William Burroughs, Blade Runner: A Movie

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First published in 1979, William S. Burroughs’ Blade Runner: A Movie draws both the outline of its plot and its name from the 1974 sci-fi title The Bladerunner by Alan E. Nourse. Burroughs was approached to adapt for film Nourse’s vision of a world in which medicine is pushed underground by the US government and surgical and medical supplies are trafficked by bladerunners, misfit teens, supporting heroic doctors who fight to save the lives of those who fall beyond the government’s scope of care, with scant regard for their own longevity. The film was never made and Burroughs’ treatment of Nourse’s novel was published in 1979 by Blue Wind Press, Berkeley, as a novella.

Whilst Nourse consciously paints …

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Citation: Beales, Brodie. "Blade Runner: A Movie". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 March 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6291, accessed 07 October 2024.]

6291 Blade Runner: A Movie 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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