Analysis on the movie Blade Runner

       

        

     The movie Blade Runner had a similar setting and atmosphere that Brazil did. Both movies were dark and gloomy in a futuristic setting. I believe that in Blade Runner the director chose to make the setting dark and gloomy to accentuate the feeling of morbidity that was to come from the overuse and abuse of technology. I found it ironic that with the amount of technology that is portrayed in the movie, there are still actual human beings that suffer from things like aging too fast. No matter how “good” technology became, nothing could compare to the actual life of a human. No matter how  “perfect” the replicas were made (side note: blonde hair, blue eyes were seen in the movie as depicting the perfect man..should this be seen as the directors portrayal of“perfection” that is the arian race?) they could not hold the same emotional capacity as humans as is shown through the use of Harrison Ford’s void-comp-checking process which was created to check for unemotional responses to help identify replicas. 

This movie can be seen as being progressive for it’s time in that it foreshadows how globalization will occur. Throughout the movie we see an exotic mixture of races, ethnicities, and languages being spoken. Because of this over-globalization, or mixture of cultures, our future society will become disassociated from one another and a great social and cultural divide will be inevitable. This is depicted throughout the movie when we see different languages being spoken on the dark and gloomy streets. This can be caused by technology through the subhuman culture it creates as well as the lack of face-to-face encounters with other people in society. 

Like the movie Brazil where we see brightly colored advertising throughout the dark streets, we see the same theme in Blade Runner. Throughout the movie we see advertisements such as a billboard stating: “Enjoy Coca Cola.” The blimps shown in the movie also generate the encouragement of consumerism through their persistent calling of corporate slogans. The presence of the billboard and the blimp, to name a few instances, brings to light an important theme of the movie: consumerism. 

At the end of the movie I found it ironic that the very thing that Blade Runner was trying to destroy, the replicas, saved his life because of their subhuman quality of incredible strength. When the replica comes face to face with Blade Runner at the end of the movie, this can be seen as the prodigal child coming to see God. His ambiguous mention of “Fucker” can alternatively be seen as “Father” but the director made it hard to distinguish for a reason...to show anger and hatred from the replica. As the very end of the movie I am left with the question...was Harrison Ford a replica too?

Analysis on the movie BRAZIL

     

         This movie is extremely complex to a depth that I found hard to understand at times. However, I feel like one of the main reoccurring themes was that was depicted through photography was the duct work and how it was in almost every frame. This showed the significance for of the Central Service that seemingly controls and has a monopoly on the air conditioning system. It’s almost like it is government regulated and the “big brother theme” plays a heavy role when referring to Central Service. This is shown when Sam’s apartment has been broken into and his duct work has been ruined because he had an outside worker (Harry Tuttle) work on the system. Duct work seems to be a large part in everyone’s lives in the movie in one form or another (including a scene towards the end of the movie where Sam is making out with the girl at his mother’s house and duct work is surrounding the room).
         Another reoccurring theme that is shown by photography throughout the movie is the idea of varying socioeconomic backgrounds. As the camera focuses on Sam’s mother, who is of a higher status, it equally focuses on the more urban and dystopic neighborhood where the girl in his dreams lives. This area is dark and dingy and is unsafe as was depicted in the frame where Sam comes back from Mrs. Buttle’s apartment (which was not fixed from when her husband was initially taken by the Information Retrieval Department) and his car is on fire and his tires have been stolen. I also found that this movie seemed to have a few Communist references like when Sam was in Mrs. Buttle’s neighborhood and little kids were holding each other up at gunpoint in font of a soviet-looking, propaganda poster promoting energy in a bright colors. (Although I could be completely over-thinking it!)
        Finally, another theme that is stressed throughout the movie is the theme of torture for information. I found this dark comedy at it's peak when Sam goes to visit his friend Jack at information retrieval and he is full of blood. We were given insight as to why Jack was covered in blood the scene before it where we heard loud screaming coming from his office. As Sam goes to see Jack, the camera discretely shows Jack's daughter in the same room as him (seemingly un-phased), implying that she was there the whole time Jack was torturing the person for information. The idea that torture seemed to be a natural sight for the girl was implied by her care-free attitude when Sam entered.