Just about every scene in Blade Runner deserves in-depth analysis, but unfortunately there’s no time for that in a single post. Instead, I’ll focus on the Las Vegas scene, whose apocalyptic orange mist has become synonymous with the film itself. Roger Deakins, give yourself multiple pats on the back.
As K walks through the desolate environment, a bee sits briefly on his hand. The audience witnesses this hand and bee in close-up before the camera cuts to K’s still expression. K continues walking slowly through the dystopian environment. Villeneuve noted that in this scene he ‘wanted a frontier between reality and dreams to be blurred’ and kept instructing Gosling to ‘walk slower, walk slower’. This heightened reality emphasises the already hypnotic atmosphere of Gosling’s slow, concentrated movements. In another close-up, his hand reaches slowly underneath a beehive, becoming covered with insects that seemingly do not attack him.
The only sounds we hear in this moment are those of the bees buzzing as K remains silent. Villeneuve also remarked how he wanted the insects to be ‘a sound that is like gold, and an overwhelming presence’. The soundscape that takes place mirrors the bright orange, near-gold texture of the dystopian LA, with the noise of the bees directing attention to the sparse, surreal surrounding environment of beehives rather than K himself. K’s state of mind is articulated through sets and sound.Visual effects supervisor Richard R. Hoover noted Villeneuve’s desire for the audience to only see specific parts of the desolate area, with the director requesting higher volumetric rendering at certain points to keep the environment shrouded in mystery. Music and imagery work in tandem to create a hallucinatory landscape of beauty and desolation.
I’ve written about this particular cinematic masterpiece a fair bit in the past. If you fancy checking out any of my earlier articles, then click below: