Blade Runner: German Expressionism In The Film

Was the film simply too cerebral? True, “Blade Runner initially polarized critics: some were displeased with the pacing, while others enjoyed its thematic complexity. (Nevertheless, it was) hailed for its production design, depicting a retrofitted future, (and) it remains a leading example of the neo-noir genre” (Wikipedia). Ridley Scott utilized German Expressionism in the film by transforming some real location shootings into gloomy backdrops of a claustrophobic futuristic city, and gritty techno studio-created urban landscape. In particular, the interior of the ever popular Bradbury Building (featured at the end of Blade Runner) in downtown Los Angeles, was also used in the film D.O.A (1950) and on television’s The Outer Limits episode Demon with a Glass Hand, with its light-filled Victorian count rising 50 feet with open-cage elevators, marble stairs and ornate iron railings, additionally, along with other locations like the Ennis-Brown House and the 2nd Street Tunnel,
Everything, but that may depend on which version you are watching, since Ridley Scott has reedited the film many times, creating alternate versions over the last thirty years (with no added CGI). Nevertheless, the film is crafted brilliantly, captures the essence of film noir in a science fiction setting (with or without the Ford narration), and shows us a future world that could come true. I like the fact that the film touches on many themes, how our own advance technology can turn on us by affecting the environment and society. The overwhelming future implications of corporate power, genetic scanning, genetic programming, genetic discrimination, all-pervading police, artificial animals/androids as commodities, highly commercialized, the political disproportionate of wealth (the rich live at the top, the poor at the bottom), and the film retains a sense of paranoia where the inhabitants want nothing more to do than to live off-world in some clean-air