21-23

And indeed, what was in the cards for the people living during the '70s-'80s in a society based on printed paper? To what extent were holograms going to replace palpable material, and to what extent was our sensory system going to change, even our manual handling of things and the way in which we physically manipulate objects, if everything were to become projected? Reality would merge with virtual reality and humans would merge with robots. The birth of the cyborg was imminent, but very dangerous. This is one of the favourite subjects of this subgenre. Consequently, we have another brief and correct definition: Cyberpunk is about expressing (often dark) ideas about human nature, technology and their respective combination in the near future.⁶

Subsequently, I will speak exclusively about films and I will give six defining features – at least in my opinion, based on researching other's points of view – of the cyberpunk subgenre, as follows: the negative impact of technology on humanity; the fusion between technology and humanity; the control of corporations over society; the focus on the underground world; clothing with punk accents; omnipresent access to information.

It must be said here that pure cyberpunk films are rare, if not completely absent, but at the same time it is difficult to find any movie to be part of only one genre/subgenre. However, there are many films containing cyberpunk features, due to the inclusion (conscious, voluntary or not) of one or more of the aforementioned characteristics. This, however, does not place them automatically in this subgenre, it rather gives room for debate, for interpretation. Perhaps I would not classify all the titles I chose as cyberpunk – I myself have reservations with regard to some of them – but that does not mean that they would not make an interesting discussion topic.

It is a known fact that Blade Runner (Ridley Scott) is considered the film that opened the cyberpunk cinematic „movement" in 1982, but there are also the so-called precursors: proto-cyberpunk films which, employing one or more elements, anticipated this SF subgenre. Before enumerating them, I'd like to mention the fact that I myself carried out the selection of films and it might be possible that some titles were left out and others rather forcefully included, due to various reasons. The films in question are Metropolis (1927), The Creation of the Humanoids (1962), Cyborg 2087 (1966), Alien (1979) and Heavy Metal (1981). Of course, one must not forget about La Jetée (1962) together with Twelve Monkeys (1995). Terry Gilliam, who directed the latter, said: 'La Jetée and Twelve Monkeys are a perfect match. La Jetée is like acorn: small, compact, perfect, whereas Twelve Monkeys is the oak tree stemming from the acorn, with branches growing in all directions, bigger, more complex, more dizzy(ing). But at the heart, they are the same thing'⁷. In order to underline that these two films are "related", I will present their synopses, starting with Chris Marker's film: Time travel, still images, a past, present and future and the aftermath of World War III. The tale of a man, a slave, sent back and forth, in and out of time, to find a solution to the world's fate⁸. And the other one: In a future world devastated by disease, a convict is sent back in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population on the planet⁹. Beside the stories being very similar to one another, one also notices the strong common cyberpunk elements: the apocalyptic future, a recent nuclear catastrophe, a lead character living on the edge of the abyss, which brings about the onset of an obsession.

Amid the other films preceding Scott's production, Metropolis (Fritz Lang) (Image 1), an exponent of the German Expressionism, has the most distinctive artistic side. The subject can be summarised as follows: in a futuristic megacity where the population is divided between workers and rulers, the son of the supreme leader falls in love with a female worker. We have, therefore, the topic of the totalitarian future, the division between classes, and the maniac robotisation. A crazy scientist living isolated from the rest of the society in a sort of forgotten shed, creates a kind of cyborg (the term didn't exist back then), which is, in the end, the element leading to the uprising of the poor. The robot is the embodiment of Evil, whereas the leader's son is presented as a messianic figure, the one who will bring peace on earth. Lang's film is extremely sophisticated – especially if we consider its age – and acts on several levels: the scenography is astonishing given the technical possibilities of the time, the idea of a hybrid man is more than unusual, whilst the narrative part is overlapped by a philosophical-religious-social one.

Moreover, in his research¹⁰, Siegfried Kracauer suggests a link between the "apolitical and escapist orientation of the cinema under the Weimar Republic – where Metropolis can also be included, even if the author points more in the direction of the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920) – and the totalitarianism that ensued in Germany". Kracauer quite rightfully criticised the topics presented in Lang's film. The machines and the people formations – even their placement, like little robots – having no personal conscience, only a collective one subordinated to the supreme leader – are considered very meticulous by the author, and I allow myself to add here they were so meticulous, that the common German adopted them as something with which they could get used to. However, beside the two mentioned here, there was an entire series of films that inoculated, to a certain extent, a certain feeling in the population, that contributed to its "falling asleep" and, implicitly, to Hitler's coming to power.

Heavy Metal (Gerald Potterton) (Image 2) is a special animation, in parts excellent, in parts grotesque and bizarre, based on the eponymous French magazine. A green bright ball, the personification of Evil in the Universe, bullies a little girl telling her stories about its victims. The sexuality in this film exceeds the levels of the time, and at the same time, the story is provocatively mystical. The animation was designed as a series of short-films and the cyberpunk elements in the first part are the following: a disorganised society of the future, an introverted taxi driver as lead character and possible hero, faced with an unusual situation.

We have now reached the movie that brings legitimacy to the subgenre: Blade Runner (1982), a cult film for good reason, it made the critics and the public aware that a new cinema species with an enormous, not yet fully exploited potential– in my humble opinion – appeared. It is still unclear for me why this has not yet happened, maybe it has to do with the lack of finances or of inspiration. It is, perhaps, one of the films that came closest to being the most pure example of cyberpunk cinema. Of course cinema remains a topic open to interpretation, but, as far as I am concerned, all the six characteristics discussed so far can be found in extenso in this avant-garde film.

It is, indeed, a film ahead of its time, both due to the clarity with which the story was told or the technique used and to its complexity level. Scott manages to create a world that engraves into the mind of the public, as George Lucas did with Star Wars, or as the Wachowski brothers would accomplish with Matrix.

After this film that can be legitimately called a filmed cyberpunk manifesto, various productions were released, having very different values. In chronological order, we have: Tron (1982) – the first film in which CGI was massively used^11,12, The Terminator (1984), Brazil (1985) – an endeavour containing numerous distinct artistic and social features, Robocop (1987), Cyborg (1989), Hardware (1990), Neon City (1991), Nemesis (1993) –; however, all these films have a rather narrow vision, so I am not going to dwell too much upon them. These are followed by Ghost in the Shell (1995) (Image 3), a coherent Japanese animation, fluent and articulated, and Hackers (1995) (Image 4) – featuring Angelina Jolie in one of her first roles.