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Eclipsing the Visual: Sonic Immersion, Suggestion, and Blurring in Blade Runner 

Peter Snyder 

 

Landscape shot of the smoggy Los Angeles skyline. 

 

“The brilliance of Blade Runner, like Alien before it, is located in its visual density.” This assertion, made by Scott Bukatman in a 1997 issue of BFI Modern Classics, indicates the traditional critical attitude toward the formal aspects of science fiction films. General conversation of film focuses on visual elements such as cinematography and mise-en-scène, while sonic components are absent from discussion. However, sound is a primary instrument in creating the world of Blade Runner (Scott, 1982), without which the film’s visual density would not be as immersive. This sonic dimension is even more prevalent in the animated film Akira (Otomo, 1988), where sound erases the barrier between the viewer and the animated setting, creating immersion in a setting so unlike our physical world. Especially in films centered around future technologies, sound evokes a viewer’s imagination through subtle suggestion, while visuals are limited by the creativity of a set designer and the four frames of the screen. Blade Runner’s haunting score by Vangelis, ambient blurring, and unknown sounds of future technologies spatialize the sooty Los Angeles of 2019 beyond any visual component. The sounds that populate the dystopian city evoke a setting-specific, pervading, ambiguous mood that the film’s visual elements alone cannot produce. 

The plot of Blade Runner centers around the conflict between humans and bioengineered humanoids called replicants, used for slave labor. After a violent uprising, replicants are banned from Earth; however, a group of replicants led by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) returns to LA to extend their pre-determined lifespans. A retired ‘Blade Runner’ named Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is tasked with hunting down and ‘retiring’ the dangerous group of replicants. We follow Deckard as he tracks the replicants through a perpetually dark and damp LA, terminating his targets in seedy bars, abandoned apartments, and rainy streets. However, when Deckard meets Rachael (Sean Young) — a replicant who believes she is human — during his investigation, he begins to question the morality of his mission and his own humanity. The film ends with a cat-and-mouse confrontation between Deckard and Batty, in which Batty ends up hunting Deckard through a dreamlike, deserted building. The chase climaxes with Batty saving Deckard’s life in a display of humane compassion, emphasizing the blurred line between synthetic and organic life.

While the film’s themes center around the opaque line separating humans and replicants, its formal focus is on the decadent setting and mood of future LA. The opening shot of Blade Runner immediately makes this clear: a title card reading, “Los Angeles, 2019,” paired with thrumming drumbeats, instills a sense of foreboding, even before anything is visually perceivable. The title card continues to a landscape shot of LA, hazily illuminated by lights and fiery gas explosions, highlighting the setting as the focus of the film rather than beginning with an opening scene that is plot or character centered. The opening shot also makes clear that this is the future — but more specifically, it suggests what kind of future. 2019 LA is a far cry from the gleaming marble columns and uniform clothing one may see in Things to Come (Menzies, 1936); this is a dark, grimy future built on the exploitation of natural resources and slave labor. 

We almost feel the heat emitted from the fiery explosions as the rumblings reverberate around us, making the dark city feel spatialized and all-encompassing. The synth score by Vangelis seamlessly blends with the low, wavering sounds of the explosions, inducing a sense of wonder in response to the visual spectacle while subtle malevolent tones underscore the depressive nature of the dystopia. As Trace Reddell puts it, the score is “often as grimy as it is celestial,” which captures the juxtaposed feelings that the opening sounds evoke — sooty explosions and droning synth notes blend with whooshes of flying cars and ethereal tones, making for the mixed moods of wonder and dystopian decay (386). 

In addition to introducing the setting as the central focus of the film, the opening shot also instills the viewer with the striking mood of ambiguous but ever-present decay that remains throughout the movie. The definition of mood in Blade Runner is: “how a fictional world is expressed or disclosed via a shared affective attunement orienting the spectator within that world” (Sinnerbrink 148). The forceful sounds of the gas eruptions convince the spectator of the spatial reality of the film, and therefore attune the viewer to the dirty, shadowy feel of the city. Sound is instrumental in dissolving the barrier of the screen that divides the viewer from the film’s world; the dystopian city, and its striking feel, seeps into the viewer’s headspace. One immediately realizes that this world is set to expire — this future is no different from our reality, still reliant on unsustainable resources that poison the world. This foreboding sense of decay is further realized throughout the film as echoing loudspeakers and neon signs constantly advertise moving to off-world colonies; it becomes clear humans have given up on Earth. 

This focus on the setting and its permeating mood remains constant throughout the film — almost to the point of separation between plot and form. As Batty and Leon (Brion James), another replicant, visit a genetic designer to inquire about their expiration dates, the camera movement indicates a dissociation of formal elements from the plot. The two replicants walk down a street until they are obscured by a pillar, appearing to have a conversation we cannot hear. However, the camera slides in the opposite direction, leaving them out of the frame entirely, and instead focuses on a stream of hooded figures riding bicycles through a misty street, accompanied by an aeolian strumming. The melody, maybe diegetic, maybe not, adds sonic ambiguity to the visual — we are left to look at bizarre graffiti illuminated by a street fire, written in a language unlike any in our world. Only after multiple seconds of this shot does the film cut back to the replicants’ mission, but these few ethereal moments focused on the city carry substantial weight. The choice to frame the almost otherworldly setting, autonomous from the plot, sustains the film’s primary focus on its ambiguous, apprehensive setting. 

This future world is given credibility and a sense of reality through the sonic immersion the audience experiences. As Trace Reddell states in “Sound of Things to Come,” “the spaces of Blade Runner are never silent, and the background seems to recede forever” (398). These seemingly infinite spaces gain their tangible feel through the constant sounds that populate them; whether it is muffled conversations, far-off vehicles, or unknown acousmatic sounds, the soundscape convinces us of the realness of this city. However, in addition to creating this urban setting, the sounds also convince us of the temporal landscape — we are set in a dystopian future, filled with flying vehicles, unknown energies, and all manner of novel technologies. While many of these future instruments are visually shown to us, the majority arise from our imagination. In his chapter “Sound and Perception in Blade Runner,” Audrey Scotto highlights the “importance of sonic events in making spectators imagine things much worse than what could ever appear visually” (154). In a similar vein, sound is more effective in convincing the audience of a future reality than any visual element. While depicting the future with flying cars, miniatures, and computer-generated images is convincing, ultimately the use of visual effects in sci-fi is limited by the production budget of the film and the creativity of the set designer. A few miniature cars and light-up umbrellas may be feasible to craft, but to create an entire future through visuals would be impossible. The ability of sound to immerse an audience in the future is not limited by these constraints, as it functions more suggestively. That is, sound works by evoking the imagination of the viewer — a computerized whir in the background of a scene can conjure up any number of future devices, subject to the creativity of the viewer, not the budget or imagination of a set designer. The unique, evocative quality of sound in Blade Runner makes the futuristic, immersive experience more mysterious and personalized to each viewer, as it is their own imagination that furnishes the off-screen world. 

The immersive quality of sound is even more prevalent in an animated film such as Akira, which, similar to Blade Runner, is set in a dystopian Neo-Tokyo filled with future technologies. Akira centers around Kaneda (Mitsuo Iwata), the leader of a local biker gang, and his childhood best friend, Tetsuo (Nozumo Sasaki), who develops destructive psychic abilities after a government experiment. The government in this dystopian society is full of corruption, experimenting on and exploiting ESP (extrasensory perception) children for energy. As Tetsuo’s powers evolve, threatening to destroy the city, Kaneda confronts him while uncovering the secrets of the titular character Akira, a mysterious child with godlike powers. Set 31 years after a nuclear bomb destroys Tokyo, the film revolves around the dangers of destructive powers beyond human control or comprehension. The animated medium allows for greater creativity in illustrating the scale of immense energy when compared to a live-action form, but sound is even more important in convincing us of the tactile actuality of the force we witness. 

In any film, there exists a natural barrier between the audience and the world of the film — the screen. The uncontainable nature of sound, its ability to exist outside the visual frame, is the primary tool by which filmmakers dissolve this visual barrier. The immersion afforded by sound is even more pronounced in an anime, where there is a subconscious hurdle to immersion: the animated world’s striking dimensional difference from the world around us. In a live-action film such as Blade Runner, it is easier to associate it with reality because of its lifelike features — the people, cars, and buildings, while all aesthetically fitted in a future sense, are made from our same world. The same cannot be said for Akira, where the animated medium is so unlike our everyday world. Multiple sonic techniques overcome this obstacle — the score brings the city to life, giving it a primal, rhythmic feel, and accurate lip-syncing erases the disconnect between the soundtrack and the animation (Le Blanc and Odell 10). These sonic elements make the animated reality believable; we can be convinced that words come out of a character’s mouth as they might in a live-action film. 

