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. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die...

the above quote comes at the end of one of my favorite all-time films blade runner dir. by ridley scott, adapted from the novel do androids dream of electric sheep by that mind-fuck of a brilliant novelist philip k. dick, and spoken by rutger hauer as replicant roy batty to harrison ford's deckard whose job is to kill replicants if and when they go rogue and return to earth.

in a movie packed with rich visuals and tremendous scenes [such as batty meeting his maker tyrrell; when tyrrell asks what he can do for batty, hauer grits out in anger and frustration, 'i want more life, fucker!'] batty's bloody acquiesance to the brevity of life, and its beauty, bewitches me. hauer as batty transfigures the pulpy dialogue. this is one of his finest moments onscreen in any movie hauer has worked in.

here we see the whole of human questing and questioning on display in the actions and expression of rutger hauer as roy batty. what is life, what does it mean to live, what happens when i die, are all questions that haunt every human, and perhaps one of the functions of art, why art in any and every form is so necessary is that it furthers this haunting quest. which in the end might indeed be the alpha and omega of beauty.

at any rate, if one needed evidence of commercial cinema as a valid art form, then this penultimate scene is it. i've not mentioned ford's role here for he is a cypher to batty. hauer i don't think ever got his due. and in my opinion [was about to say, humble, but fuck that] hauer is one of the finest actors ever to grace the screen. this scene is proof enough of that.