Hi, I’m Michael.
And this episode of Lessons from the Screenplay has been brought to you by Skillshare.
Everyone is familiar with the cliche elements of film noir.
A hardboiled detective sits in his office,
the shadow of venetian blinds falling across his face,
a femme fatale sitting on his desk.
Cliches I had fun playing with in a short film I made many years ago.
I had fun playing with these cliches because I love film noir, and I love sci-fi.
So it stands to reason that I love Blade Runner.
Blade Runner was the first film to truly take the thematic elements of classic film noir
and integrate them into the science fiction genre.
So today, I want to look past the common film noir cliches...
To examine how Blade Runner took these familiar tropes of the past
and used them to create its dystopian future...
And analyze how combining science fiction and film noir
helped express the complex morality at the heart of the film.
Let’s take a look at Blade Runner.
The first book ever written about about film noir was published in 1955.
It describes a few prominent characteristics of film noir that show up again and again.
I want to talk about three of them, beginning with the presence of crime.
The authors wrote:
“It is the presence of crime which gives
film noir its most constant characteristic.”
The inclusion of crime was not in and of itself revolutionary,
there has always been crime in Hollywood films.
The difference was how these films treated the morality of crime.
“Now the moviegoer is being presented a less severe version of the underworld,
with likable killers and corrupt cops.
Good and evil go hand in hand to the point of being indistinguishable.”
Let’s look at the first part of this duality,
the “likable killers.”
In classic film noir, the criminals were often portrayed as sympathetic,
ordinary people put in extraordinary situations.
Blade Runner takes these criminal characters and gives them a sci-fi spin.
“There was an escape from the off-world colonies two weeks ago."
“Six replicants, three male, three female.”
“They slaughter twenty-three people and jumped the shuttle.”
The antagonists are the bio-engineered Nexus 6 replicants.
In the world of Blade Runner, replicants are used in off-world colonies for various tasks:
ammunition loaders, hit squads, and “pleasure” purposes…
and it’s clear that they live tortured lives.
“Quite an experience to live in fear isn’t it.”
“That’s what it is to be a slave.”
Despite not being human, they’re in a situation one can empathize with.
The same way classic film noir explored morality through likable killers,
Blade Runner does so through androids who kill in pursuit of freedom.
Returning to the book quote,
the other side of this duality comes from the “corrupt cops.”
The inability to trust the police was often a key component
in creating the anxious, pessimistic tone of classic noir.
The same is true in Blade Runner,
where the police refer to androids in a derogatory manner...
BRYANT: “I’ve got four skin-jobs walking the streets.”
...and are high on their absolute power.
“Stop right where you are.”
“You know the score, pal?
When you’re not a cop you’re little people.”
The “likable killers” and “corrupt cops”
help create a world where the line between right and wrong is blurred.
And at the center of their conflict is the mortal struggle inherent in all film noir.
“Few cycles in the entire history of film have put together in seven or eight years
such a mix of foul play and murder.
Sordidly or bizarrely, death always comes at the end of a tortured journey.
In every sense of the word a noir film is a film of death.”
The classic film noirs often tell stories about people who are trapped,
creating a mood of inevitable doom.
“Suddenly it came over me that everything would go wrong.”
“It sounds crazy Keyes, but it’s true, so help me.”
“I couldn’t hear my own footsteps.”
“It was the walk of a dead man.”
This pessimistic perspective is well-suited for the dystopian world of Blade Runner.
Almost every character in the film is trapped in one way or another.
Most of humanity has abandoned Earth,
and it is suggested that many of those who remain may want to leave
but aren’t allowed to do so.
“Is that why you’re still on Earth?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t pass the medical.”
As someone who quit the police force,
Deckard has no interest in chasing down the replicants, but is forced into it.
“No choice, huh?”
“No choice, pal.”
And the replicants he is chasing have a very literal doom they’re trying to escape.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“Death.”
As a security measure, each Nexus 6 replicant is given a four-year life span.
“I want more life, father.”
Now, they’re running out of time
and have returned to Earth to try to extend their lives.
The entire thematic foundation of Blade Runner is built around life and death—
not constrained to simple mortality like in classic noirs,
but expanded to examine the nature of life itself.
And just like in classic film noirs,
the ideal character to navigate this web of moral complexity is the private detective.
The private detective character was prominent in film noir
because of the function he or she could serve in the story.
“The private detective is midway between lawful society and the underworld,
walking on the brink, sometimes unscrupulous but putting only himself at risk,
fulfilling the requirements of his own code and of the genre as well.”
A private detective can have legal authority,
but is also outside the law enough to navigate the dark world of the criminals.
Deckard’s role as a Blade Runner serves this precise function in the film.
Blade Runners are a kind of cop that specializes
in finding and killing replicants hiding amongst the human population.
While technically a member of law enforcement,
Deckard appears to have no love for the police,
as he has to be taken into custody in order for the captain to see him.
“You wouldn’t have come if I just asked you to.”
At the same time, he shows empathy toward the criminals,
like when he falls for Rachel, a replicant, instead of turning her in.
RACHEL: “What if I go north? Disappear."
“Would you come after me?”
“No.”
As a Blade Runner,
Deckard’s character is able to explore the ambiguous moral landscape of the story,
just like the private detectives of classic noir.
In fact, the director, Ridley Scott,
compared Deckard to perhaps the most famous of film noir private detectives,
saying of the character:
“It’s very Marlowe-esque and very dark.”
This is of course a reference to Philip Marlowe.
"Who are you, soldier?"
“Marlowe's my name, I’m a private detective.”
Some of Deckard’s tactics even seem inspired by Marlowe’s.
In The Big Sleep, Marlowe pretends to be a rare book snob
in order to tease out information on a lead.
“How about a Chevalier Audubon, 1840, the full set of course?”
“Not at the moment.”
“You do sell books, hmm?”
In Blade Runner, Deckard pretends to be a nerdy union rep
to get access to one of the replicants he’s hunting.
“Excuse me, Miss Salome, can I talk to you for a minute?”
“I’m from the American Federation of Variety Artists.”
“I’m not here to make you join. No, Ma’am!"
This is the kind of deceit a police officer would not be allowed to utilize.
In their book, Borde and Chaumeton go on to describe the private detective as…
“…an inglorious victim who may suffer, before the happy ending, appalling abuse.
As such, he is far from the ‘superman’ of adventure films.”
Deckard indeed suffers a lot of abuse,
losing as many fights as he wins, and often surviving due to luck.
(gunshot)
The abuse he suffers as the protagonist demonstrates that this world is not fair.
Whether you’re a replicant fighting for freedom,
or a human trying to do what you’re told is right,
ultimately you’re trapped.
And because Deckard exists somewhere between the law and the criminals,
he embodies the complex morality of the story.
Able to both kill the replicants,
and also show remorse and ultimately love for them.
The film noir detective is the perfect archetype to be dragged through the dystopian world
of Blade Runner.
On the surface, Blade Runner is not a perfect film,
and I didn’t like it the first time I saw it.
But once I understood the deeper premise of the story,
I appreciated how the style and mood enhanced it.
The cynical, pessimistic point of view found in classic film noirs
brought into a dystopian future.
The alienated private detective transplanted into a world
where he struggles with this new morality.
Where the law tells him to kill, but his heart pulls him toward empathy.
And the sense of doom—an inescapable march toward death—
setting the stage for a story about life.
It’s a unique remix of science fiction and film noir that created the detailed, complex
world of Blade Runner.
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