Similar to the way sound in Blade Runner conveys future technologies, the complete lack of sound can emphasize the force of future energies. Near the conclusion of the film, the powers of Akira are awakened, destroying the uncontrollable monster Tetsuo has become, along with huge swaths of Tokyo. The sheer force of the unleashed energy is illustrated by blindingly white scenes, entire skyscrapers defying laws of physics, and, most notably, complete silence. One might expect this visual spectacle to be accompanied by deafening sounds, assaulting the senses of the audience on every available spectrum, but we are left in the utter absence of any sound. As Philip Brophy notes, “the most devastating destruction from energy so intense it appropriately appears to be beyond the recording range of the soundtrack” (19). In Akira, the lack of sound is even more effective in convincing us of the gravitational force of what we are witnessing — it is beyond our capacity to fully grasp with all our senses. When sound — so central to our everyday being — is stripped away, we are jolted into a disoriented, uncanny state, making us more vulnerable and therefore affected by the film’s sensorial and thematic content far past the conclusion of the film. 

 

Immense destruction after Akira’s powers are unleashed. 

 

The affecting uncertainty that sticks with the viewer after viewing Blade Runner is a result of multiple levels of blurring. Blade Runner is itself a genre hybrid — a deeply philosophical cyberpunk noir film — that blurs diegetic and non-diegetic sound, organic and synthetic life, and reality with imagination. On a narrative level, sound blurs the boundaries between organic and synthetic life. In one scene, as Deckard shoots a female replicant (Daryl Hannah), she writhes on the floor while emitting piercing metallic shrieks that echo in the abandoned apartment, taking on an augmented, visceral effect. This intense, primarily sonic scene pairs with the setting full of engineered, human-like toys to remind the viewer that replicants are, at heart, synthetic beings. However, at the end of the film, Batty delivers one of the most humanly inflected monologues ever seen in film, before exhibiting humane compassion as he saves Deckard. Sound, sometimes eliciting a synthetic view of replicants, at other times a humane one, continually blurs our perception toward the humanity of replicants. 

Even outside of the narrative action, environmental sound in Blade Runner blurs our spatial awareness of future LA. Virtually every street scene is populated with a variety of sounds that are obscured in some manner: indistinct conversations in unknown languages and echoing loudspeakers mix with the haunting score to keep us on edge, not knowing what is real and what is not. Often ambient drones and screeches exist in a space in between diegetic and non-diegetic sound, which illustrates the ambiguous, secretive nature of the city. However, it was only after Ridley Scott decided to remove the voiceover narration in the final cut of the film that the score and ambience could come to the fore of the soundscape; the coalescence of the increasingly prominent sonic elements and the heightened ambiguity surrounding the plot, created by the absence of the explanatory narration, infuses dystopian LA with its affecting uncertainty and apprehension. 

Sonic elements blur boundaries on every level of Blade Runner, reinforcing the diffusive mood of ambiguity as well as the philosophical question that lies at the heart of the film — what does it mean to be human? These two elements of Blade Runner dovetail, creating a constant sense of spatial and moral uncertainty in our minds as we try to make our own judgments on the nature of humanity. Sound acts as a crossroads between all these categories thanks to its multifaceted quality in film, making distinctions between these categories ambiguous. Sometimes diegetic noise, sometimes score, sometimes unknown; thematic uncertainty is primarily conveyed through the nebulous sounds of 2019 Los Angeles. 

It is impossible to discuss science fiction and its forays into unknown worlds of the future without accrediting the reality of these worlds to sound. Although striking visuals like neon lasers and gravity-defying machines often dominate conversations due to their technological novelty, those alone do not give a world the moods of the future that are so integral to any dystopian film. Sound, in any film, is the instrument that breaks the barrier of the screen, invading the viewer’s headspace and fusing it with the world of the film, especially in the animated medium, where immersion is made more difficult by visual contrasts. This immersive quality is integral to Blade Runner, in which score, ambience, and their ambiguous blending drive the pervasive, spatialized feelings of uncertainty that blur the lines between reality and imagination. We are ultimately left questioning our footing in the dystopian world and its central philosophical issues: mortality, decay, and humanity. 

 

Works Cited

Brophy, Philip. 100 Modern Soundtracks. 2004. 

Bukatman, Scott. Blade Runner. BFI Publishing, 2017.

Le Blanc, Michelle, and Colin Odell. Akira. British Film Institute, 2019.

Reddell, Trace. The Sound of Things to Come: An Audible History of the Science Fiction Film. University of Minnesota Press, 2018.

Scotto, Audrey. “Sound and Perception in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982).” Arts, vol. 13, no. 5, Oct. 2024, pp. 154.                                                              

Sinnerbrink, R. “Stimmung: Exploring the Aesthetics of Mood.” Screen, vol. 53, no. 2, June 2012, pp. 148–63.

 

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