Sam Raffield
Aristotelis Santas
PHIL 3800
June 12, 2012
Identity: Exploring the Self in Film
At its absolute best, film is an exploration of the one thing that all fiction has been
exploring since fiction’s invention: the human condition. In the end, film is just another
tool through which people hope to find the answers to life’s secrets. One of those secrets
is identity; what is the self? What creates our identity? Are aspects of ourselves inherent
from the beginning, or are we solely products of our experience?
Science fiction is one of the best genres to help us explore this theme, and science
fiction films, no matter what their level of artistic merit, offer great topics of conversation
on the matter. In Alex Proyas’s 1998 sci-fi neo noir Dark City, the human race has
become a collective puppet show for a race of aliens known only as the Strangers. In
typical noir fashion, these villains have a rather understandable motive: their race is
dying, and they are hoping to find their key to survival in the human race. They create an
artificial reality, transplanting memories and entire lives into the brains of human beings,
watching them go about their days as these characters they’ve created. Everything falls
apart when one man, known as John Murdoch, is left without a transplant and any kind of
identity. Left outside of the reality created by the Strangers, he is left to realize the truth
of the situation and free the human race.
Underneath what could be seen as a basic “save humanity” plot is a great
philosophical question: is identity solely an amalgam of one’s experiences or are
experiences simply catalysts that allow dormant identities to reach the surface?
If one were to ask 17th century philosopher John Locke, he would tell that the
mind is initially a blank slate; that we are born without ideas and our knowledge is simply
a product of our experience. Dark City is an expansion on Locke’s theory. In the film,
John Murdoch awakens without any knowledge whatsoever: his mind is the proverbial
blank slate. However, his mind being a blank slate allows for a kind of purity of action.
The fact that he has no knowledge forces him to act on instinct; he behaves in a sort of
feral way. It is the same purity you would find in the mind of an infant. For example,
after knocking over a fishbowl, he instinctively saves the life of the fish, adhering solely
to his heroic and empathetic nature. His instinctive actions are in direct contrast with the
serial killer personality he was to be given. The people searching for him know this, and
it leads to the reveal of the conspiracy controlling the titular city.
The beginning is a simple statement of Locke’s theory: blank slate mind,
knowledge is brought from experience, etc. The expansion on this theory is the
commentary on the purity of the blank slate. Without knowledge or experience, one is
forced to rely on one’s instincts to survive, and there is a great purity in that. It is the
person’s true self surfacing; the cynicism and hesitance brought upon by knowledge of
societal pressures are not there, and the person does what they would truly do in any
given situation. Alex Proyas, using science fiction, waxes philosophic on the nature of the
human soul; in his eyes, the soul is the pure, unadulterated instinct of the mind.
Ultimately, however, no one can possibly know what makes a soul. Is it choice?
Is it instinct? Is it our actions that define our soul, or is it how we feel about our actions?
Religious and scientific people alike are ultimately only guessing at what lies at the
center of the human condition (or rather the condition of any mind, human or nonhuman).
The 1982 cult classic Blade Runner, adapted from the novel Do Androids Dream
of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick, is another science fiction musing on the human
condition. Blade Runner asks about identity as well, but also on the humanity of nonhuman beings as well as the inhumanity of human beings, the fear of death, and how one
can become immortal.
In the universe of Blade Runner, there are androids known as “replicants,” or as
bigoted humans call them, “skinjobs.” These replicants are almost identical to humans
except for one thing: they have no emotions. The leader of the last of these replicants is
the fearsome Roy Batty, a replicant with almost unlimited strength and intelligence.
Although Roy is initially thought of as an antagonist, the viewer realizes as the film goes
on that Roy and the protagonist, Rick Deckard, are in fact mirror images of each other:
they both kill the other’s kind indiscriminately; they are both the best in their particular
fields; and they both want more out of their existence. Oddly enough, it is Roy, not Rick,
who ends up being the nobler of the two. The climax comes as Rick and Roy finally have
a showdown (after Rick kills Roy’s lover, over which Roy inexplicably cries in grief) and
Rick is left dangling from a precipice for dear life. Upon seeing that his hunter knows
what it is like to stare death in the face and realize that death is not only unstoppable but
only moments away, Roy saves Rick’s life and utters one word… “Kinship.” At this
moment, with this one word, the line between man and machine is erased and “humanity”
is not at all subjective.
Accepting his fate and only moments from death, Roy offers a soliloquy to Rick
describing the amazing things he has seen throughout his all-too-short life and how, once
he is gone, it will be as if they had never happened at all. With tears in his eyes and a
knowing smile on his face, Roy hangs his head and dies, leaving a speechless Rick to
what must be immense thoughts. This incredible scene is not only the heart of the film,
but also the heart of the philosophy behind it. As has been said, the line between man and
machine has been dashed to pieces, and there is no separation. The true motives of Roy’s
ruthless search become all too clear: the desire to live longer. Who can not possibly
identify with such a desire? Everyone, realizing that life is finite, wishes only for a little
more time to do what he or she may wish. For Roy, who has spent his life in exile or
slavery, the desire to live is fueled by his desire to be his own man. More so, it is the fear
of what he cannot stop. Death terrifies him; it makes him desperate for the ability to go
on. At the base of this fear is the crippling thought that with his death, all of his
experiences, memories and attributes will disappear, as if they had never happened.
Nothing will be left behind and it could mean that his existence never mattered. Nothing
is more terrifying to anyone, human or non-human, than the idea of being meaningless
and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. If one is meaningless and
inconsequential, one has no identity or purpose. If one in meaningless and
inconsequential, one has no self. One is nothing at all. In this context, the only way one
could be meaningful or consequential at all is if they leave something behind that will
stay forever. This is exactly what Roy realizes as he saves Rick from certain death. He
allows his hunter to live so that his own death will serve as his hunter’s salvation. He
proves that replicants can be empathetic and heroic, and offers Rick his memories and
knowledge as a way of giving himself immortality. If his memories and knowledge stay
with Rick, as they undoubtedly will, it will mean that Roy’s existence truly had a
purpose, and that his death is only the next step in what has been an incredible existence.
Whether it’s through the question of the unfettered mind or the futile fight against
death, the questions of the self remain unanswered and thus forever a popular topic in
fiction. Unlike the guess work and pointed opinionating perceived as truth in much
nonfiction, quality fiction allows people to take away whatever they will and to form
their own ideas and opinions about the matter at hand. Only really great film allows for
the start of deep discussion and in the hands of their respective gifted directors, Dark City
and Blade Runner have become two of those great films.