Over the years there have been countless depictions of Los Angeles on film, some more memorable than others but many very interesting in their own right. The ones that stick out most for me tend to be those that depict the city at night, a la Michael Mann‘s Collateral, Nicolas Winding Refn‘s Drive, and most recently Dan Gilroy‘s Nightcrawler. There is just something about the city in the nighttime that lends itself to some really striking cinematic imagery.
However, Vimeo user Colin Marshall has just put a couple other depictions of the city at the front of my mind, two sci-fi films made more than 30 years apart that portray the city in interesting but very different futuristic fashions: Ridley Scott‘s Blade Runner and Spike Jonze‘s Her. As Marshall notes, both films are centered around “a lone man up against the challenge of living in a world that has convincingly synthesized humanity”, and they each depict a “thoroughly densified and Asian-ized future Los Angeles,” though they do so in very different ways.
The futuristic noir Blade Runner engenders a sense of fear throughout its version of highly urbanized Los Angeles. The film pulls a lot of its influence from Japan, but also uses architecture of the past, including landmarks native to the City of Angels, to make Scott’s depiction Los Angeles feel realistic to audiences. Too many future-set films lack a strong sense of the past, Marshall asserts, thus making them feel fake. The flying cars are perhaps a problem as far as realism goes, but Blade Runner uses them well and makes them feel real within the context of the film.
When it comes to Her, Jonze’s film also draws influence from Asia, this time not Japan but China, specifically Shanghai’s Pudong district. Hoyte van Hoytema‘s stunning cinematography captures not a sense of fear but one of both envy and hope. Further, as Marshall notes, Her was smart not to depict futuristic cars, as Blade Runner shows how they can make an otherwise realistic-looking film feel less so when viewed by audiences years down the road.
You can check out the videos for Blade Runner and Her below, and if you’ve got more time on your hands I recommend checking out Colin Marshall’s Vimeo page for a deeper look at other Los Angeles-set films.
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