Interview: Screenwriter Hampton Fancher

FA: Janeane also loved [Owen], and her accepting the role also had a lot to do with him being in the film. When Owen was Vann, she really wanted to work with Owen, and she would only have been able to do it if she felt comfortable with whomever she worked.

HF: There's that, but she said something the other night in New York. We were having one of these things and she came in, there was a New York Times woman there, and she said—I was told this, I'd left already—but they asked her about Owen. And Janeane is a brilliant person, and doesn't mince words about what she thinks, and she said, "Owen is the best actor of the generation." That's interesting. I'd never thought that, exactly, but I think about that now. He's really good. And when I think about the things he's done that were hard to do, were impossible to do, as an actor myself, I couldn't have done it. Did you ever see Anaconda? He's got a moment where he's gotta get angry on board that boat. And it's apropos to nothing, almost, I mean, for him, it's like he was part of the dialogue. All of a sudden—bam!—he was doing it. And Owen's a very cautious guy in a way, and he made that real. Dumb lines, dumb idea, and he got behind it; he can't lie.

And even those older actors who you think of—in terms of Jimmy Stewart or Hank Fonda, or whatever—those guys, in their early stuff, they lied a lot, you can see right through ‘em. They got better at it. But Owen, right from Bottle Rocket, he was ingenuous. And that ingenuousness…I thought maybe he was a one-trick pony. But it's not. And he's really a very able actor.

The whole idea of [the film] originally for me was the proximity of good to evil. And I think that's a conundrum that is infinitely fascinating, because we could never come up with a solution to that. And the dark forces that invade and pervade the life of human beings…the history has never changed. We're still nailing cats against walls, laughing. And raping, and burning, and mauling, and bombing, and whatever. It's just unstoppable. So I'm not going to make a film about that, but I can make a film about one person who is smoldering in one compartment of his persona, or character, or subconscious, that's causing him to do terrible things, and who's a very fine person. And always the thing in my mind is that we love innocence—like we all do. And here's the power of innocence; I mean, he's got power in the sense that—I don't mean that he rolls over things—but he evokes trust and love from people because of his innocence, which is totally genuine. There's nothing sinister, there's nothing conniving about him. He is true innocence, true goodness, he's an angel. But he embodies also a dark thing that he can't control; it controls him at times. I think that's the story of mankind. Not that Minus Man is the story of mankind, but I had that platform, that foundation, that conviction to trust in. And from that, whatever confidence or accomplishment or effect that we've arrived at in the film, its honesty or whatever, comes from that dichotomy that I think is universal. Plus, if you look at film closely, you see every character, even the cops, in a way, have a willingness, a charity, a sympathy, that they own, and is close to illuminating the situation but can't quite do it. I think it's evidenced mostly in Mercedes Ruehl as Jane. I mean, that woman needs something badly, and she wants to give something badly, and it's hard to do, because she's locked. And I think we're all locked; and that idea, of being confined, out best qualities being confined…[Vann's] best qualities aren't confined—he shines with that stuff. And I've always liked that Candide, Billy Budd kind of innocence.

AW: In a sense, the main characters in the film all have something in common, in that they're all basically ordinary people, except part of them is broken somehow, and they have to cope with that.

HF: Exactly. That's it. And everybody in the film, including the cops, we worked on that level. That was an essential. The dialogues that all of us had, and I think it was pervasive in the script—not pervasive, but it wasn't foreign to them when I brought the subject up; they already had opinions and convictions about that. And I want it to be elliptical, I want it to be subtle, I want it to be real, so it wasn't like they were gonna play on that, but there was going to be a strain, an underpinning, that would hold up the film based on that exact thing. Broken…yeah, they were all broken.

I said to everybody, I wrote notes, and I said, "It's like each one of you are like a tightly closed tent that no one can get under or open, but there's a glow in each of these tents, and they're all trying to touch each other." But Vann comes in and can be touched and touch. He can't be touched, by the way, which is the scene with Janeane when she kisses him and he gives her the stone; that's all he can give her is a rock, because he doesn't know how to love. He sits there after she gets up and leaves, you know, and it's pathetic and touching to me. But I find us all pathetic and touching; I look in our eyes and I see…oh Jesus, you know…you can do it with a baby, or your dog, but it's hard to get that done with people, there's too many forces and restrictions.

