Finding Sympathy in Misery: Wings of Desire, Blade Runner and sympathy Whether it is acrobats and angels or hybrids and humans, one theme remains the same in Wim Wender’s Wings of Desire and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner: a fractured society. Wings of Desire is a tale of two angels watching over individuals in a bleak and impoverished Germany. Although primarily in black and white, the film flickers to color at certain times by choosing to highlight the hope and optimism of certain humans, especially Marion, an acrobat with dreams of more. On the other hand, Blade Runner follows Rick Dekkard, a blade runner who is given the task of hunting down killer robots who resemble humans (Replicants) in the post apocalyptic future where China and the United States have taken control of the entire world. Although Blade Runner is in color, it might as well be in black and white for how little color is shown in the actual film. One might not automatically associate such dark films to the positive thinking philosopher Adam Smith, yet Smith’s writing in The Theory of Moral Sentiments goes above and beyond accurately describing Wings of Desire and Blade Runner. Smith's theories on sympathy connect the films Blade Runner and Wings of Desire by respectively chronicling the plights of the Replicants and the angels through the humans around them (mainly Dekkard and the humans the angles are sent to protect) as they try to connect themselves to the fragmented remains of the dystopic societies in which they reside in. To begin, Smith argues, “[others] render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it” (11). It is in that statement that Smith defines what he considers sympathy to be: the way in which all humans interact with other humans in a functional society. He later explains, “Pity and compassion are words appropriated to signify our fellow-feeling with the sorrow of others. Sympathy, through its meaning was, perhaps, originally the same, may now, however, without much impropriety, be made use of to denote our fellow-feelings with any passion” (13). Smith agrees with past philosophers like Hobbes and Locke and clearly says that people are selfish creatures. Yet, he furthers said statement by claiming that selfishness is not a negative quality; that it is through the innate selfishness of others that people can experience happiness. Sympathy, in a way, becomes the equalizer amongst humans, for it creates a universal peace, a peace that Smith uses to describe a utopia for all humans to live in. Furthermore, Smith does not describe sympathy as the commonly regarded as emotion, but describes sympathy as a simple theory to understanding other humans. He opens his section on sympathy in The Theory of Moral Sentiment by asserting, “how selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others” (11). Essentially, he is making it very clear that he deems every human has a natural inclination toward each other, that there is a natural relationship between people. This can be seen in Wings of Desire, when Marion visits the dance club. While at the club, Marion is surrounded by people who, like her, think no one can hear their thoughts and anxieties. Unbeknownst to Marion, Damiel is standing overhead and allows the audience a sneak peek into the inner turmoil of the club goers who have insecurities and problems and desires just like Marion. Damiel creates an unknown bond between Marion and the other club goers, which allows viewers to bear witness to just how bleak her world is. As well, in Blade Runner, Rachael is a robot who has been given human memories. Due to this, she believes herself to be human. Her belief in her humanity becomes so driving, that she manages to successfully reach out to Dekkard, the blade runner assigned to terminate her, and convinces him to spare her life. Rachael appeals to Dekkard’s pity and compassion and Dekkard begins to genuinely worry for the safety of Rachael to the point he falls in love with her. Relationships, in both films, are formed through links to people who anchor the audience to just how desolate and untrusting society has become. Blade Runner has a robot turning to her would be assassin for comfort and Wings of Desire has invisible forces rushing around, valiantly attempting to keep the darkness at bay in the humans they are supposed to be protecting. Despite that, Smith’s theory perfectly outlines the societies in Wings of Desire and Blade Runner. As Smith says, “If the very appearance of [feelings] inspire us with some degree of the emotions, it is because they suggest to us the general idea of some good or bad fortune that has befallen the person in whom we observe” (14). Wings of Desire centralizes around Damiel and Cassiel, two angels that have spent centuries comforting depressed and lonely humans. Sadly, after an entire lifetime of being able to see human emotions and never feel them, Damiel begins a journey to shed his angelic heritage and become a human. Moreover, the Replicants in Blade Runner, as the audience comes to learn, are robots that have been built in the image of humans. Yet, despite the fact they resemble humans to the last physical detail, they are incapable of expressing human emotion. It is through the Replicants lack of empathy that an elite team of policemen, known as blade runners, is