Blade Runner auteur theory

‘How far does ‘Blade Runner’ reflect the signature auteur features of Ridley Scott?’

 

Blade runner is the 1981 film adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s science fiction novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep. It was directed by Ridley Scott and produced by Micheal Deeley, Hampton Fancher and David Peoples wrote the screenplay. In Blade Runner Ridley Scott acts as the Auteur. Many of Scott’s films centre around a hero’s journey, with the main character focusing on escaping or finding something. For Alien it’s escaping the alien planet and the Xenomorph, for Gladiator its escaping slavery and avenging his family and for Blade Runner it’s tracking down and killing the replicants.  Black Rain is probably the most similar film to Blade Runner that Scott has directed as both are about detectives and heve a similar film noir style. Another similarity in themes of Scott’s films involves the relationship between strong men and their father or father figure. A clear example of this is when Roy Batty kisses and then kills his creator, Tyrell. This sign of affection shortly followed by the murder of a father figure is also present in Scott’s later film Gladiator, when Commodus hugs and then kills his father, Marcus Aurelius. Both scenes show this action with a close up, two shot showing a side on view of the characters. Both shots also show the son figure, Batty and Commodus, as being higher than their father figures by using a high angle shot. This shows them finally having power over their father figures as they confront and kill them. The similarities in themes show Scott as an auteur as his films could be easily recognised by theme.

                Scott’s style is also easily recognisable by his use of mise-en-scene. He focuses intensely on minute details in costume and set design. This meticulous set design is evident in Scott’s film Alien as the intricate Aztec designs on the white walls are very similar to the Aztec designs in Deckard’s home. Scott seems to like to use old style patterns and reinvent them to suit a futuristic, science fiction film. He also uses low key lighting and smoke in the films Alien, Black Rain and Blade runner to create a mundane atmosphere in the dystopian future as well as to create a sense of drama and mystery.  The second scene in Blade Runner is a perfect example of how Scott uses mise-en-scene to link his films together. The huge electric billboards in this scene are extremely similar to the ones in his film Black Rain. In fact the way the whole street is set and how it is shot is very similar in both films with a wide shot of a dark landscape with bright lights, smoke and lots of people shows that Scott’s style of a dystopian future as an auteur. In this scene there are also more subtle links to science fiction films that influenced Scott as an auteur. There is a link to Star Wars with the handles of the umbrellas used in Blade Runner resembling lightsabres. He also uses shocking close ups when showing gory scenes in both Alien, when showing parts of the alien, and in Blade Runner, when showing violence such as When Roy Batty sticks his thumbs in Tyrells eyes. This shows that as an auteur he likes violence and gore to be a focus point of his film. There usually isn’t a lot of it but when there is he uses shot types that force the spectator to focus on the intense scene in front of them.

                The characters that Scott includes in his films often follow certain themes too. Multiple films of his include an overly confident and cocky male lead such as Deckard in Blade Runner and Nick in Black Rain. He also often includes strong female characters such as Racheal in Blade Runner who we see kill Leon when he is beating up Deckard showing that she is stronger as a character than Deckard. We also see strong female characters in Scott’s films Thelma and Louise, Elizabeth Shaw in Prometheus and Ripley in Alien. The abundance of strong female characters in Scott’s films makes them a key element of his style as an auteur.

                Overall, in my opinion it is undisputable that Blade Runner displays many signature auteur features of Ridley Scott to a great extent as he seems to mainly stick to the same kind of storyline and seems to prefer to direct science fiction films. His sets also have many similar features and his shot types such as wide shots are often present. However, some people would dispute the auteur theory entirely such as Park Chan-wook who says that he “Doesn’t really believe in the auteur theory” and Alan Parker who says that “Films are a collaborative art form”. He claims that because many people work on a film, a director cannot add their own vision into every film that they do as ultimately the decision as to how the film looks isn’t solely up to them. This is very true in the case of Blade Runner as when Scott edited the film it was four hours his contract with the producers stated that if the film was over two hours they could cut out whatever they want. This meant that Scott didn’t get to make the decision on the final cut of the film so couldn’t control exactly how it was presented.