?"

Man, I just re-watched blade-runner the other day and I was kind of amazed by it. I always had 'blade runner' checked off as a film I'd seen but here's the thing about it: The first time I saw it I was watching it on TV and not just on TV but actually on a cheapo black and white TV. Heh, and since I got a color TV when I was in 4th or 5th grade or something I think I must have been pretty young.

This time I watched the most recent directors cut and the movie seemed pretty different from what I remembered.

Anyway, in this version of the film [hover for spoilers].

Is there somewhere that summarizes the differences between the versions of the film? Here's another difference I remember I could have sworn that Deckard accidentally killed a real person [spoiler] but maybe I was just remembering it wrong. Wikipedia has a list of differences but it's not very clear what the actual plot differences are.
posted by delmoi at 8:26 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Every interview of her has the same tone and she makes the reader embarrassed for her:

In 2006, Young decided to crash the Vanity Fair Oscar party to try to network with the A list. She dolled herself up and scooted in on the shiny heels of Jennifer Aniston, only to be escorted out the back door by a humorless bouncer on the orders of four assistants on headsets. ''It was degrading,'' says Young, trying to laugh off the incident. ''But when you have nothing to lose, it's really not that big of a deal.''
....
But even as she plugs away, she still clings to one sad, desperately held belief.

''I'm not Julia Roberts,'' she says, certain of her thwarted destiny. ''And I could have been.''

When asked how she might win more supporters like Reiner, Young says, ''I just need to get on The List. I don't have an opportunity to even go in and meet people at the top level. So I look at movies now and go, 'Well, too bad they didn't get me. I would have been perfect for that.' That's my joke now. 'Ha! She has my part.' Like the Diane Lane part in Hollywoodland? I said, 'I don't know why this bitch has my part!' No, I love Diane Lane, I love Diane Lane. But it's always another actress besides me. I mean, everybody always gets my part.''

She needs an Metafilter account so we all can Greek chorus her into getting therapy and accepting that her hard to deal with personality is what doesn't make people want to work with her. She had a chance, she blew it. She doesn't even bother redeeming herself for those party crashing stunts.

Without belaboring the issue, Young does suggest that the fact that she was a woman — a strong, mouthy, opinionated one — also contributed to her exile.

I'm so embarrassed for her. There are a lot of strong, mouthy, opinionated ones that do just fine.

Classic example of someone who persists in thinking that everything is everyone else's fault, and that she somehow deserved to be a movie star. What an off-putting sense of Entitlement.
posted by anniecat at 8:26 AM on May 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

I guess she got her precious photos.

delmoi: read the book. All the questions of identity are a lot more subtle and interesting than what made it into the film.
posted by Nelson at 8:28 AM on May 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

Those seemed like some really good times. I hope Sean Young is doing well.

I know smoking is terrible and all, but in some of those pics there's hints of a communality that disappeared when smoking did. A shared experience gone. Looks like a lot fun. (Not to derail or anything.)
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:30 AM on May 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

Is there somewhere that summarizes the differences between the versions of the film?Is there somewhere that summarizes the differences between the versions of the film?

Check the FAQ.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:31 AM on May 27, 2011

Is there a hotter hot than 'crazy hot'? I don't think so...
posted by PenDevil at 8:32 AM on May 27, 2011 [4 favorites]

Ugh, I messed up the HTML for my awesome spoiler tag... the second 'spoiler' does work if you hover but I meant to say spoiler Anyway I was probably just remembering it wrong.

The other thing that's funny about blade runner is the crazy 80s hair.
posted by delmoi at 8:34 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is this testing whether I'm a replicant or a lesbian, Mr. Deckard? (Nice pictures, xod.)
posted by tizzie at 8:35 AM on May 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

There was a good making-of-BR book a number of years ago. The screenwriter, Hampton Fancher, was dating Barbara Hershey at the time. [It was her dream of a mother spider being consumed by its offspring that he gave to Rachael in the script.] She was interested in the part. But the producers wanted someone younger - advancing the not-unreasonable argument that a replicant would probably look more "factory fresh".

I love Barbara Hershey and mourn the fact that I'll never see what she could have done with the role. But when I look at these pictures, I can't criticize the producers' decision.

A great noir requires a memorably glamorous dame. They found one.
posted by Trurl at 8:37 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

the crazy 80s hair

They're like those mid-century World's Fair predictions of what the Modern Kitchen of 2000 will look like.
posted by Trurl at 8:46 AM on May 27, 2011

She needs an Metafilter account so we all can Greek chorus her into getting therapy and accepting that her hard to deal with personality is what doesn't make people want to work with her. She had a chance, she blew it.