capable of tracking and hunting them down. The Replicants, much like the angels, are searching for ways in which they can cast off the stigma of their creation and become what they believe themselves to be: human. Damiel’s empathy exudes from his body like a heavenly glow and the Replicant escapees care for their family to such a degree, that they are willing to undergo any and every form of hell to save each other. In addition, Damiel is a perfect example of Smith’s theory of sympathy, for although he cannot directly feel human feelings, he is nonetheless able to experience grief and joy through the eyes of the humans he watches over. Smith states, “we often derive sorrow from the sorrow of others” which can clearly be seen when the young German boy commits suicide (11). The angels are unable to save the young boy who is racked with sorrow and pain. Smith chalks this up to, “general lamentations, which express nothing but the anguish of the sufferer, create rather a curiosity to inquire into his situation, along with some disposition to sympathize with him” (14). Despite the fact he cannot directly feel the boy’s pain, Damiel still grieves for his soul. Smith maintains that, “we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation” (11). It is when the boy commits suicide, that the audience becomes aware of the fact that the angels do possess the groundwork for understanding emotions; it is just that their heavenly stature prevents the stain of human emotions from penetrating their spiritual and physical armor. As well, the Replicants convey heartbreaking sorrow despite the fact they are slated to possess no emotions. Pris, the youngest of the Replicants, befriends J.F Sebastien, a lonely toy maker who is fascinated with the Replicants. Pris seems genuinely fascinated with J.F’s fascination and buys into his toy obsession by dressing up like a giant doll for him. Also, when Pris is slain by Dekkard and her lover Roy finds her body, Roy sheds a tear. Dekkard, for the first time in the movie, begins to display signs of fear. Roy’s anger and wrath has Dekkard running away, hiding, has him desperately searching for a way out of J.F’s twisted playhouse. As Smith says, “[it is] circumstances only, which create pain or sorrow, that call forth our fellow-feeling… an analogous emotion springs up, at the thought of his situation, in the breast of every attentive spectator” (13). In both cases, the spectator is absolutely bewitched and connected to the characters that are struggling to embrace their humanity. In both movies, there is an aspect of the artificial that wishes to embody the natural. Despite the Replicants being physically superior to humans, they spend the duration of the movie seeking out ways in which to attain human emotions. Smith makes it clear that, “of all the calamities to which the condition of mortality exposes mankind, the loss of reason appears, to those who have the least spark of humanity, by far the most dreadful” (15). Tyrell, the creator of the Replicants, goes about ways to imbue his creations with human emotions. In the dreary 2019 Los Angeles, the Voit-Kampf test becomes the only way in which a blade runner can distinguish between a Replicant and a human. As Dekkard states, it usually takes thirty questions that measure empathy to determine is the subject is human or not. Yet, in the case of Rachael, a Replicant that Tyrell instills with memories, it takes almost a hundred for Dekkard to come to his decision. Rachael, becomes more human than human in the eyes of the audience, for she expresses more of a latch to humanity than Dekkard does. Her humanity resonates deep within him, which leads to his eventual love for her. Moreover, in Wings of Desire, when Damiel finally transgresses the heavenly hold on his soul and becomes human, he begins to seek out Marion, the human that matters the most to him, the one he relinquished his wings for. Damiel, for the first time, begins to experience colors and sensations of hot and cold. He is in a sense, a brand new human, able to interact with the people he has been watching for centuries; finally able to experience just what he’s witnessed humans experience his entire life. Along the way, he meets up with Peter Falk, who, as the audience discovers, is an ex-angel himself. It is in that meeting that Peter divulges the joy in which humanity offers, while also giving him some sagely advice on what constitutes living amongst mortals. He undergoes uncertainly and despair when he finally meets up with Marion, only to later experience joy and relief when she embraces him as her lover. Damiel, like the Replicants, has second hand emotions that later funnel into first hand emotions that truly distinguish them as distinctly human. The supernatural truly is an element to be reckoned with in Wings of Desire and Blade Runner. Between the heavenly angels and the human built Replicants, both artificial creatures embody strong ties to humanity as seen through Adam Smith’s theory on sympathy. As each movie draws to a close, the audience begins to question their initial belief that the artificial cannot possess real feelings and sentiments, for as it turns out, they are the most real of all the characters. Smith, Adam. The Treaty of Moral Sentiments. 1776. Ed. Knud Haakonssen. Cambridge: Cambridge UP: 2002, 11-15.