
26 Jul 2023
Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) showed us a future that, by November 2019, has become dystopian in many ways. Although many of today’s cities resemble that futuristic Los Angeles, bleak, dank and saturated with neon lights (now LEDs), the truth is that robotics, AI and genetic engineering are still in their infancy. Humanity has not colonised outer space and the closest thing I have ever seen to a flying car was the Ford Thunderbird in Thelma and Louise.
But Blade Runner, an undisputed masterpiece of cinema, and not just science fiction, should be compulsory viewing for any lover of cinematographic photography, or photography for that matter. He gave us some of the most iconic artefacts in the history of cinema, such as the spinners, the blaster with which Rick Deckard eliminated replicants with a clean shot, or the famous Voight-Kampff test case. But undoubtedly, the gadget that surely delighted any photographer before the digital era was the Esper photo analysis machine.