HF: That's the end of the compulsion. He can't kill her, and then he goes crazy, he does that, and the only time he's truly vulnerable is after that, and then he's desperate to kill—and he can't do it. And the cops, his killing symbol, those two cops [two recurring characters, like his conscience, who Vann hallucinates], they say, "See you later, we don't like this anymore, we're going." "No, no—don't leave, because I won't be complete!" because he's not insane anymore. And he does this thing, the redemption of taking Karen, the photograph, and the house has become the haunted, empty, hollow place that it is, and he saves her. It's got resolution, but I don't know who will know that; maybe they'll write about it some day.

"Lew," I said, "do you believe in capital punishment?" And he said, "Nope." And I said, "Neither do I." This guy's gonna go, you know, he's gonna get a job at the post office. I can say, "My dear wife, I'm not gonna fuck around anymore. Forgive me!" Next year, who knows, when I'm feeling cocky again. Who knows, those cops might come back and inhabit him again. But I think that the whole process was that he got close…he said, "I've never done this before, I've never killed anybody in the same town…" He's gonna blow it. He's going to create a profile for himself. Like those cops say, "Hey, there's going to be a drawing of you." But somehow the angel is a bit stronger than the devil in him. And he can't do it…the post office is the key. He goes in to Arthur, and everything says—he's got that flask at his back, it's gonna happen—but he doesn't do it. I got that from Mishkin, Dostoyevsky; epilepsy, he faints. And he's blowing it, and the cops say, "Hey, you're no fun anymore. We're out of here."

I was studying a bunch of things when I writing this; The Lady Killers, Arsenic and Old Lace, because I wanted the Truffaut thing, which interests me a lot. I love Shoot the Piano Player. That thing of her getting shot at the end and rolling down the show like some mythic, tragic…

HF: It taught me the whole process about directing movies, about acting. And so being a bad actor in bad television shows is an education. "Waitaminute, Lem! Don't go over there!" Is there a way to writer that better! Is there a way to make that real?

It's a process of falling down enough so you learn how to walk. I broke my nose a thousand times; okay, now we know how to do it, "Okay, put your foot in front of yourself before you take a step." So that's what Gunsmoke was all about; and working with great actors.

An Early Draft of Blade Runner
I believe that this draft is actually the last one that Fancher wrote before it was modified by David Peoples, and it is the version I quote below in my notes. The script is a work of real beauty, replete with nostalgically hard-boiled dialogue, and showcases Fancher's poet's ear for description. From the Gods Among Directors Site.

Rewritten Draft of Blade Runner
This version, dated February 23, 1981, is Fancher's version rewritten by David Peoples, and both share credit on this draft. This vesion is much closer to the final film, and shows Peoples's excellent eye for detail, as he added many embellishments to Fancher's work that added depth and texture.

1. The voiceover to which Fancher refers I found in a draft of Blade Runner dated July 24, 1980, upon which Fancher has sole credit. This is the final scene of this draft, and takes place right after Deckard has killed Rachael:

INT. CAR - NIGHT                                        

Deckard is behind the wheel, face in shadow, eyes
staring straight ahead.

		 DECKARD (V.O.)
      I told myself over and over again,
      if I hadn't done it, they would
      have.

      I didn't go back to the city, not
      that city, I didn't want the job.

      She said the great advantage of
      being alive was to have a choice.
      And she chose.  And a part of me
      was almost glad.  Not because she
      was gone but because this way they
      could never touch her.

      As for Tyrell -- he was murdered,
      but he wasn't dead.  For a long
      time I wanted to kill him.  But
      what was the point?  There were too
      many Tyrells.  But only one Rachael.
      Maybe real and unreal could never
      be separated.  The secret never
      found.  But I got as close with
      her as I'd ever come to it.  She'd
      stay with me a long time.  I guess
      we made each other real.

And the ruby lights of Deckard's car disappear into
the darkness.
                     
			THE END

2. The "opticals" he mentions undoubtedly refer to the reflective red-eye effect that was used throughout the film on the replicants to reinforce the fact that they weren't human.

3. Paul Sammon's excellent book, Future Noir, an exhaustive overview of the making of Blade Runner, goes into great detail about the screenwriting process of the film, including its various drafts, rewrites, and the last-minute addition of the infamous voiceover. On pages 297-298, he writes: