Film noir was conceived by émigré German and Austrian directors, writers and cinematographers in response to national crisis abroad. They introduced the moving camera, angled shots, unique low-key lighting, and shiny wet surfaces. Their Weltanschauung (worldview) was easily pliable to American filmmaking in light of post-war American concerns. 

In 1941, French Critics invented the expression "film noir" to identify The Maltese Falcon and so dawned an unforgettable era in American filmmaking. Noir films are dark both thematically and expressionistically. Although Classic film noir (1940-1959) was a product of German Expressionism in the early 20’s, noir did not achieve fruition until after WWII when American screenwriters began to synthesize post-war anxieties into screenplays that went into production.

The crime element in film noir metaphorically reflects the duality of social consciousness: Our Evil. It is a cynical and disturbing portrayal of repression lurking beneath the post-war American Dream. Alongside detective movies are westerns, gangster and science fiction films that properly inhabit the noir realm, therefore, noir is not a genre, but an aesthetic identification. Extreme definitions have limited the noir canon to less than ten films. Subjectively, the repertoire can (and does) include many others.

Blade Runner contains the qualities of classic film noir: Detachment, alienation, disillusionment, lethargy, ambiguity, corruption, evil genius and claustrophobia. Although it is not a black and white film, the inhumanity is evidenced by readily identifiable symbols of future filth; shadowy, sadistic and repressive lighting. Cigarette smoke, existential awareness and unbalanced interiors emphasized by low-intensity lighting and gloomy appearances cohabitate with the relentless rain and flashing advertisements outside. 

The location is 2019 Los Angeles where towering superstructures jet above a multi-leveled environment of dingy, nihilistic realism. 

The commercial release of Blade Runner borrows the temporal narrative movements that debuted in Double Indemnity. The movements represent 1^st-person, real and remembered time. Rick Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, addresses the impersonal 2^nd person, which evokes the assumption that the audience is being spoken to. The global text of Blade Runner compares Humans and replicants, to God and man. Replicants are a genetically engineered version of Humans, built to serve Humans in defense occupations and as slaves. Replicants are forbidden to reside on Earth. 

Beneath the global conflict is a romantic contradiction between Ford and the femme fatale, played by Sean Young. The femme fatale, a replicant, is aware of Deckard’s occupation. His job is to retire replicants -- ‘retire’ means to kill them. Although film noir etymologically denotes ‘a product of the system,’ Scott juxtaposes Humanity, holistically, within the 2019 diegesis of Blade Runner. 

As we deconstruct the diegesis, it is evident that Humans have created a moral solution to slavery: Genetically engineered Human offspring manufactured by the Tyrell corporation. The concept represents a giant leap beyond fully automated slavery in that Cybernetics is already obsolete: Man created replicant in his image and used his own blueprint for the construction of slaves. Is that what mortality means by theological definition? What motivated God?

Analogously, when a Jew witnessed a German soldier take a crying infant from its mother, bash the infants head against the truck and return the dying child to it’s mother – does the mother have a moral right to ‘stop believing in’ an all powerful God? In the 2019 diegesis, man has created a threat unto himself and inhibited the threat with a 4-year life span. Blade Runners are employed to terminate Earth-bound strays that defy Asmov’s 4th robotic law, "Stay away from Earth." Does a replicant have the right to question the motives of its creator? Scott suggests that the Human saga unfolds in many forms; that with the exception of nomenclature, little changes from paradigm to paradigm.

For Tyrell, economics represents the motive power that justifies existence. He who controls the money, controls the world. There is a subtextual Marxist message that exploits ‘class’ as a social-political-economic issue in that Love is juxtaposed with responsibility and money is juxtaposed with life, as two separate moral issues. As a neo-noir film, Blade Runner was not constrained by the economic conditions that governed the noir era; it was not a B flick with stock actors. Scott had a $15M budget to construct the hard edge cityscape with special FX. In Blade Runner reality: Corporations represent the gangs and cops represent the division between social consciousness and Natural Law. The little people represent nothing. The film is about us.

The Electric Prick

It's raining in Chinatown as Deckard reads his paper. Deckard’s narrative opens with, "They don't advertise for killers in a newspaper, but that was my profession." As he begins a meal of sushi and noodles, a man-in-black interrupts him, "You’re under arrest." 

Is it film noir or 2019 sci-fi? 

