Blade Runner

Plot synopsis

From it's beginning, "Blade Runner" signals to the viewer that this film is going to be very different to what has gone before. We are presented with a cityscape which we are then informed is Los Angeles, 2019. This Los Angeles bears no resemblance to the many images of LA throughout the history of film. This LA is not the LA of the Hollywood sign in the hills, this is not the LA of Venice and Malibu beaches. This LA is hell on earth. Scrolling text us informs that a group of replicants have escaped from an 'off-world colony'. Special police units - Blade Runners - are the ones to track down these replicants and 'retire' them. So, this future world has retained the hatreds of the past.

The first dialogue scene is of Leon's (one of the replicants that has escaped to earth) Voight-Kampff test. This is the test administered to discern whether someone is human or a replicant. Holden, the detective, asks Leon about his mother. Leon replies with two shots that kill Holden, and the chase is on.

After the death of Holden, the film then switches focus to Deckard, a former Blade Runner and ex-cop, turned private eye (thus establishing Deckard as a quintessential noir anti-hero).
This being a noir, there isn't really any such thing as an ex-cop, and Deckard is pressed back into service by his former boss, Captain Bryant, showing Deckard that he cannot escape his previous life, as is the case for Fergus in The Crying Game and Keaton in The Usual Suspects.

At the outset of his investigation he goes to the Tyrell Corporation, to interview Eldon Tyrell, as he is the brains behind these replicants, their god / father-figure. Whilst there, Deckard is introduced to Tyrell's 'daughter', Rachael. Seemingly on a whim, Tyrell asks Deckard to carry out a Voight-Kampff Test to ascertain whether or not Rachael is a human or a replicant.

Seemingly a futile exercise, but Deckard complies with Tyrell's request. The test reveals Rachael to be a replicant although she is unaware, as she has been implanted with false memories to give her a history which is a lie. Despite this knowledge, Deckard is unable to suppress his feelings of attraction for Rachael, and she takes the stock noir female role of the femme fatale siren, calling Deckard to his doom. Thus, the film demonstrates how fine the line is between human and replicant, one of the key themes in the novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, on which this film is based.


Roy (Rutger Hauer)
From here, Deckard works his way through the seedy underbelly of LA to 'retire' each of the replicants in turn, beginning with the slaying of Zhora, and culminating in the agonising death of Roy, the replicant group's leader. The main thrust of the narrative is concerned with taking Deckard through his grim task of retiring the replicants.
Running counter to received notions of professionalism and efficiency in our security forces, Deckard is a model of low cunning and inefficiency in the despatch of his mission. Deckard is out-thought and out fought at virtually every step along the way, taking a comprehensive beating at the hands of Zhora. He only manages to exert his supremacy with the use of his phallic gun, shooting Zhora in the back in cowardly fashion.

Along the way, the viewer is treated to some of the finest visual spectacles conceived in cinema. The strength of this film is proven by it's ever growing reputation twenty years after it's original cinematic release in 1982. As future noir go, this is still the benchmark for others to beat, as has been the case with the recent release of Minority Report and all the press links between these two films.

Deckard hanging on in there

Why is this film a neo-noir?


Blade Runner brings together the trappings of old school film noir with the sheen and mise-en-scene of sci-fi to great effect. The film is populated by noir characters - such as the Chandler-esque detective, Deckard, who exudes the sort of world weariness common to noirs, and as seen in an earlier neo-noir, Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye".
Deckard is a supposedly retired "Blade Runner", yanked back in for 'one last job' by the seedy, corrupt cop Bryant. These characters, along with Rachael, the resident femme fatale, are staples of the noir and tell the viewer much about what kind of people these are, and what kind of story to expect - not a happy one.

As with many other noirs, the location is a significant character in it's own right. The permanent night-time LA - this realisation of hell-on-earth - forever belching fire and fumes into the polluted atmosphere forms an acute critique of the results of industrialisation and free-market economics. If you doubt that this is what the future holds in store for megalopilises such as LA, then think for a minute about how many times the smog in cities such LA, London, and the pollution capital of the US - Houston, Texas makes the news.

The narrative structure of the film reveals the noir imprint also. The film is composed of a series of episodes of Deckard trying to track down and 'retire' the escaped replicants. Each of these episodes is characterised by Deckard's ineptitude, he only wins through the use of extreme force - such as shooting Zhora in the back as she flees.
However, it is not Deckard's intelligence and courage that sees him through, just sheer chance. Additionally, in the original cinematic version, Deckard gives a traditional noir hard-boiled voice-over to link the episodes of the film together.

One of the greatest neo-noirs, one of the finest sci-fi films ever made, one of the very best films of the 1980s. A pioneer in it's field, and still the one to beat. Will Minority Report be held in such reverence in twenty years time? That's the test.

Key Credits

Behind the camera:
Director
Ridley Scott
Producer
Michael Deeley
Screenplay
Hampton Fancher and David Peoples
Director of Photography
Jordan Cronenweth
Editor
Terry Rawlings
Production Design
Lawrence G Paull
Music
Vangelis
Visual Futurist
Syd Mead
In front of the camera:
Deckard
Harrison Ford
Batty
Rutger Hauer
Rachael
Sean Young
Gaff
Edward James Olmos