This is the absolutely latest news on Sean Young that I could find: Sean Young joins 'Celebrity Rehab' I noticed it is basically impossible to locate any pictures of her taken after 2009, and even those pics look like she's going downhill fast.

And BTW, are you guys serious, you think there was a question whether Rachel is a replicant? The movie was very explicit that she is. It would make no sense if she wasn't.
posted by charlie don't surf at 8:47 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

misha: "I know there's always this question, "Is she a replicant or is she not?""

Wait, are we talking about Sean Young or Rachel here? Because Sean Young always delivers her lines like a robot. I wish she could take a fraction of the extroverted craziness that inhabits her real life into her performances rather than just expecting the audience to go, "oooooh, pretty!"
posted by mkultra at 8:47 AM on May 27, 2011

Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner. The first edition ('96) was awesome. There was a second edition put out in '07 but only published in the UK.
posted by mrbill at 8:50 AM on May 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

A little off-topic, but anyone else notice that Barbara Hershey has the strangest sex scenes in her movies?
posted by KokuRyu at 8:57 AM on May 27, 2011

I think his would be the thread to ask, since Francis Farmer has already been mentioned. I remember a documentary/interview-clip of some sort, about a beautiful successful Hollywood actress who had left town and was 'going nuts' in a rural area somewhere, and what's more, I think I've seen it linked here on Metafilter. I filed it for "watch later" but never did. Was it about Sean Young or another stunning 80s-star? Did she ever have any mental issues like being bipolar, or similar?
posted by dabitch at 9:11 AM on May 27, 2011

Is there a hotter hot than 'crazy hot'? I don't think so...

Its the hope against hope that you are somehow so wonderful that you can love the crazy out of her, proving your awesomness. Like all vanities, it is a matter of time before you feel the flames licking at your feet.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:14 AM on May 27, 2011 [7 favorites]

Sean Young uses iWeb!
posted by BurntHombre at 9:20 AM on May 27, 2011

For those uncertain about what Young has been doing lately, she just finished a pretty awful run on the Young and the Restless. I.. uh.. read about it somewhere...
posted by thelaze at 9:24 AM on May 27, 2011

I feel sorry for Sean Young. I'm not persuaded either way as to the presence or absence of personality disorders or psychiatric problems or many other possible armchair summations of her life and path which, like all of us, has undoubtedly been more complex and nuanced than press caricatures would suggest. If you're a particularly sensitive type and encounter the high life and fame and bad luck and a handful of poor choices, well, I imagine the intensity of disappointment and failure would be greater than for those who stumble unseen in their lives. She's got young kids to support as well. I guess I just wish her some peace.
posted by peacay at 9:24 AM on May 27, 2011 [3 favorites]

And BTW, are you guys serious, you think there was a question whether Rachel is a replicant?

Okay, let me clear this up, because what I wrote is causing the confusion!

We do know that Rachel is a replicant before the end of the film, of course. I just meant that, before the audience learns she is a replicant, Sean Young's acting, which I feel is wooden, is not a problem, because she has this gorgeous but too-perfect, posed look to her.

But we also see Rachel do contradictory things early on that are designed to make us think, well, wait, maybe she is a person (they have her smoke, she answers the questions more like a human, etc.). And that's because she is designed to be a more advanced replicant, which we find out after Decker tests her. She has implanted memories, no expiration date, etc.

But, ironically, those moments don't work as well for me. Obviously the actress is human, yet she never really made me feel a connection to Rachel.

So my point was that this advanced replicant comes across as less human to me than the Rutger Hauer character, and that's all because he can act circles around Sean Young.
posted by misha at 9:24 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

dabitch, Margot Kidder?
posted by xod at 9:25 AM on May 27, 2011

A little off-topic, but anyone else notice that Barbara Hershey has the strangest sex scenes in her movies?

