VIEWS ON THE ANDROID-SCENE

After canonizing its future with an opening crawl, the first shots of “Blade Runner” together give us an idea of the society we encounter in the film. This window into the world of the story consists of two types of shots: aerial wides of a futuristic Los Angeles, and the close-up of an eye upon which this city-scape is reflected. Before revealing its part in a chain of establishing shots leading into the first scene of the narrative, the eye is a disembodied one, floating (almost) among and above the city lights. 

The eye could have been introduced right before revealing the body it represents, but director Ridley Scott and editor Terry Rawlings chose to intercut between these two polar opposites of shot sizes for a few exchanges, a dialogue and reinforcement of association. We can tell from the appearance of the eye - wide open -, and the reflection of the city on it that it is a vigilant one. Would this vigilant eye belong to an android or human, based on what we were told by the introductory text? While the shots soon take us to find it is the later (Detective Holden, looking out on a window, is the next we cut to from city-scapes), Scott describes the eye as Orwellian when presented separate from its body and integrated between vistas of the metropolis. 

The society in the film is not one totally controlled and surveilled with a Big Brother figure, but one where control is difficult with its vastness and seemingly fine lines between androids and humans. The contrast between shots is explored here: the eye may be above the many tiny city lights, bigger than them and even encompassing them, but it cannot see every dark spot, only striking images of fire that give a false sense of power and security. If anything, the eye is lonely when it positions itself before the agglomeration of lucent entities. It is part of the city, part of its system; not (yet) presented with a body, it can be anyone’s. Citizens overall should be aware and watchful.