A Babel Do Futuro: Por Uma Tradução Da Architecture Parlante De Metropolis E Blade Runner

Resumo: Este artigo pretende discutir aspectos cenográficos/arquitetônicos enquanto metáforas visuais de atuação destacada nas respectivas fábulas de Metropolis (1927), de Fritz Lang, e Blade Runner (1982), de Ridley Scott, com inspiração no conceito de architecture parlante. O termo architecture parlante refere-se à idéia de edificações que expressam seu propósito e função por meio de sua própria forma. Metropolis é um filme fundador que criou uma estética própria e influenciou inúmeras realizações posteriores. Blade Runner foi claramente influenciado por Metropolis, tornando-se um cult movie e um dos filmes mais representativos dos anos 1980. Em ambos os filmes, a arquitetura assume um caráter crucial. Tanto em Metropolis quanto em Blade Runner, a cidade abandona o caráter de mero palco da ação, vindo a reclamar o status de um protagonista onipresente, de extrema eloquência em suas múltiplas facetas. Em resumo, podemos equacionar alguns elementos cenográficos ou concernentes à áços, a verticalidade, a metáfora do labirinto, a referência ao mito babélico e a oposição entre arcaísmo e tecnologia. Neste artigo faremos comentários a cada um desses aspectos. Palavras-chave: Metropolis; Blade Runner; Fritz Lang; Ridley Scott; architecture parlante. Abstract: This article aims to discuss film architecture and production design as visual metaphors with prominent narrative roles in both Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), with inspiration on the concept of architecture parlante. The term architecture parlante designates the concept of buildings which express their purpose and function by means of their own form. Metropolis was a founding film that created a pioneering aesthetics and influenced several other productions. Blade Runner, a cult movie and one of the most representative films of the 1980s, was notably influenced by Metropolis. Both in Metropolis and Blade Runner, the city claims the status of an omnipresent protagonist, extremely eloquent in its multiple styles, rather than being a mere backdrop for the narrative. Metropolis and Blade Runner are films that similarly reenact the concept of architecture parlante, by means of forms and styles “sculpted” or “chiseled” on the settings as suplementary narrative tracks or channels. In other words, the forms and styles that “feed” Metropolis's and Blade Runner's set designs can be seen as relevant signs inscribed on the films' diegesis, suplementary “texts” thereby subjected to further “reading” and even “translation”. In short, I would like to equate some elements concerning both Metropolis's and Blade Runner's “imaginary architecture”, such as the spatial hermetism, the verticality, the labyrinth as metaphor, the myth of the Tower of Babel and the conflict between archaism and technology – or the Gothic vs. the Modern, as Tom Gunning puts it n Allegories of Vision: The films of Fritz Lang (2000). Each one of these issues will be addressed by this study. Key-words: Metropolis; Blade Runner; Fritz Lang; Ridley Scott; architecture parlante.32