Posted in: Movies, Warner Bros | Tagged: blade runner 2049, film

Blade Runner 2049: Someone Give Cinematographer Roger Deakins An Oscar Already

Published Tue, 15 Aug 2017 17:51:52 -0500

Blade Runner 2049 star Ryan Gosling has never really done a big budget movie before but he's glad he waited until now to take one on. Gosling spoke to Entertainment Weekly about what Blade Runner means to him and why cinematographer Roger Deakins deserves an Oscar.

[Blade Runner] was one of the first films that I saw that I didn't know how to feel when it was over. The line between heroes and villains was so blurred. It's not a hero's journey in any way. When I was a kid that was the storyline I had seen. Thematically, there's just so much there — it was rich, it was melancholy, it was romantic. It's so special. So many other things have stolen ideas from it, but they could never steal its soul. I felt lucky to enter that world.

When asked about where he could see the budget Gosling mentioned that the sets were just amazing.

The sets were so beautiful, and every aesthetic choice was for the cleanest, most efficient, elegant way to communicate story. When [cinematographer] Roger Deakins creates a frame, half your job is done for you.

EW then brought up that Deakins has been nominated for an Oscar 13 times but hasn't won yet.

I'm glad you said that. Maybe that should be the title of this piece. His whole team is incredible. One of my favorite shots when I was younger was this shot in Barton Fink, when there's this slow push in on the wallpaper. I remember feeling so tense and thinking, why am I so tense? It's just wallpaper. But then I realized it's the shot that is creating that tension — it was a lightbulb moment for me. We were shooting a scene in 2049 when the camera starts to push in on me. I remember when it was over I said to Bruce [Hamme], who is Roger's dolly grip, 'Bruce, did you work on Barton Fink?' He said yes. I said, 'Did you do that slow push in on the wallpaper?' He said, yeah. I said, 'Am I the wallpaper right now?' He said, yes. I told him I've never been so honored. [Laughs] We were talking about titles for the film for a while and I really advocating for Slow Bruce Rising.

Blade Runner 2049 is coming out in time for the awards season. Maybe Deakins will finally get his due.

Summary: Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new blade runner, LAPD Officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what's left of society into chaos. K's discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD blade runner who has been missing for 30 years.

Blade Runner 2049, directed by Denis Villeneuve, stars Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas, Robin Wright, and Jared Leto. It will be released on October 6, 2017.

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