The Lonely Future

In Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner, the Bradbury building is featured throughout the duration of the film, most famously as J.F. Sebastian’s home with ornate and life-like toys. When looking at the original building, the sunroof in combination with the warm orange colors makes the viewer happy and comfortable; however, how the building is filmed in Blade Runner creates the opposite impact. The building is transformed as rundown, dark, uninviting, and abandoned; it provokes the viewer to feel scared and uncomfortable. 

When looking at how the Bradbury film is depicted in Blade Runner, it resembles closely to M.C Escher’s stairs painting named Relativity. As Decker climbs the stairs to the Bradbury building, it makes the viewer uncomfortable throughout the duration of the scene. He is constantly climbing the staircase in hope to find a solution to the mystery; similarly to the people in the painting. Scott utilizes the building to create a mysterious and uncomfortable place for both the protagonist and the audience. It makes one anticipate about the events about to occur.

As mentioned previously, the building functions as the home for the lonely toy maker J.F. Sebastian; similar to this character, the building is out of place and different from other places in the film. It isn’t elaborately decorated with intricate masonry like Decker’s apartment or illuminated with neon advertisements; it plays its own character and shows the lonely untouched parts of the future. Scott does this to show the different parts of the future that have been impacted. In the future, everything is impacted differently; the Bradbury building conveys the abandoned parts of the future.

Ridley Scott conveys the Bradbury building as an uninviting, dark, and rundown place that provokes the audience to feel uncomfortable and scared. The combination of these attributes convey the lonely and untouched parts impacted by the future.