Escapes: The Innovative Bio of Hampton Fancher

The movie Escapes is an unusual documentary about a man who lived an unusual life. When I took it out of the library I had no idea what I was in for. I initially assumed it was about a Harry Houdini type of character, an escape artist. In the end, I'm not sure how the title entirely relates to the stories, other than to suggest that each phase of his life had been an escape from whatever preceded it. 

I'd never heard of Hampton Fancher, but it hardly matters. The original manner in which the story is told is what holds your attention. The entire documentary is comprised of Fancher telling the story of his life. What you see on the screen, though, are an abundance of little film and cartoon snippets illustrating the narrative. It's a cinematic montage. Some are brief outtakes from his bit parts in various television shows of the 50s and 60s. Some are from other Hollywood films and bits swept up from cutting room floors maybe. It's both innovative and strange as Fancher's commentary gallops at an almost manic, frantic pace. 

The guy has had quite a life, though. At 15 he runs away from home and goes to Spain to become a Flamenco dancer. How many kids did that when you were growing up?

Eventually by a circuitous route he ends up in Hollywood garnering roles as cowboys, cops, cads and killers, and as an occasional hero. 

His claim to fame was being producer and screenwriter of the film classic Blade Runner, based on Philip K. Dicks's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Most of us recall it as a Ridley Scott film featuring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer and Darryl Hannah. It's a dystopian vision of Los Angeles in the future in which synthetic humans known as replicants are manufactured to do work on space colonies. A group of replicants escape back to earth and Harrison Ford, a burnt out cop, agrees to hunt them down. 

Hollywood loves taking us into the future. Back to the Future II was an imaginary snapshot of the year 2015. Blade Runner had a 2019 setting. Cyborg Arnold Schwarzenegger came from the year 2029 to kill Sarah Connor in The Terminator. I doubt robots will rule the world by then though. And we're still quite far off from seeing the fulfillment of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. But the themes these films toyed with were more important than the accuracy of their timelines.

As for Escapes, the film won't be for everyone, though people who make movies might find it stimulating as a catalyst for developing new ways to tell stories. Whether this was Director Michael Almereyda's concept or Fancher's I do not know. It was a story worth telling. From the outset Fancher's life was outside the norm.

For the average person, 5 stars out of 10. For unconventional creatives, 7 stars.

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Extra Point Questions
Are you trying to escape from something?
What are you escaping from? What are you escaping to?

Related Links

The imdb.com page

Hampton Fancher page on Wikipedia