Blade Runner (Tutorial Paper)

             Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (© 1981/2), a film belonging to the genres of science and detective fiction, and film noir simultaneously, is set in Los Angeles in 2019, almost forty years ahead of when it was made. It has been noted that Scott's Los Angeles is in fact more akin to something of a "San Angeles" crossed with New York; it also seems quite reminiscent of a twisted reflection of Tokyo or one of the great Japanese cities. One of the first things we notice about it is that it is full of something like toxic smog. The film portrays an unhappy future of "post-industrial capitalism". The city is quite clearly post-apocalyptic, swathed in perpetual night or, during the day, at least gloom. There are a few exceptions to this, such as when the Replicant Roy Batty dies: as the white bird flies into the air we catch a miraculous glimpse of blue sky. Also in the Hollywood version of the film, the film ends with Deckard and Rachael travelling north to escape the toxic city. They venture into the virtually untouched countryside of lush green hills and sparkling streams to the "north". This scene is missing from the Director's Cut.
             There is an ironic element in Scott's almost caricatured portrayal of the "concrete jungle"; even today there is great cynicism associated with and evoked by larger Western cities, particularly in modern America. Los Angeles in particular has been painted as the heart of corruption and yet somehow simultaneously seductive. Scott's Los Angeles is the epitome of that modern cliche.
             Ridley Scott's vision in Blade Runner has been described as centring around a "darkly eloquent nightmare". From the very beginning we are immersed in the "glass-walled canyons" of the city, and what we see is a landscape of technology. We are not supposed to envy the inhabitants of this futuristic nightmare land, whose world has been torn apa...

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Blade Runner (Tutorial Paper). (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 09:02, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/74946.html