• Simply put it is an expressionistic masterpiece and perhaps the greatest example of production design and mise-en-scene in film history
  • Has many roots in noir and detective/crime films and fiction—the fire bursting from the city reminds me of Walsh’s White Heat with James Cagney in 1949
  • Every scene is pouring with steam from the streets and cigarette smoke (noir)
  • It’s perpetual rain and perpetual night just like noir
  • Harrison Ford has more screen time but it’s Rutger Hauer’s film
  • Hauer is in roughly 32 minutes and it may be the greatest 32 minute performance of all-time.
  • Ford’s performance isn’t transcendent but it isn’t bad either- he’s doing Bogart here- meeting with seedy club owners and falling for the damsel in distress. He keeps it all internalized with a handed outer sheen
  • Sean Young is very good here—it’s a strong performance
  • Features an absolutely brilliant synthesizer score and main motif by Vangelis
  • Gorgeous advertising production design with the Coke, Atari and Pan Am logos
  • The reflected eye (you can see the city and fire) and reflected window/glass use it’s hard not to think of the helmet shield in 2001
  • The architectural miniatures are truly part 2001 and part Metropolis from Fritz Lang
  • Ford’s driving narrative is largely a slow-burn detective film looking for clues but there’s existential questions, largely in subtext, throughout
  • I think there’s an underlying racist element in the dystopian word. This is just an observation—but the world here is a melding of worlds and language- very Japanese heavy of course but we also hear german “danke” in the elevator, there’s the snake maker (this could be a nod to Casablanca as well), a Spanish language movie house, etc
  • There’s a Christ allegory I hadn’t realized until now. Hauer’s Roy is the “prodigal son” and near the end of the film he puts a spike through his hand as he’s dying. It’s a bit of a stretch to say he spares Ford or that he’s somehow dying for him but the “Father/God” character of Tyrell is very real. Very “Why has thou forsaken me” in some of Hauer’s musings
  • Two perfect endings in one- we have the tears in the rain death of Hauer and then the unicorn escape epilogue with Ford and Young with the open ending and the jump to the faster score- pitch perfect
  • Douglas Trumball—special effects designer has both this and 2001 to his name not to mention a special consultant mention in tree of life…. Yamma
  • Lawrence G Paul is the production designer, he worked in back to the future– which is really well done as wel-l but I don’t see anything else in his history here to suggest that Ridley Scott is NOT the genius behind the production design—Scott is the auteur
  • A wonder of film miniature work and establishing shots
  • Countless still-frame hang-on-wall photography shots including Tyrell in bed doing stocks and has about 50 candles going in his room. Haha
  • Much tighter than Blade Runner 2049. It’s weird- it’s a very tight film but it’s also a slow-burn mood piece
  • The scene where Hauer’s Roy kills Tyrell is so magnificently operatic. It reminded me here of the Joaquin Phoenix killing of Richard Harris in Gladiator (obviously also by Scott)– vengeful son killing father
  • Literally people smoking and/or drinking whiskey in every scene (very noir/detective)
  • Clearly influenced by Bertolucci’s the conformist in lighting and set design
  • The film is as influential as any film in post 1980’s cinema—there’s no I. from Spielberg without this film
  • It’s a very short scene but the scene where Ford interrogates the snake-maker is shot entirely through glass with logos on it and it’s utterly stunning to look at
  • The lighting of the umbrellas is so inspired—ditto with the lining of the interior of the bus
  • The Joanna Cassidy broken glass slow-mo shooting/death sequence is another stunner—fake snow and reflected neon glass
  • Countless beautiful dank dark shots of Ford’s cluttered apartment and there’s always exterior light pouring in from every window—the darkness and busy disheveled mise-en scene reminds me of some of Tarkovsky’s work—JF Sebastian’s large house/set piece reminds me of it as well
  • A Masterpiece and top 10 all-time film