Nah, Isabella Rossellini and James Spader have those, hands down.
posted by misha at 9:30 AM on May 27, 2011

She's so wild / And you're so normal / She's Sean Young / And you're Deborah Norville
posted by Sys Rq at 9:36 AM on May 27, 2011 [3 favorites]

People have been posting the one of Harrison Ford and Young in the middle of the second row all over the place on Tumblr for a while now. Ford's deer in the hadlights expression (not looking at the camera at all) really makes me wonder what was going on there.
posted by immlass at 9:38 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was going to post something about how ironic that her Wikipedia entry has something about her being in some reality show and doing surprisingly well in a demolition derby--because her life is one long car crash, geddit, ha ha--and then I looked at one of her videos (her YouTube handle is msyPARIAH, which tells you a lot right there), with the sound off, and it's a nice home film of what are at least a couple of trips to NYC... and then she's standing in her living room as an adult, very pregnant, in her underwear... and then back to the home movies... and then right after she's delivered one of her babies... and I start listening, and she's talking in this spacy tone of voice about how life brings you back to the same places, over and over... and then one of her kids is putting his hand over her camera lens. The end.

I'ma file this one under Not Only Not Funny, But Not Even A Morbidly Fascinating Guilty Pleasure, along with Randy Quaid.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:39 AM on May 27, 2011

No love for Dr. Jeckyll and Ms. Hyde? You like your Sean Young acting out, there you go.

I always felt that one of the central themes of the Blade Runner was that age and experience provided humanity; replicants, denied the chance to age significantly, were denied their potential humanity. Look at J.F. Sebastian, aging at an accelerated rate, brilliant but still in many ways a child looking to make friends (and make friends; Gooood evening, J.F.!) with anyone, ripe for Pris' manipulation. He wants to see tricks.

Perhaps the point of Rachael-as-replicant is that she is so detached and calm because she has experienced so little of life, aside from a handful of memories given to her, courtesy of Tyrell's niece. She, what, has chess games with Tyrell? She looks at the owl. She is fresh out of the box and has no scratches on her. She is unconnected.

Roy Batty, by contrast, is full of life and claimed humanity because of his experiences. When he says, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe ..." he speaks to the memories he made for himself, exposure to situations and sights from which the comfortable citizens of Earth are insulated. Roy is a disposable soldier in space. He has, in the vulgar, seen some shit. He develops emotions and attachments because of it.

No doubt, Roy Batty is a monster, but he came by it through no fault of his own, an infant dropped into a man's body, then dropped into one battlefield after another. Still, Deckard recognizes what Batty earned at the end. And that, perhaps as much as his infatuation, is why Deckard takes Rachael out of the ziggurat and the city, into fresh air and the countryside; he is giving her the chance to form her own experiences. Not that he isn't doing it for his own selfish reasons, but it will allow her to become fully human.
posted by adipocere at 9:46 AM on May 27, 2011 [22 favorites]

Sean Young invented the self-pic!!
posted by roger ackroyd at 9:47 AM on May 27, 2011

I was at that DGA thing, and she was just acting out what everyone else in the room was thinking. Get on with it, indeed!
posted by Ideefixe at 9:48 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

The one of her and James Woods is super weird. Caption and all.

I always thought she made "No Way Out" worth watching, not Kevin Costner. But I haven't seen it since I saw it in the theater all those years ago and it's probably as godawful as everyone says it is.
posted by blucevalo at 9:50 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

I know smoking is terrible and all, but in some of those pics there's hints of a communality that disappeared when smoking did. A shared experience gone. Looks like a lot fun. (Not to derail or anything.)

Marijuana.

Also, that's sorta of an odd comment, because none of the pictures show anyone smoking together.

I ♥ Sean Young. These are fantastic.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:57 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

just wanted to mention that i not only love sean young in cousins, but i love everything about that film. that is all.
posted by rude.boy at 9:59 AM on May 27, 2011

There's also the rumor that her relationship with James Woods ended with her supergluing his (evidently impressive) penis to his thigh.

What I'd heard is that they never actually had a relationship, but she kinda scary-stalked him for a while. He called it a "campaign of terror" and she's all "Teehee! I had a crush. What can ya do?"
posted by katillathehun at 10:03 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

1. copyright 2009 yet the website lives in 1998
2. she should fire that web designer
3. Every interview of her has the same tone and she makes the reader embarrassed for her. . replace "interview" with website and "reader" with user.

She can't even get a real domain address?
posted by stormpooper at 10:13 AM on May 27, 2011

xod - wow, that's a sad story. Not the one I was thinking of but thanks.

In the linked interview with young, there's mentions of an onslaught of Woods emails to publicists about the Young thing. Are they somewhere on the web?
posted by dabitch at 10:16 AM on May 27, 2011

I noticed it is basically impossible to locate any pictures of her taken after 2009, and even those pics look like she's going downhill fast.

