If you’re not a cinephile it may not make much sense that a film history teacher and a rabid film goer/watcher/maker/snob wouldn’t have a favorite film, but I don’t. My top 10 are constantly changing and are never in order of importance (that’s if I can get to 10. Usually I get to 9 and am completely confounded). I had a top 3 but I couldn’t tell you what they are now.

The source of my perplexity when dealing with a favorites list is one of definition. What does one mean by “favorite”? The one that made me feel good? The one that I think is the most artistic? The one that I’ve seen more times than the rest? The one that coincides with a favorite memory? The one that challenged me the most as a person? Since the specificity of the definition changes as often as the questioner, there is no quick answer to this question.

To compound this dilemma, there is the frustrating realization that giving the “wrong” answer can be as damaging to acquaintanceship as being from an opposing political party or a marginally different religious denomination.

“Really… High School Musical 3… (a beat) … So how about those Cubs?”

or

“Yeeahhhh….. Keanu Reeves is a (cough) talented actor.”

So I usually lie. This is far quicker and, for me, guilt free. It’s like having a fake number to give an unpleasant and pushy suitor (is there a word for a girl suitor?). I’ve found one film that I can pull out at any occasion but one that satisfies my snobby side as well as other’s populist tastes. It’s the perfect fake favorite.

“Hey Phil. What’s your favorite film?”

Blade Runner.

It stars Harrison Ford and takes place in Los Angeles in the near dystopian future of 2019. A sci-fi/noir masterpiece directed by Ridley Scott back when he had vision (yes I’ve seen Gladiator).

Now don’t get me wrong. When I say fake favorite, this doesn’t mean I don’t like the film. It is ONE of my favorites but I’m also deeply smitten with “Network”. What is “Network” you ask? That’s why I don’t mention it.

Most people have heard of Blade Runner even if they haven’t seen it. Better than that, the people who haven’t seen it generally, if disingenuously, apologize for not having seen it. Those who have seen it are almost always in agreement, but even if they aren’t, it is often because the film “confused” them. Rarely do I get detractors but when I do it is a point of pride that they disliked the film and I am happy to concede their lunacy.

Despite this being a perfect fake that has served me faithfully for many many years, this answer doesn’t get me out of the woods. There is one more question that needs asking.

“Why?”

Why is Blade Runner my “favorite” film?

For this I have an answer, which is absolutely true.

My first experience with Blade Runner came in 1986 when I was about 8 years old. I was sitting in the living room at my cousins’ house and I had been given the privilege of channel surfing through their countless cable channels when I happened on a channel with Han Solo not dressed as Han Solo. I stopped. This wasn’t Indiana Jones either. It was science fiction but dark and moody and grim. What was this? He was slumped in some flying car and was eating noodles. He looked bummed, sloppy, disheveled. Not the Harrison Ford I was used to but I was intrigued. I was ready to keep watching but suddenly my aunt entered the living room and saw what was playing and said:

“Ugh! Blade Runner! What a terrible movie! Change it!”

I changed it.

But because of her reaction and those few short images. It stayed in my mind for years. And it was 9 years before I convinced my dad to rent and watch it with me. The back of the box had this warning in bold type:

WARNING: THIS FILM CONTAINS NEVER BEFORE RELEASED SCENES OF GRAPHIC VIOLENCE WHICH WERE EDITED OUT OF THE THEATRICAL RELEASE IN AN ATTEMPT TO SOFTEN THE VERY ADULT TONE OF THE PICTURE. SEE MORE OF THE FUTURE IN THE YEAR 2019…IF YOU DARE!

I absolutely dared but I was apprehensive. I had always had to turn away when Harrison Ford opened up the Taunton with a lightsaber in Empire Strikes Back and wondered what could be more violent than that.

My dad put the VHS in our VCR, jiggled the back of our jury-rigged television and pressed play on the remote.

The logo for The Ladd Company appeared with its soothing brass theme. Lined green bars formed what looked like a digital approximation of a tree. If only I had known then what that portentous music and image were introducing.

For the next two hours I was transported in a way I had never been. On that small 4:3 ratio picture was a real world. Not the fabricated landscape of Star Wars or the art deco nonsense of Logans Run.

This was real.

Real in a way that movies had never been before, and have rarely been since. When I saw Ridley Scott’s vision of the future, it was as though he had actually gone there with a camera crew, shot his film and came back. Harrison Ford wasn’t Harrison Ford. He was Rick Deckard, retired Blade Runner, called in to “retire” a few refugee replicants (androids).

But forget about the plot. It’s not the films strong suit. It’s certainly good enough to hold the film together tightly but this wasn’t what took my breath away. When Gaff is flying Deckard to police headquarters in the beginning of the film, Vangelis’ music swells and we also fly with the two men through a jungle of skyscrapers and industrial landscape. They approach the police building and from an aerial view I realize that I can’t see the bottom. Where the street might presumably be is a sea of lights and more flying cars. I get a touch of vertigo that, instead of being sickening, is intoxicating.

I want to be there. Standing at the top of that building and letting the polluted darkness of the city soak into every pore.

Later Deckard returns to his apartment and steps out onto the balcony. It overlooks (and underlooks) endless and skyless city. Taxi’s fly by followed by police spinners. I was there standing at an adjoining balcony and knew that this was where I wanted to be when I could afford my own place. Not a fantasy. I wanted it for real.

This was all eclipsed, however, when Deckard brings Rachel back to his apartment after she has saved his life. He nurses his wounds and then goes into his living room. Rachel is questioning whether or not she is a replicant and asks Deckard if he himself is sure of his own humanity. When he doesn’t answer her she goes into the living room to find him fast asleep on the couch; a drink on his chest protected by his bruised fist.

Then Vangelis’ “Love Theme” appeared via a sensual melody from a lone saxophone.

Suddenly the film became more than real to me.

I suddenly felt that I had actually lived in that world. I felt that I was watching my past somehow. Not memory of an event but of a time. It was like I had travelled in that same time machine with Ridley Scott and had lived in 2019 for a time and then was forced to come back and erase the memory. But the erasure had not been complete. Some residue of that time spent in that future was still there and retained the pungent odor of the city.

I was 17 and yeah my brain knew I hadn’t actually been there but I felt it nonetheless. It was as true as any transcendent, romantic, or spiritual moment.

When I was 21 I bought my first DVD player because the anniversary edition of Jaws was not being released in widescreen on VHS. Along with Jaws I bought my first of many copies of Blade Runner. I had not seen it since that first transcendent viewing and while it wasn’t exactly the same the second time around, I still felt transported.

I have since seen how it was all created. The curtain has been pulled back and the wizard’s secrets revealed. But it hasn’t mattered. Nothing can take away that moment. It was a moment that I never had again but will remember forever.

You might wonder at this point why this isn’t my actual favorite movie instead of being my fake favorite movie. The reason is that, while this was an extraordinary moment in my history of film watching, it is one of many moments. All different. All memorable.

Every one of those films is my favorite.

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I’ve watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. And all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain” Roy Batty from Blade Runner.

I couldn’t have said it better.