Does anybody have any clue what the meaning is behind the dead woman in the bathtub in BLADE RUNNER? I only noticed her recently on the HD-DVD (she's submerged in the tub behind Deckard during the climax in the scene where Batty puts his head through the wall and then fights Deckard in the same room), and low and behold there is even an unused take featured in the supplements where you can really see her in detail as Deckard walks into the room and sits on the rim of the tub. There is no mention of her in the commentaries, she's just visible in the background of the scene in the final film, and very clearly seen in that unused take in the supplements, so I'm left baffled. Is this a remnant of the otherwise unfilmed "sixth replicant" subplot, or just a bit of strange background detail that was added to the shot to catch audiences off-guard and leave them uneasy?

Vincent

I honestly don't think this was part of any significant deleted scene or sequence, and was probably just an added part of scene decoration...however...

This does add yet another layer of general uneasiness to J.F. Sebastian's whole domestic situation. Although I always had a great deal of empathy for the man, largely due to William Sanderson's tender wounded-puppy performance, there was something genuinely off-center and creepy about his "toys" and "little friends" littered about the place.

Perhaps this was a creation that got out of hand, and poor J.F. had to put her down, and never bothered to move the body. Or perhaps there is a whole backstory with this being J.F.'s great synthetic love affair that ended in a jealous rage?

Then again, maybe it wasn't even J.F.'s bathroom...that building had to have a second resident in there somewhere? Obviously whoever it was, they weren't a roofer or plumber. Seriously, how many leaks did that building have?

The world may never know, but seriously why did the little soldier toyguy have such a long phallic nose anyway? Something's up y'all.

Y'know what, that whole building was screwy...Another reason to avoid L.A.

That and you drive like a girl. Admit you do! You're timid and over-cautious... girl!

You gotta be kidding. Driving in LA is so friggin' easy. LA driving has nothing on East Coast driving.

Sp anyway, back to that dead woman in the tub...

Vincent

For the record, I do not drive like a girl in any state, except New Jersey where I can usually be found crying off to the side of what I thought was an exit but was in fact a horrible horrible lie that led me off to parts unknown far far away from the Outback Steakhouse I was trying to get to, but nooooooooooo I couldn't be given the simple courtesy of an easy way there, I had to be diverted off my path by a cruel roadway system designed by mothmen and rat-people...

Y'know that bathtub lady is really quite odd. Has Ridley Scott ever commented on her partialy submerged presence?

I actually asked an insider who was involved with the new BLADE RUNNER special edition, and even he didn't know the answer! It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside of an enigma...

Vincent

Scatman Crothers TOLD Deckard not to go into Room 237!

John Cusack said it'd be Ok.

I suspect the latter - my immediate assumption was that this was one of Sebastian's discarded experiments (which, as Michael said, casts interesting new light on the private life of a replicant designer).

Isn't it great, though, that a film that has seemingly been dissected and analysed to the nth degree is still capable of surprising and delighting the viewer in this way? This may well be the most densely-detailed film in cinema history, where even futuristic cops' badges, magazine racks and parking meters, invisible in the finished film, were subject to exacting design criteria. BLADE RUNNER 5.5, as the disc producer calls it, is probably my favourite-ever DVD supplement; did David Lynch pull off a similar trick with the deleted scenes from LOST EMPIRE, editing them together into an altogether new alternate cut of the film?

I've seen BLADE RUNNER so many times a faint smell of rain and rust comes out of my pores when it's humid. But I have no idea what you guys are talking about. I think you're playing a trick on me.

That's exactly what I assumed she was.** It's hard to imagine Sebastian being able to overpower a human female, but he does have those toys littered all over. There are so many "toys" in the Bradbury set, several of them played by human actors, that I'm not surprised that they start to fade into the background.

One of the reasons I really enjoyed seeing this film digitally projected on the big screen was that it opened my eyes to just how much detail there was in Sebastian's living space. Any time that we're in a room full of toys, my eyes started roaming around and trying to pick out the human mimes hidden in the production design.

That flooded bathroom ALWAYS creeps me out to begin with. A dark, abandoned, flooding bathroom is pure nightmare material to me for some reason. That there's a "dead woman" hidden in there just outside of our perception really does show the kind of genius that went into creating the atmosphere of this film.

On other boards (and off-line), I've argued with those who are dubious about the merits of BLADE RUNNER. A lot of people find the film to be boring and at least one or two feel that it is loaded with plotholes and not nearly as intelligent as it's given credit for.

I agree that there are plotholes, but I've never felt that this invalidates the film's achievements or overall excellence. At the end of the day, film is an audio/visual medium designed to create an emotional response (kind of like Voight-Kampff). As an exercise in audio/visual ambience, BLADE RUNNER is pure cinema.

Roger Ebert was one of the few critics to give William Malone's FEARDOTCOM a halfway favorable review. Of that film he says, "This is a movie that cannot be taken seriously on the narrative level. But look at it. Just look at it. Wear some of those Bose sound-defeating earphones into the theater, or turn off the sound when you watch the DVD. If the final 20 minutes had been produced by a German impressionist in the 1920s, we'd be calling it a masterpiece. All credit to director William Malone, cinematographer Christian Sebaldt, production designer Jerome Latour and art directors Regime Freise and Markus Wollersheim."

Well, BLADE RUNNER wasn't made in the '20s. It was made in the '80s and it accomplishes everything that Ebert praises in FEARDOTCOM. The difference is that you can take BLADE RUNNER seriously on a narrative level and that's what makes it a modern masterpiece. And it's a masterpiece in the literal sense. It's a piece of work produced by artists who had mastered their craft.

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**For the record, I never noticed her until looking at the supplements on the new dvd set. Is there anyone on here who can do some screen grabs?

