Blade Runner as a Classic Film Noir and a Science Fiction Film

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Blade Runner as a Classic Film Noir and a Science Fiction Film

Blade Runner, a well known 80’s science-fiction film, begins in 2019,

set in the industrial city of L.A., the scene lit only by the many

neon lights and molten guisers. We draw in from a panoramic long shot

to Deckard, ‘ex-cop, ex-killer, ex-blade-runner’, who is at the heart

of this film.

Blade Runner is, definitively, a science fiction film, but the traits

of Film Noir are the bread and butter, bringing it the dark, desperate

atmosphere that is the very beauty of the film. Ridley Scott plants

shrapnels of Film Noir throughout, from the subtle (cigars), to the

downright blatant (the washed-up cop of main man).

The genre itself developed in the post-war era, thriving upon the

depression that had settled upon the world, and the new technology.

The latter meant that scenes could be filmed outside of a studio, and

new effects could be created with lighting. However, though the new

technology was there, the after-math of the war meant that this

equipment was often quite rare, leading to the lower budget films

opting for stark, shadowy sets rather than miss out on the technology.

But this type of setting fitted perfectly into the style of Film Noir

anyway, as the feeling of the genre was reflecting the current mood,

which was far from happy.

The war had left some blind, and everyone else with brand new eyes,

people could no longer see everything at face value, or to put it

bluntly, the value of face had slumped. The world after war was no

place for the frilly and meaningless, and Hollywood, as the capital of

frill, had to come up with something new, and refreshingly...

... middle of paper ...

...th Deckard ‘why am I called back?

Why am I doing this?’

and the replicants can ask, ‘why am I a replicant, why am I like

this?’

The answer of course, the bitter sentiment of Film Noir, ‘for no

reason at all.’ The viewer watches Blade Runner’s characters like fish

in a tank, with pity because they are trapped, and with resignation,

because they’ll never, really, get out.

The fusion of Sci-Fi and Film Noir works perfectly in Blade Runner,

using the past to paint a (dismal) picture of the future. The

combination was one of the first of it’s kind, pulling two genres

together to work in perfect unison. And this combination of Sci-Fi and

Film Noir will continue to work because the future is unseen, and

therefore to us, quite scary, and, as in typical Film Noir fashion,

there’s always ‘something BAD out there…’

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