Director Ridley Scott was inspired by the Blade Runner script when he drew the connection between Sam Spade and Rick Deckard. Originally, Scott wanted Deckard to wear Bogie’s hat, but the connection to Ford’s Indiana Jones was too ostentatious. The trench coat, tie and gun were used anyway. 

The Electric Bitch

Deckard falls in love with a replicant who he is supposed to retire. He knows that she is a replicant, and true to form, is united with ‘the wrong kind of woman’ via noir prescription. Typically, film noir portrays two kinds of women: The femme fatale and the nurturing woman. Rachael is a fusion of both. She is introduced as a femme fatale stereotype: Stylish, arrogant, tough and a heavy smoker. She doesn’t need a daddy, and holds Deckard in contempt for the Voight-Kampf test. 

Noir creates the image of a strong, unrepressed woman, and then attempts to destroy her by converting her to traditional womanhood. Rachael is unwilling to wear the shackles so easily. In this writer’s aesthetic opinion, Deckard does subdue her, but Rachael never loses her electric soul.

Rachael experiences a metamorphosis when she accepts her status as a replicant. She loses her rough edge and becomes the nurturing woman. Typically, noir requires that the femme fatale resist the hero’s attempt(s) to convert her. She will die or be arrested, but will not abdicate. The Director’s Cut satisfies the criterion of film noir because Rachael dies in the end. 

The Unempowered

The system and society in film noir are ruthless. People are evil and the world is corrupt. The main characters question what is right and wrong. Noir fuses antagonist and protagonist features into the leading character. Deckard is a reluctant hero -- he would rather quit and walk away, but can’t. His Captain coerces him to accept reinstatement as a Blade Runner by mentioning the ‘little people’ in the streets. Do you prefer power or weakness?

Noir does not heroically present the leading character as a superman. In Blade Runner, questions arise as to whether Deckard is an android himself. He did not answer Rachael’s question when she asked him if he had taken the Voight-Kampf test. By some accounts, Dick's novel indicates that Deckard is a replicant. This writer does not believe that Dick or Scott intended Deckard to play a replicant because the diegesis of Blade Runner could imply that Human DNA is a base-4 replication program contained within the epistemology of automation technology…even though it satisfies the definition of natural biological evolution. Kuhn and Brecht could well be right. 

Blade Runner covers the traditional noir roles: Tough workers, hookers, pimps, thieves and bar keeps. The war of the classes ends with the least of all: Replicants. Globally, if injustice is a mute concern with regard to replicants – do replicants have the right to compose their own uniform code? Are implanted memories less authentic than those of the original benefactor? Since replicants are sentient – do they have the right of survival?

Lighting

Jordan Cronenweth was the cinematographer for Blade Runner. He used heavy backlighting to dimensionalize the action. Cigarette smoke and ceiling fans were devices used to evoke a surrealistic ambiance in true noir fashion. In contrast, Kubrick used hospital-like, hard-lighting FX for 2001 which combined with camera tricks and music, virtually reinvented the wheel. Scott fused Kubrick’s technical achievements with noir Goth to construct a believably dark future-reality. Scott also reversed the archetypal meanings of black and white that ostensibly identify good and evil characters in melodrama. The replicants, particularly Roy, are angelified with subtle hues. If Dick did not prescribe this, what is Scott saying?

Bibliography:

Books:

Danny Peary: Cult Movies 3, Fireside 1988 
James Monaco: American Film Now, New York Zoetrope 1979 
Jon Tuska: The Detective in Hollywood 
Peter Von Bagh:Ý Elokuvan historia, Weilin+Göös 1976 
Richard Meyers: TV Detectives, A.S. Barnes & Co., 1981 

Films: 

Blade Runner, 1982, director Ridley Scott 
Blade Runner: The Director's Cut, 1991, director Ridley Scott 

Magazine Articles: 

Portti - Finnish sci-fi magazine February 1993 
Starlog - American sci-fi magazine November 1992 

Internet: 

John Blaser: Film Noir and the Hard-Boiled Detective Hero http://www.obs.net/Noir/hb-all.html
John Blaser: No Place for a Woman: The Family in Film Noir http://www.obs.net/Noir/np05ff.html
Mike Rosenberg: A Tribute to Humphrey Bogart http://sd02.znet.com/bogart/
The Internet Movie Database: http://us.imdb.com