Blade Runner (1982)

Director: Ridley Scott

Writers: Hampton Francher & David Peoples, based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick.

Actors: Harrison Ford; Rutger Hauer; Sean Young; Edward James Olmos; Daryl Hannah; William Sanderson

Cinematography: Jordan Cronenweth

Music: Vangelis

Running time: 114 mins.

Rated: R

 Los Angeles, November 2019?

         Blade Runner is one of those movies that seems to be on most people’s most favorite list (91% on Rotten Tomatoes). When it was released in1982 it didn’t get a very positive response. The critics were cold to it, and the public couldn’t understand it. Why then is it now a classic? What is the appeal of this movie that has endured and grown over the last thirty-two years? 

          It’s a tech-noir, or future noir, or science-fiction noir--- the sub-genre  has several names. It wasn’t the first--- that honor goes to Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville (1965), but it was the best. It had the great fortune of having Ridley Scott (a “creator of worlds”) as its director and artistic conceiver, and what makes it appealing first of all is the look. There was never anything before that actually looked anything like Blade Runner.

           Most science-fiction movies that dealt with future time presented a world that was totally modern and far advanced from the present. But Blade Runner did something different: it gave us a retro-future --- a future that was both technologically advanced, but also one that harked back to a familiar past. The idea that the future could possibly look like the past was until then completely unknown--- at least in Hollywood.

            The movie also dealt with the theme of what constitutes humanity, memory, and just how artificial is artificial intelligence. The humanity of the characters, both human and replicant, stands out and causes viewers to think a little more deeply than they normally would watching a sci-fi movie.

            The Los Angeles that Scott presents to us is a dark misty mega-city of gas fires, pollution, and acid rain--- a city of the left behinds--- those who could not qualify or afford to settle in the off-world colonies. Like the classic films noir it borrows from, most of the movie takes place at night. This L.A. is a city where the police patrol in air sleds(aerodyne “spinners”) and almost everyone else travels on foot, by bus or on bicycle. In its blighted crowdedness it resembles 1980s Shanghai more than 2010s Los Angeles, but that’s what makes this conception so noteworthy. It’s a possible L.A. as seen from 1982.

              Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), the main character, is a blade runner, a cop who hunts down replicants, advanced androids who possess self-awareness and can pass as totally human. These replicants were developed to serve as labor in the off-world colonies and are banned from earth. When several of them make a murderous escape from the colonies and wind up somewhere in the crowded streets of L.A., Deckard is called on to retire (i.e kill) them. And this he does. We follow Deckard in his pursuits through these streets that lead to a final end for the replicants, and an awakening and self-realization for Deckard. The unexpected awakening comes to him during his investigation when he encounters and falls in love with Rachael (Sean Young), an advanced Nexus-6 replicant, who was created especially for Dr EldonTyrell (Joe Turkell), the head of Tyrell Corporation, the developer and maker of the androids. Rachael, who is unaware that she is a replicant until she hears Deckard and Tyrell talking, saves Deckard’s life when he’s attacked by one of the escapees. After this the two come to question the actual meaning of life, and what makes us human. Is it intelligence or love--- or both? The answer is left to the viewer.

             Although most of Blade Runner was shot on sound stages at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank and in London, Scott used three iconic Los Angeles locations as exterior footage: Union Station, the Second Street tunnel, and especially the Bradbury Building on Broadway, which was used as the scene of the tense rooftop pursuit and finale of the film. The original novel by Phillip K. Dick takes place in San Francisco, but Scott set his version in Los Angeles because of its classic film noir associations. It was a good choice.

             The vision of Los Angeles in the second decade of the 21st century that Scott created may not be what has actually come about, but he was definitely prophetic about the multi-cultural makeup of the present-day city. Los Angeles in1980 was still a mostly white middle-American city, but In the last thirty years it has absorbed immigrants from every corner of the world, making it one of the most ethnically and racially diverse cities in the world. The multi-lingual conversations heard presently on the streets of downtown L.A., Hollywood, Westwood, or Van Nuys on any given day emphasize this change and recall the multi-lingual “Cityspeak” of Gaff (Edward James Olmos), Deckard’s cop associate, and the street people of Rick Deckard’s City of the Angels.