Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner makes its bleak future so persuasive that the thin detective story nearly ceases to matter. We recommend it for the city, Vangelis’s music and Rutger Hauer, with patience for its chilly pace.
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner deserves the time it asks us to spend in its bleak future, though its detective story can be frustratingly thin. We recommend it warmly, with that reservation. Scott makes technological sophistication look perfectly compatible with a miserable existence, and he is persuasive enough to make the slow pace feel mostly justified. The city holds our attention even when we would welcome a little more from the people moving through it.
Lawrence G. Paull’s production design gives this Los Angeles its uneasy mixture of sleek surfaces and grime. Nothing about the sophistication of the place suggests that anyone has become happier. Jordan Cronenweth’s cinematography makes the neon oppressive, keeping the city from becoming a collection of attractive things to look at. We felt lonely watching it; the light promises excitement, but the dirt and bleakness make the prospect of living there dispiriting. That response matters because Scott needs us to feel the unpleasantness beneath the spectacle.
Vangelis’s music gives the film much of its sadness, and makes its coldness easier to bear. It helps the long stretches of atmosphere hold our interest when there is little urgency in the investigation. Marsha Nakashima’s editing gives that music room, allowing the slow pace to become part of the pleasure. Some passages would benefit from a firmer cut, but at 118 minutes this never feels like a film that ought simply to have been made faster.
Harrison Ford’s Deckard is an awkward centre for all this. Ford’s reserve suits the film’s chill, but it also makes an already spare detective story harder to care about. We understand the attraction of withholding easy charm in a thriller about humanity; the difficulty is that Deckard can leave a scene feeling scarcely more interesting than when he entered it. Sean Young’s Rachael benefits more from the same coolness, because her composure makes us want to look for what is troubling her.
Rutger Hauer makes Batty the more absorbing presence. There is an alertness in his performance that makes the film seem more urgent whenever he is present, even when the pace remains deliberate. He makes its questions about humanity feel personal, without requiring us to stop and formulate an answer. That helps Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples’s screenplay considerably, since its interest in what makes someone human is not always matched by its attention to what makes an investigation compelling.
Scott’s future belongs to the untidy end of science fiction, where technology has not resolved the problems of living alongside other people. The grime matters because it makes progress look uneven and gives the polished surfaces something unpleasant to sit against. The city suggests plenty about how people might live there without needing the detective story to explain it all. Even when Fancher and Peoples’s storytelling falters, the surroundings keep supplying reasons to pay attention.
Give it an evening when there is no need to hurry it along. The lighting and the music deserve attention, and a distracted viewing will leave the thinness of the plot unusually exposed. If tonight calls for a brisk case to solve, choose something else.