She was one of the celebrities in the low-rated spinoff of "Dancing With The Stars", "Skating With The Stars", which ran immediately after that show during its 2010 fall season (the one with Bristol Palin). You can find assorted promotional pics from that show, but she didn't last long in the competition, since she didn't actually know how to skate going into the show.
posted by briank at 10:24 AM on May 27, 2011

anyone else notice that Barbara Hershey has the strangest sex scenes in her movies?

I've only seen the stills of the full-frontal boink with future boyfriend Naveen Andrews in Drowning on Dry Land. But offhand I think of:

The Entity - raped in the bathroom by a ghost
Paris Trout - raped over a table by Dennis Hopper
Heaven With A Gun - raped in a barn by future boyfriend David Carradine
Boxcar Bertha - loses virginity in a boxcar with current boyfriend David Carradine
The Last Temptation of Christ - fantasy sex with Jesus while pregnant
Hannah and Her Sisters - sex with sister's husband

You've got something there.
posted by Trurl at 10:25 AM on May 27, 2011

Also, that's sorta of an odd comment, because none of the pictures show anyone smoking together.

*koff*
posted by Capt. Renault at 10:45 AM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also, in Young's favor: fucking around with Christine O'Donnell.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:57 AM on May 27, 2011

They found Mr Winkie!!!!!!!!!
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 10:57 AM on May 27, 2011

She has good eyebrows.
posted by yarly at 11:01 AM on May 27, 2011

Does anyone know how to download these photos? I'm looking at the page source code but I'm not able to figure it out.
posted by coolxcool=rad at 11:09 AM on May 27, 2011

dabich, are you thinking of Daryl Hannah? I saw a program a few years ago about her living in a tepee with no electricity and/or running water. Apparently she's quite an activist and passionate to a point that some people might call "nuts".
posted by squarehead at 11:13 AM on May 27, 2011

These are just wonderful.

I always thought she made "No Way Out" worth watching, not Kevin Costner. But I haven't seen it since I saw it in the theater all those years ago and it's probably as godawful as everyone says it is.

FWIW, I really like No Way Out, and honestly don't get why it's always labelled as terrible. Sure, it's silly, and the twists are over the top, but it's edge-of-the-seat exciting, which some supposedly superior thrillers can't claim.

I know smoking is terrible and all, but in some of those pics there's hints of a communality that disappeared when smoking did. A shared experience gone. Looks like a lot fun. (Not to derail or anything.)

Smoking is more communal now, because you have to huddle outside the bar or wherever with your fellow idiots, where there's always an easy camaraderie. I actually have friends I met due to outside smoking who I never would've met if we'd been indoors smoking at our different tables in the pub.
posted by jack_mo at 11:30 AM on May 27, 2011

Well, I think No Way Out was a potboiler, but a thinking man's potboiler, if you will. I think it's better than most Washington-based thrillers, and better at being crazy-unreal than a lot of later movies. She didn't have much to do in it, though, other than that wild seduction scene that was talked up at the time and probably drove date-movie traffic its way. It's worth comparing to its source material, The Big Clock.
posted by dhartung at 11:30 AM on May 27, 2011

*koff*

He hasn't lit up yet! ^_^
posted by mrgrimm at 11:34 AM on May 27, 2011

"Dune, the motion picture was made in Mexico City, Mexico during the spring of 1983. I was there to witness David Lynch as the director and here's what really happened!"

- Sean Young
posted by mrgrimm at 11:37 AM on May 27, 2011

Sean Young on The Hurt Locker (she about sums it up for me) and about getting "blacklisted."

her YT account is msyPARIAH. "I've got four videos up there now!" (She actually has 17, including Skating with the Stars.)
posted by mrgrimm at 11:42 AM on May 27, 2011

Ms. Young was good in Stripes.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:42 PM on May 27, 2011

Trul--Chloe Sevigny is pretty close.
Brown Bunny? NOT REMOTELY SFW

Boys Don't Cry?
Last Days of Disco ("There's something sexy about Scrooge McDuck.")

Not to derail.
posted by Ideefixe at 12:48 PM on May 27, 2011

Roy Batty, by contrast, is full of life and claimed humanity because of his experiences. When he says, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe ..." he speaks to the memories he made for himself, exposure to situations and sights from which the comfortable citizens of Earth are insulated. Roy is a disposable soldier in space. He has, in the vulgar, seen some shit. He develops emotions and attachments because of it.

