Neo Noir Poster

Mr Wignall's visit to our media class.

Mr Wignall's visit to our media class.

Yesterday our Head Teacher Brendan Wignall came into our media class to talk about one of his favourite films, Blade Runner, which we have studied due to its noir aesthetic.

Mr Wignall has been a long standing fan of science fiction books and films and used to review these for a publication.  He also has a degree in philosophy and talked about the ideology behind Blade Runner and noir films in general.  In his opinion the key ideas in these films are about contemplation and questioning our own existence. These are Common themes presented by the author Phillip K Dick, who wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the novel that Blade Runner was based off.

Mr Wignall also talked about the themes of the film and what aspects of it make it neo noir. We can see as soon as the film starts the dark and urban setting that it has, which is a quality of noir. Harrison Ford as Deckard, very similar and probably there to channel the flawed detective type character of the origional noir films, and of course we have Sean Young's Rachel, the who plays the role of femme fatale.