This article makes use of Darko Suvin’s theory of the novum and Raymond
Williams’s cultural materialism to analyse three urban-dystopian science
fiction films: Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), Ridley
Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) and Alex Proyas’s Dark
City (1998). It argues for the central significance of utopia, dystopia and
cinema to SF. It explores the themes of class and gender, the uses of
intertextuality, and the representations of the human and the posthuman in these
three films. Drawing on Jameson, Baudrillard and others, it argues that the first
film exhibits a characteristically modern, the latter two different versions of a
characteristically postmodern, ‘structure of feeling’.
Blade Runner directed by
Ridley Scott
, the
Blade Runner Partnership/Warner Brothers
, 1982.
2.
Blade Runner: The Director’s Cut directed by
Ridley Scott
,
Blade Runner Partnership/Warner Brothers
, 1992.
3.
Dark City directed by
Alex Proyas
,
Mystery Clock Cinema/New Line Cinema
, 1998.
4.
Le Voyage dans la lune directed by
George Méliès
,
Star Films
, 1902.
5.
Metropolis directed by
Fritz Lang
,
Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft
, 1927.
6.
Metropolis directed by
Fritz Lang
,
Transit Film/Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Stiftung
, 2002.
7.
The Matrix directed by
Andy Wachowski
and
Larry Wachowski
,
Groucho II Film Partnership/Village Roadshow Pictures/Warner Brothers
, 1999.
8.
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socialistes-communiste.
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d’État en science politique
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and
Max Horkheimer
(1979) Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. John Cumming.
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.
10.
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, with
D. Wingrove
(1986) Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science
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(1986) The Handmaid’s Tale.
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.
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(1991) ‘Metahuman “Kipple”
or, Do Male Movie Makers Dream of Electric Women?: Speciesism and Sexism in
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(ed.) Retrofitting Blade Runner: Issues in Ridley Scott’s
Blade Runner and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep?.
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Sheep?.
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