Classic Scene 2: Blade Runner's opening scene:

Tim Dirks says of Ridley Scott’s 1982 feature, ‘The film is set in the industrial wasteland of Los Angeles in the year 2019, on an Earth that is in physical and psychological decay - without a trace of nature’. The introductory scene from the movie depicts the city as futuristic, and sound, visuals and camerawork have all been used to create dramatic effect.

The first opening minute of the film depicts Los Angeles as dark, bleak, cold and depressing, and displays the kind of images usually seen in Cyberpunk cinema. The city is in total darkness as the city is so filled with pollution that there is no longer any sunlight. This is a city devoid of nature or any kind of animal life other than that which is manufactured.

Andrew Milner says of the film: “the post-catastrophic dystopia that is the Los Angeles of November 2019, a city soaked in acid rain and choking on pollution, where animal life has already become virtually extinct and most healthy humans have already moved ‘off-world’.” This statement backs up the fact that the city is in psychological decay as well as physical, as the city has descended into so much chaos that most have chosen to move to the ‘off-world colonies’.

The opening scene shows the diminishing city through camerawork by slowly zooming in on the city whilst cutting back and forth from an image of an eye reflecting in it the lights of the huge buildings. Josh Conterio says of this: “One is struck by the overwhelming force of symbolism within this film. The reoccurring focus on the eye plays off the saying that this organ is the window to the soul.” The occurrence of this during this first minute sets the viewer up well for the rest of the film as the film constantly delves into the idea of human nature and what makes a person human, and continually questions whether it is the humans or the replicants who displays more signs of empathy and who we should feel sympathy for.

The shot of the eye is also important as it shows in it a reflection of the metropolis. The eye is filled with specks of light and flames, which in one sense could be described as alluring but really exhibits the “dystopian regressions into a used-up world.”

The main images we see during this scene are as follows. It begins with far away, almost indistinguishable shots of small, bright lights shining in the darkness. We then see mass amounts of fire shooting up into the air, a sign of the damage pollution has caused the city. Finally we reach a massive, Egyptian style building, which Milner comments on by saying: “The Los Angelean cityscape is dominated by the Tyrell Corporation building, a gleaming glass pyramid reaching so far above street level as to be lit by natural sunlight….this is a recognisable extrapolation from the great corporate towers that cluster at the centre of most contemporary cities.” It is notable that the largest building we see is the Tyrell building, Tyrell being the creator of the replicants, and can lead us to believe that this building is the reasoning behind the city’s physical and psychological demise.

The Blade Runner score was composed by Vangelis and the sound used in this scene is eerie and dreamlike. It also uses synthesisers combined with classical music which gives the viewer a sense of an old world being replaced with the futuristic. The score manages to sound bleak but also hopeful at times, and the sounds here replicate the visuals of the technological, polluted wasteland.

To summarise, the sounds, visuals and camerawork displayed in the opening shots of Scott Ridley’s film all add to the creation of an industrial wasteland, while also giving us an idea that this film will contain physical and psychological deterioration. Milner, again, sums up that “it is commerce, then, that has finally driven humankind to an impasse.”