Misen Scène is a word borrowed from the French theatre. It is actually everything on screen including scenery and the props used. The setting, costumes and lighting are also essential in an opening scene. It is essential in all films, as so much of the appearance and audience’s attention goes directly there. Scott has also used Film Noir which implies to the film, set forty years hence and made in the styles of forty years ago.
The film has a Cyber Punk genre, cyber being all the electronic things and gizmos and punk being the disruptive, rebellious street level. This subgenre was very popular in the early 1980’s. It emphasises on the urban decay, anger of global corporations and also Disopia (equal society) from the word Utopia.
In the opening scene of Blade Runner, they show Los Angeles as a place of dirt, a falling city, with industry but also explosions. It was inspired by Port Talbot, and oil refinery in Wales. It is almost like “Hell” and a place where no one would ever want to live. It is nothing like what people would expect of the world in 2019. The colours are definitely not natural; there is always an orange, brown, musky and pollution type colour. Most of the filming is done at night, so it is very dark throughout. The
buildings stand out a lot, they look like tall, like corporate dominations, almost like pillars in the darkness.
In Blade Runner there are two sets of levels, the city level and street level. The city level/high level has many layers. There are monolithic buildings, all quite closely crowded together. There are also very huge advertising products, one of the main advertisements is one of a Japanese women advertising sweet meat. These adverts look like they are from the future as they are all video clips and the graphics are very modern. There are also cigarette adverts and mobile adverts. This almost makes all the people feel alienated from the area. These buildings create an obvious alienating atmosphere and the graphical, modern adverts create a futuristic composition.
The street level/ground level is quite similar but also different to the high level. It is a busy area filled and crowded with people. There is a lot of artificial light from shops, flickering televisions and advertisements. The place looks unclean, reeking, run down, horrible and garbage filled environment. There is constant garbage everywhere and people can always be seen walking around it. Throughout the film, the audience would be able to hear various different languages such as English, Japanese and German. There is a whole place filled with Chinese people, just like China Town, this is because of all the Chinese migrant workers and factories like Chew’s laboratory. It is a rather good example of how the world could be compared to how it is now. In addition to this there is a lot of holy priests walking around (this has not changed much.) This shows how cultural the world has become in Blade Runner terms. I have also noticed the speech of little children, siren and shots which is repeated many times in the film; the director has probably added these things to tell the audience that there have been a lot of technical robots and races created. Old and new technology is mixed as well, including old telegraphic poles and all the new technology from neon shop lights and adverts. Retrofitting is used in the film at street level like the robotic things and additional sounds and places, this clearly shows how new technology has been added to the ancient. The place also has smoke regularly coming out, which shows that it is polluted and can cause a lot of damage to the environment; it is clearly not a stable environment to live in.
Another significant point is the costumes worn by both humans and replicants. Firstly, the humans evoke the past by wearing traditional 1940’s styled clothes, this includes a suit with a tie, hat and long jacket just like what the gaffer wears. Deckard wears roughly the same, with a detective suit consisting of a traditional trench coat and mafia hat. Rachel, who is supposedly human, has an ancient hairdo and long skirt like again from the 1940’s.
The replicants wear totally different clothes; they wear futuristic, avant-garde, artificial fabrics. They mostly have unconditional designs like leather and PVC. Priss represents the future replacing the old, as she can be seen wearing a punk style short skirt and tights. Roy wears a futuristic long coat made of leather. All Zora wears is breast plates, short pants, big bondage boots and is covered with a plastic bag. This is totally unlike the fashion in our present time, although it might be something of the future.
There is plenty of light used during Blade Runner, with a combination of natural light and back lighting. There are no shadows, Scott only uses light available this is obscure and creates a mystery kind of atmosphere and suspense. It is like stories from
the 1940’s and 50’s. The backlighting used comes from the back towards the figure, it is almost another version of shadows. This backlighting also creates ghostly images.
Some of the other light comes from above, like when Deckard is coming up from the elevator. Most of the light comes from the neon lights from advertising, neon lights are very strong and effective in a dark environment, and this is why Scott can just use natural light in his film. Critics may say this is not first-rate as the film is too dark throughout and much more light is needed, the audience may feel that the whole movie is unpleasant and dull if it is in the dim continually.
In the first version, a lot of voiceovers are heard of Deckard speaking but fortunately, this was taken out in the Director’s Cut because the viewer would get tired of the same non-emphatic voice of Deckard, it also slows down the main parts of the film. Voiceovers are non-diagetic sounds, as well as the continuous soundtrack which is performed by the large Greek composer, Van Gelis. The soundtrack is a slow beat, it is the kind of beat that stay in the viewers mind for a long time, there are also bits of Arabic music in the film which together creates a supernatural atmosphere. The diagetic sound comes from rain falling, smoke going off, adverts and the little voices always taking place. The most diagetic sound comes from the overlapping all the cultural languages from the different nationalities, it can be heard most in the whole film.
In the concluding contemplation of the whole use of Misen Scène to create an effective atmosphere in Blade Runner, I would say, observing the use of streets, buildings, costumes, sounds and lighting are successful in creating an overall effective atmosphere in the story of Blade Runner. Ridley Scott has added and removed the correct sets of the film, although the lighting could be slightly improved there is still an effective use of Misen Scène throughout Blade Runner. The atmosphere created is of a mystical kind, making people want to view on into the fantasy world of a Deckard or any other Blade Runner!