Blade Runner (1982)
Ridley Scott's original Blade Runner uses the production design to establish its unique Neo-Noir identity. The film does this best through its use of props, such as the neon glow-stick umbrellas, with the most iconic prop choice being the flying police cars driven throughout the film. The setting of a dystopian Los Angeles helps further this, as the city is primarily shown through either neon-lit signs or natural, explosive flames, with a heavy focus on blue and orange replacing the black and white you would see in a traditional noir. This contrast between natural, fiery light and artificial, neon-blue light also highlights the main conflict of the film: humans hunting replicants.
The best scene that shows this blue and orange contrast is the opening establishing shot, where the camera flies over the city as fiery explosions erupt while the neon-blue skylights remain solid and still. The still blue lights throughout the film are interesting, as they often look like spotlights in the way they pierce through windows. For the majority of the film, this choice makes it feel like Deckard is constantly being observed.
The lighting is without a doubt the highlight of the film, as it seems to be used as a gauge for a character's humanity. There are two characters I attribute this idea to. First, in the initial interrogation between Rachael and Deckard, when the blinds are shut and the light pierces through, it leaves Rachael completely in heavy shadow. Doing this removes her features and makes her look inhuman, with the cinematography subtly telling the audience she is a replicant. This logic is also used in scenes featuring Deckard himself. Often throughout the film, he is shown partially in the shadows, with the upper half of his face in the dark while the bottom half is well-lit. This foreshadows the major question at the end of the film about whether Deckard is himself a replicant.
The next example of lighting is the most fascinating to me. Within Deckard's dream, he sees a unicorn running through a field with natural green lighting that is completely foreign to the rest of the film. This scene, to me on an initial watching, took a while to understand. At first, I saw it as pointless simply filler, but it remained stuck in my head for the entirety of the film due to its uniqueness. The way I interpreted this scene after a little thought was that Deckard saw a unicorn as "natural" because of the green lighting, potentially suggesting he never knew the difference between a horse and a unicorn. This is similar to the opening where a replicant fails to tell the difference between a turtle and a tortoise, even though I am unsure if this was the intended interpretation from the writers I personally think its a way to interpret the scene that still pieces in well to the films narrative. This puts me firmly on the side of Deckard being a replicant and led to me to this conclusion very early into the film before its outwardly questioned.
In conclusion, the original Blade Runner's biggest strength lies in its ability to allow every detail and line of dialogue to be relevant to the story. The film sets up multiple "Chekhov's Guns"—such as the shadows and props like the paper unicorn—that all fire during the latter half of the film. This allows for a satisfying payoff when remembering these details, this stops the film from looking down on the audience as they put all the pieces in the film for you to find and understand without feeling the need to explain every last detail to us this all comes to the perfect ending as the ambiguous ending of the film leaves Deckard's humanity up for proper debate instead of giving a Yes or no answer.