I also have yet to watch the workprint. Is she more noticeable in that?

I hadn't noticed her before but it makes perfect sense to me that she'd be there. From the moment he meets Pris, you can see he's attracted to her and he admits to loneliness and when he finally gets lucky, he probably hid the doll. Let's face it if you were a lonely droid designer, your first personal project is going to be a labour of love so to speak. Heck, if you were a lonely guy today will a life-size replica doll for company, you're not going to trot her out for the first real female company to come visit your flat. No you're going to hide her in the bathtub until you see where all this is going.


Victor.

They're just questions, Michael. Now, say you're walking in the desert...

She's not visible at all either in any of the theatrical release prints or the Workprint, since Scott finally chose a different angle from which to shoot Deckard's scene in the flooded bathroom - the "replicant corpse" is hidden completely behind a filthy shower curtain, if I recall correctly. (There may be the edge of an elbow or a foot visible, if you know where to look in the murk, but I haven't been back yet specifically to revisit this sequence in the FINAL CUT.)

It almost goes without saying, but I wholeheartedly endorse your views on BR-as-masterpiece. Controversy-hungry naysayers are one of the principal reasons why the shaking-head-slowly-and-sadly emoticon was invented (fact). Wisdom to the vile seems vile; filths savour but themselves. :P

Speaking of Scatman, I was watching a hunk of HELLO, DOLLY! last night, and though Babs Streisand plays a few lines of dialogue with him in the first number (he's a porter at the train station), the preceding set-up shot, taken from the rear as Dolly and the porter enter the station, features an obviously much younger black man (with more hair than Scatman!) carrying Dolly's bag.

I could see her face clearly for a couple of frames when I checked the '92 Director's Cut last night. She looks very doll-like facially, but the feet are uncomfortably real-looking.

Perhaps it's just a PA hiding in an odd place during the take? (shrug)

I'm joking, of course... but it would make a great story...

Kinda like that poor movie-set fellow who tried to run away from that opening shot in POLTERGEIST, but didn't quite make it out of frame. :D

There's a reference in the printed script, in the scene just before Pris jumps Deckard, that Pris appears to be "just another mannequin".

Maybe other versions of the script are more specific about the set dressing?

And in the theatrical version Deckard flies off into some outtakes from THE SHINING, so it all makes sense. I always thought that made the ending of the theatrical version much more downbeat, since Rachael and Deckard are obviously on their way to the Overlook Hotel, where Deckard's drinks will be poured by the head of the Tyrell Corporation. Since Rachael has no termination date in this version, she'll be able to play with those two little girls "for ever...and ever...and ever".

Here's another question: Why does Deckard have a piano in his cramped apartment? The only people I know who have pianos in their apartments are professional musicians. But the way Deckard touches the piano's keys as he dreams about a unicorn suggests that he doesn't even know how to play it. Perhaps it belongs to his ex wife...but she's only mentioned in the theatrical version. Or perhaps, on a much more ambiguous level, the piano is simply there so that it can be played by Rachael (giving added meaning to Rachael's claim, in one of the alternate happy endings on the DVD, that she and Deckard were "made for each other").

Possibly Deckard "inherited" the piano along with his photo collection...a little gift from the Tyrell Corporation.

So... how long do you think it will take before "the truth" is leaked to the Internet that the woman in the tub is yet another extra who committed suicide on-set, just like in The Wizard Of Oz and Three Men And A Baby?

Oh, I guess I just did that. :rolleyes:

What's even more shocking, William, is that Ridley was such an obsessive perfectionist that he wouldn't allow filming to stop to deal with the dead crew member!

"But Ridley, she killed herself and is in the shot!"

"FUCK IT! The lighting is PERFECT, and she adds atmosphere to the scene! Action, ACTION!!!"

:)

Vincent

"FUCK IT, mate! The lighting is PERFECT, and she adds atmosphere to the scene, mate! Action, mate, ACTION!!!"

Fixed. You're welcome! :P

My brother listened to Scott's audio commentary and kept texting me over and over how angry he was at Scott's raging ego. The director apparently loves talking about how great he is, mentions LEGEND a few hundred times (I guess he talks as much about his other movies as he does BLADE RUNNER), and doesn't even mention Philip Dick's name until almost an hour in. My brother is pretty laidback about stuff like this, so Ridley must really come across like a real ass for him to get so riled. "A waste of my time," he ultimately concluded.

Here is the same quote translated into Tarantino:

"The lighting is PERFECT, alright? And she adds atmosphere to the scene, alright? Action, alright? ACTION!!!"

I thought the commentary was very good, and Dick is covered all over the supplements on the DVD. Maybe you should give it a listen yourself before passing judgment.

Vincent

Ah, see this is the Vincent I love! Welcome back Vincent, I thought you'd been getting very laid back yourself these days.

Victor.

“There's a reference in the printed script, in the scene just before Pris jumps Deckard, that Pris appears to be "just another mannequin".”

Is it just me or is that sequence reminiscent of KILL, BABY…. KILL? Both movies feature a lead character in a room full of mannequins. They find blond female figure that is not what she seems. The trappings have drapes, a scary silence and a ruined building as a home. When I first saw that sequence from the Bava classic I though “He say you Bladerunner”. I don’t have access to either film right now so I can’t a do comparison on line but it struck me as similar.

Regarding the jokes about Sebastian’s home, here are some links to the Bradbury building. I assure you, it’s a reason to see Los Angeles. Its also genre related in more ways than one. Alas it is Wikipedia so take it with a pinch of salt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradbury_Building

http://www.laconservancy.org/tours/downtown/bradbury.php4

I didn't pass any judgment. I told a story about someone else who did. After listening to the commentary.

“The director (Ridley Scott) apparently loves talking about how great he is,…”

I expect that from most filmmakers.