| Robert De Niro's portrayal of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976, Martin Scorsese). He saw Deckard as, ". . . a reluctant detective who dresses like a middle-aged Elvis Costello. He's a skilled investigator, an expert in his field, but he's a little out of practice, when the movie opens. He's lost his motor drive. Exterminating people, even non-human ones, is not something he likes to do, and he's not comfortable with authority. He's very tough, but he's no match for a top-of-the-line replicant" (Cinefantastique, p. 25). Under Scott's direction, Blade Runner became a kind of detective, private-eye and police science fiction film, which was influenced by the black and white Hollywood gangster films of the forties. As director of photography, Jordan Cronenweath told American Cinematographer - "Ridley felt the style of photography in Citizen Kane (1940) most closely approached the look he wanted for Blade Runner. This included among other things, high contrast unusual camera angles and the use of shafts of light". The major changes during the adaptation of |
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original novel into the film seems to be a result of the alienation of its author, Philip K. Dick, during the production of the film, and pressure from the Hollywood studio system, demanding that the film should have a greater impact comercially. The title of the film epitomises this fact. Blade Runner was the title of an Alan Nourse novel about smugglers of medical supplies and underground doctors in a future world, which has no relation to the film or the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The copyright to this book was purchased so that the producers of the film could use this title for commercial advertising reasons. The Ridley Scott film tends to concentrate |
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