Light, Sound, and Significant Cinematography in Blade Runner Justin Martin O'Connor College

Set in a dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, Blade Runner follows Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), an ex-policeman brought out of retirement to eliminate a group of renegade replicants who have illegally arrived on Earth. During this anti-hero’s quest, he forms a relationship with a young woman, Rachel (Sean Young), revealed to be an experimental replicant with human memories. Simultaneously, the film follows the four fugitives, led by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), as they search for their creator, the owner of the Tyrell Corporation. The film is an example of the neo-noir genre: A revival of the film noir pictures of the 1940’s and 50’s. Like its predecessors, Blade Runner presents a pessimistic view of reality: featuring a world of crowded cities with darkened streets, murder and doomed love. Also characteristic of noir, Blade Runner uses high-contrast, low key lighting and a strange, haunting soundtrack. In fact, one of Blade Runner’s most competent modes of delivering its thematic message is in its lighting, which places complex emphasis both on the characters and on the troubling society that they inhabit.

Significant lighting can be observed in an early scene of the film, in which Deckard meets Dr. Tyrell and his assistant Rachel....