Nothing else looks like BLADE RUNNER. Even now, nearly 40 years removed from its release, it still retains a unique, distinctive, one-of-a-kind look that somehow still seems as futuristic today as it did in 1982. That’s a nifty trick to pull off in sci-fi, a genre in which most sets are long outdated before the time they’re supposed to exist in arrives. Just look at BACK TO THE FUTURE 2’s idea of 2015: hover boards, self-lacing Reeboks, three-dimensional theater marquees, JAWS 19; we got none of that stuff. But overcrowded metropolitan areas drenched in neon and populated by an amalgam of races and cultures in attention-grabbing clothes and personal styling? Oh man do we got all of that. In fact, I’d be willing to be until THE HUNGER GAMES comes true – around 2045, I’m thinking – BLADE RUNNER might be one of the most correctly-precognizant films, at least in terms of its look, ever made.
But it’s not just the visual strengths of BLADE RUNNER that makes it so, well, “real” for lack of a better word. Because nothing else sounds like BLADE RUNNER either. It’s sci-fi with a noir ambiance, down to the click of heels on rain slicked streets and shots ringing out in the night. Sure, there are beeps and boops and other such computational tunes, but BLADE RUNNER’s strength – visually, aurally, narratively – has always been its connection, indeed reflection, of the world we actually live in. This is sci-fi at home, this is a vision of the world we’re making, and as such every detail needs to be an extrapolation of one we already know, every visual, every sound, has to strike a familiar chord somewhere in us.
For her latest video, Candice Drouet has stitched together the sounds of BLADE RUNNER into a quick supercut that highlights the film’s unique natural score and the many myriad sonic elements that lend a hand at crafting this most real of future worlds.
The Sound Of Blade Runner / Candice drouet from Really Dim on Vimeo.
Related Topics: One Perfect Shot, Science Fiction, Video
