Essay --

Blade Runner is exemplified as a dystopia that predicts a future city that sustains corporate capitalism’s worst features, such as urban decay, extreme gaps between wealth and poverty, and authoritative police work. The film depicts an urban city that, due to capitalism, coalesced into a polluted, overpopulated city controlled by monopolies. Roger Ebert describes the city, Los Angeles, in the film as, "The skies are always dark with airborne filth in this Los Angeles of the future. It usually rains. The infrastructure looks a lot like now, except older and more crowded." He believes the film has "one of the most extraordinary worlds ever created..." and gives it the honor of joining his greatest movies collection. This film is a multi-genre film— science fiction and film noir— which creates a very unique stylistic world. The film is characterized in the science fiction genre with flying vehicles— police cars and advertising blimps—, the futuristic city with congested streets, and advanced technology—picturesque billboards, Voight-Kampf machine, picture phones, and voice activated photo analyzers. It also depicts the movie genre of film noir with its low-key lighting consistent throughout Bryant’s office and Deckard’s apartment, the claustrophobic framing with various characters—the overcrowded nightclub—, heavy shadows caused by venetian blinds in Deckard’s apartment, and the rain soaked landscapes during the night. The scene I chose takes place after Deckard has â€Å"retired† two replicants, and has discovered the location Roy Beatty and Pris. The scene follows Deckard as he hunts down Pris, right before the final encounter where he battles Roy. I chose this scene for its attention to detail and captivating visual aesthetic. It ... ...l map of the location in our minds. This suspense continues to build until he meets Pris and she attacks him. The cuts get immediately more frequent and induce a feeling of shock and surprise in the audience. Framing is another way Ridley Scott compares the futuristic to the classical. For example, in the opening shots of this scene, the landscape depicts one of the main themes of the film— a relationship between classical and futuristic. In the establishing shot of this scene, European style apartments cover the foreground and the neon city landscape dominates the background. This separation of the buildings shows the divide between the old and new societies in the film. While the two building are far apart in reality, the camera creates the illusion that they are side by side and places Deckard in the middle, giving him a choice between the familiar and unknown.