True enough Batty was more experienced than any of the humans he came in contact with and may have developed some emotions in his 3 year lifespan but his failing was that he was by far lacking emotionally and exhibited plenty of sociopathic behaviors throughout the movie. Batty blamed humans for having the same failings by sentencing the replicants to such a short life and then hunting and exterminating them without remorse if they did not accept it. Batty felt he deserved an actual free life and that may have been true at least for him, he did show an actual burst of sympathy at the very end of his life. Or maybe that was Batty's own condemnation of Deckard by allowing him to live with himself after making him realize everything he has done was in exact accordance with human reasoning that the replicants were not fit for life in the first place.
posted by P.o.B. at 1:35 PM on May 27, 2011

When I first read that Sean Young appeared in a homemade Catwoman costume in a bid for the role, I imagined the worst, but it actually wasn't that bad.
posted by misha at 4:04 PM on May 27, 2011

Batty felt he deserved an actual free life and that may have been true at least for him, he did show an actual burst of sympathy at the very end of his life. Or maybe that was Batty's own condemnation of Deckard by allowing him to live with himself after making him realize everything he has done was in exact accordance with human reasoning that the replicants were not fit for life in the first place.

I just viewed that famous scene again. Watching Batty mock Deckard by reminding him that the fear he feels in that moment of impending death is the same fear Batty has had to live with all his short life, it struck me that his decision to rescue Deckard comes more out of a desire not to die all alone than from any burst of real sympathy.

Batty says, rightly, that all the memories he has will die with him, "like tears in the rain"--which was a line Hauer improvised on the spot--but in telling Deckard his memories, he ensures that they, and him, will live on in Deckard's memories once he's gone.
posted by misha at 4:15 PM on May 27, 2011 [3 favorites]

> "like tears in the rain"--which was a line Hauer improvised on the spot

Almost on the spot. According to Mark Kermode's brilliant documentary On The Edge of Blade Runner, Hauer wrote the famous couplet at 3am on the last day of principal photography, and presented the lines to Ridley Scott just before shooting the famous rooftop scene.
posted by hot soup girl at 6:12 PM on May 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

dabitch:I remember a documentary/interview-clip of some sort, about a beautiful successful Hollywood actress who had left town and was 'going nuts' in a rural area somewhere
Anne Heche?
posted by chococat at 6:12 PM on May 27, 2011

"like tears in the rain"
posted by kcds at 6:15 PM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

"I know smoking is terrible and all, but in some of those pics there's hints of a communality that disappeared when smoking did. A shared experience gone."

Too right. Smoking was big fun. *koff*
posted by sneebler at 6:20 PM on May 27, 2011

Ford and Young underact wonderfully in the movie. The most emotive characters are Batty and Pris. That's why its the best PKD movie, ever. PKD's brilliance isn't the plot drops and twists. Its the emotions. Nobody did it like him. He wrote the emotions of a country that hadn't acknowledged they existed until 1972 in 1965.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:24 PM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

misha - That's basically *it*, isn't it. People tell you things that they've done and experienced and those memories are carried into the future by you. And they fall, like everything does, and they're recalled by the telling of stories and memories and achieve the only immortality that anyone's going to get in this age. It could be an old tale to pass on religious beliefs, your grandparent talking about childhood memories, or a very memorable character in a film: they all end up with the same result. This is what I think makes the scene crystallize - at the end of it all, you care about the character and when he speaks his last words, you don't hear what he says, you listen and remember.
posted by Zack_Replica at 9:18 PM on May 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Trad bio: Bipolar.

Hope this helps.
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Sockpuppetry at 10:01 PM on May 27, 2011

it struck me that his decision to rescue Deckard comes more out of a desire not to die all alone than from any burst of real sympathy

Yeah, you could just as easily say that or make a case the other way. Scott left quite a few loops in the narrative that you could go back and spin it one way or the other.

That's why its the best PKD movie, ever. PKD's brilliance isn't the plot drops and twists.

If you could still call it that, the book is so different from the movie I don't think most would. Ridley Scott took only bits of the book and made a wholly different incarnation with a lot of the same themes.
posted by P.o.B. at 11:22 AM on May 28, 2011

In keeping with the Awesome People Hanging Out Together post, here's a screenshot from No Way Out (1987) that includes Brad Pitt (1st uncredited move role), Sean Young and Kevin Costner. [the movie's so-so, so far]
posted by peacay at 5:47 AM on May 29, 2011