Blade Runner: when soundtrack meets architecture

Blade Runner is an unforgettable episode of the science fiction genre, a fresco of a dystopian future whose themes, after thirty-five years, have been fully absorbed by the general public (thanks also to subsequent strands and blockbusters inspired by Scott's film) and received with admiration manic, enough to redefine it a cult. But let's take a step back.

In 1982 Ridley Scott commissioned the Greek Vangelis (back from the victory at the Oscars for Moments of glory) of the soundtrack of his first high budget film. Vangelis is dedicated to working with body and soul, producing a soundtrack contaminated by various genres, from blues to jazz, from techno quotes to classical music, and experimenting with archetypes of cyberpunk. Electronic keyboard, synthesizers, percussions and various ethnic instruments work in parallel with the visual language, showing the viewer the other side of the same coin, or rather, the two great visual-sonic correspondences of Blade Runner: the chaos of the streets is reflected in the disorder of the apartments, creating a relationship between interior and exterior scenography that the soundtrack reinterprets in a symbolic way.

The Los Angeles of 2019, rainy, claustrophobic, decadent, is an architectural conglomerate of different overlapping styles (clear reference to the Asian megacities) that is permeated with sounds capable of highlighting its futuristic and futuristic character through synthesizers, cyberpunk and jazz sounds. The camera moves sinuously between the neon and the cerulean colors of the predominantly artificial light, exploiting the soft focus effect in order to reinforce the film's noir character, and reflects Deckard's existential anguish. The pulsating society of these extraterrestrial colonies is the result of a melting pot to the nth degree, which transforms Los Angeles into a crossroads of eastern and western cultures and reinterprets its urban geography: urbanization now extends vertically, covering the full screen and the horizon.

It is precisely through the use of synthesizers that Vangelis manages to communicate the icy alienation of this dystopian future and to reinforce the great dilemma that pervades Deckard: what is the sense of human existence in a world inhabited by machines that experience emotions? Traces like Blade Runner Blues and Love Theme try to answer the question and, using the sound of the saxophone and the sensuality (all female) of Rachel (Sean Young), Zhora (Joanna Cassidy) and Pris (Daryl Hannah) give an emotional charge which overcomes the gap between man and machine.

In contrast to the rainy and unhealthy city, interior spaces full of well-known architectural references, such as Ennis House (Frank Lloyd Wright, 1923) for the interiors of Deckard's apartment and Bradbury Building (George Wyman, 1893) for the apartment of JFSebastian (William Sanderson); references that are reinterpreted in a nostalgic key. The sets of the interiors thus become real wunderkammers, in which the characters unconsciously and consciously collect objects with a strong intrinsic value.

And once again, Vangelis brings out the emotion by bringing naturalia and artificialia closer through clip interferences of dialogues and sounds but also by using sounds that evoke neoclassical structures, with Middle Eastern textures, which are combined with the scenography of the interiors with colors warm and déco. The relationship between artificial-replicant and natural-human is also given by the study of the costumes of the replicants: Rachel, for example, uses a typical suit from the 1940s, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, and red lipstick, as if to express an empathy towards human tastes (not surprisingly Rachel is an unconscious replicant of her "nature"), while Zhora and Pris take on a cyberpunk style to reflect their conscious belonging to the field of technology and artifice.

These two macro contrasts are softened by short warm huts such as the ballad "One More Kiss, Dear", inspired by the 1930s ballad, which interrupts the alienating flow of synthesizers and electronic keyboards and accompanies the descriptive sequences of the film. The only exception is the sequence inside the Tyrell Corporation: the building stands out within the urban fabric as a real Mesoamerican pyramid, with bare austere interiors (metaphor for the privilege of power), and it is no coincidence that Vangelis only uses the percussion to emphasize human suspense.

Lastly, Ridley Scott's direction makes the image material, thanks to the continuous rain and the careful use of lights and shadows, connoting the film in a noir sense. The music of Vangelis joins this description of a world far away but at the same time very close to the present: the contrast between nature and artifice, past and future, defines the trademark of Vangelis, master of the association between avant-garde and craftsmanship.

Daniela Addea

This article was written under my tenure with 1977Magazine

Original Article Here