In 1982, Ridley Scott released his first cut of the movie Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford, typically described as a noir science fiction detective thriller. While some see the film as a depressing comment on modern society and the future of humanity, providing a dark glimpse of the future, others hold it to be a flawed masterpiece of hope, love and discovery. At any rate, it has become one of the most famous films of all time.Now, even though it was first released in the late 20th century, and then again as a Director’s Cut in 1992, and most recently as Blade Runner: The Final Cut on DVD, it has some striking similarities to a painting by Paul Gauguin, which was completed almost a hundred years earlier. If you haven’t already seen Blade Runner, I really recommend you buy it and watch it: this post contains some spoilers (fair warned, be ye, says I).

Are you ready? Then let’s begin.

This is the painting we’re talking about. It’s called “D’ou venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Ou allons-nous?”. Paul Gauguin began painting it in 1897 when he was living in Tahiti. Gauguin said that the painting is meant to symbolise and reflect the progress of life: moving from the right of the painting to the left, we see the stages of youth, middle life and finally old age. This painting so vexed Gauguin that he told friends and colleagues that he would commit suicide upon its completion, on the grounds that he would never again be able to paint anything that could equal or surpass it. It took him more than a year to complete the work.

So what similarities can we see between Blade Runner and this painting? While I’m not saying that Scott was influenced by Gauguin, there are some parallels that can be made. Here are my suggestions.

1. The Name.
Translated from the French, the name of this painting is “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?”. At the end of Blade Runner, Deckard speculates that the replicants just wanted “the same answers the rest of us wanted, where have I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got?”. Both the structure and meaning of the questions are similar, echoing the temporary nature of our own existence.

2. The End
The final scenes of Blade Runner are, in part, a passionate comment on the temporary gift of life. Roy Batty, clutching a white dove, recounts his memories, lamenting how they “will be lost in time, like tears in rain”. Some argue that the dove represents freedom, or even innocence, as Roy approaches the final moments of his life. The painting also features this same symbol. The far left of the painting describes the end of life, alone and in resignation: we see a white haired person, close to a white bird. Gauguin argued that the bird represented the “futility of words” at the conclusion of our existence.

3. There’s only two of us now.
As we approach the end of the film, the number of replicants dwindles to just two. Lamenting the deaths of Zora and Leon, Roy confesses to Pris, “There’s only two of us now”. Pris replies, “Then we’re stupid and we’ll die”. Again, at the far left of the painting, just two characters sit on their own: a female, and the white-haired character mentioned above.

4. The four replicants
In Blade Runner, Deckard hunts down four replicants: Pris, Zora, Roy and Leon. The movie begins with these four replicants alive but unsure of their fate. So too, the painting features four characters on the far right, at the beginning of their lives.

5. Life, death and humanity
While Ridley Scott was making the film, he was dealing with the death of his brother from skin cancer. This then, in part, influenced the dark nature of the film and its scenes. Despite the darkness visible throughout the film, we see bursts of color in the neon lights and reflections. In a way, Ridley Scott challenges us with what we want to see and focus on: the dirty, rainy streets of humanity, or the occasional shards of bright light in the hero. Similarly, Gauguin painted this painting at one of his most emotionally depressed periods. In fact, he’d always maintained that he would kill himself once he had completed this painting. The painting has bursts of color (notably in the central figure and the blue idol) but as we look closer we see that the bulk of the painting is quite dark. Both works of art, both explicitly and indirectly, hence deal with the temporary nature of life and what it is to be human.

6. Come to the Colony!
As a youth, Gauguin had studied under Félix-Antoine-Philibert Dupanloup, the Bishop of Orléans in France. As part of the bishop’s pedagogy, pupils were taught to think in terms of three fundamental questions: “Where does humanity come from?” “Where is it going to?” and “How does humanity proceed?” (echoing the name of the painting itself). Blade Runner also asks these same questions about humanity throughout the film, most obviously when the blimp slowly cruises the sky, telling anyone who will listen about how they can leave the earth for the new offworld colonies.

You can read more about Gauguin’s painting at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. They have a nifty tool where you can zoom right into the painting. Just like being there with binoculars.