Blade Runner Analytical Review

NAME: Samuel Osagie COURSE: Film Noir TUTOR: Chris Hughes ASSIGNMENT TITLE: Film Noir Review- BLADE RUNNER DATE: 19-3-2009

BLADE RUNNER Blade Runner is a Futuristic Film Noir (Cyber Noir) detective movie scripted by Philip K. Dick and directed by Ridley Scott in 1982. The film is a combination of 1940s film noir and futuristic detective thriller of an alienated hero of questionable morality, a femme fatale, airborne police vehicles called "Spinners", dark sets and locations in a dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, and a downbeat voice-over narration. Rick Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, is a retired Blade Runner, a cop who specialises in hunting down replicants. The replicants are artificial humans, indistinguishable from the real thing in every way but two; they have no memories, and they have lifespan of only four years. Five replicants are loose in LA, led by the fearsome combat specialist Roy Batty. Deckard's job is to hunt them down. He stalks his prey through the neon-lit, future-noir city. The film climaxes in a showdown between the Blade Runner and his nemesis Batty.

Blade Runner’s sprawling Metropolis, and dark; shadowy urban is so evocative of a typical film noir setting. Lighting is crucial in film noir as it is in Blade Runner. Many Science Fiction films are shot in an unnaturally hard light yet in Blade Runner there is a vivid feeling of dark alleys and sinister rooms. The 1940s dark cities of film noir are represented in the dystopian world of Los Angeles in 2019, drawing parallels between the dark times suggesting the future could be as bleak as it was during World War Two in the 1940s. In Film Noir, society and the system is ruthless, the people are evil and remain corrupt, and the hero has both protagonist and antagonist values. Deckard is the typical cop hero with his trench coat, tie and a gun, Rachel is the femme fatale, and Roy Batty the main villain heading for a showdown. Blade Runner's elaborate miseen-scène and probing cameras create a tension that is fundamental to a period of inexorably advancing technological change. And the striking camera tracking "through endless levels of scale," moving into as well as across the spaces of the city. The use of high angle shot to capture the dark city with tall buildings, depict an obscure world ruined by the works of men. The dense, puzzling, detailed plot of the film is backed by a mesmerizing, melancholy musical soundtrack from Greek composer Vangelis. There is an odd discrepancy in the film. Bryant at first tells Deckard that six replicants have escaped, and one has already been terminated. That should leave five. But then Bryant shows Deckard profiles of only four replicants. Where is the fifth replicant? Later, when Rachael turns up missing, Deckard has a total of five replicants to kill again, but presumably Rachael is not the fifth replicant Bryant originally refers to. So who is Bryant? Bryant can’t mean Deckard, as Deckard is the hunter. The issue is never resolved, and the discrepancy may be simply an error, but it’s possible that it was inserted to make us think that there’s another replicant somewhere that we should be looking for. The uncertainty hangs over the movie, just like Rachael’s unanswered question to Decker–“You know that test of yours? Did you ever take that test yourself?”