Blade Runner Analysis - Opening Scene

Blade Runner Analysis - Opening Scene

The opening scene of Blade Runner begins with an establishing shot, which immediately tells us the setting, genre and indicates what the film will be about. From this shot the audience is introduced to the setting of the movie which appears to be an industrial wasteland, there is no evidence of nature or humans and the skyline is dark and gloomy and dominated by industry. The strange city also has connotations of hell, this is shown from the iconography of fire, smoke and darkness. It looks dystopian and the environment looks polluted and dangerous. From this shot it is easy to tell that the genre of the movie is a futuristic sic-fi. 

During the extreme wide shots the camera is continuously moving forward and we see cars flying to and from two pyramid like buildings. This not only draws us in to the mysterious world, but also tells us the importance of the buildings as there are lights shining out of them. The pyramids are he tallest buildings throughout the shot of the city and so this makes us aware of their power in the film.

We are shown an extreme close up of someone's eye with the reflection of flames and the city in it. This makes the audience start to question who it is and whether they are a dangerous character in the movie. The eye shows us the person taking in the world they are apart of. It hides their identity but from looking into someone's eye, which is know as 'the window to the soul', we can get a sense of a person's emotions.