Ridley Scott's outstanding cinematic visions can be perceived as few and far between in recent years, with modern releases being not-so-great sequels of once-great franchises that hailed the science-fiction genre as one for all.
Blade Runner--the dystopian cyberpunk vision of the future--is, in my opinion, the very peak of Ridley Scott's career as a director. The film kickstarted the cyberpunk age of the 80s with a plethora of films, books, and comics carrying its unique themes of a future Earth coated in depression and existential dread.
The cinematography in Blade Runner tells us a different story, though: this is a world in which its atmosphere is universally accepted as a positive. The people inhabiting it have collectively found solace in this neon metropolis; solace in its perpetual state of darkness and rain caused by a nuclear war that changed Earth entirely.
Scenes show massive structures reaching deep into the night sky, as if they are escaping the degeneracy and decay that sits below at the ground level; to reach the stars and be as close to the off-world colonies as possible. Although the ground level moves like a collective, as one living organism that is in constant rush from one place to another. It's a fitting touch to a story that questions what it means to be an individual, what it means to be truly alive.
Despite the crowds of people moving as one, but living individual lives of loneliness, Blade Runner likes to remind us of its depressive state of abandonment: our characters appear to live variously different lifestyles, from seeking residence in abandoned buildings to the very top of a pyramid that overlooks Los Angeles, each of them lives alone in this world.
Ridley Scott captured many details of the world that each tell their own little stories. Neon advertisements on the side of blimps; an owl with red eyes indicating it is simply a replicant; even the Japanese writing in the backgrounds that tells us the Japanese are responsible for the sheer technological advancements of the past and present.
Blade Runner's cinematography shows us a world that we are already quite familiar with. It uses its visuals to convey the feelings of comfort, loneliness, and even the bitter sweetness of the peak of humanity from the viewpoint of those ignored and left behind as mankind pushes into space.
