Ridley Scott - Auteur?

Ridley Scott, (born November 30, 1937, South Shields, Durham, England), and is a British film director and producer whose films were acclaimed for their visual style and rich details [1]. Some of his most acclaimed titles include Blade Runner, Alien and Gladiator.

Ridley Scott dedicated several of his films, including Blade Runner, to his deceased brother[4]. This may have influenced many of the themes of the film including how the replicants have a 4 year life span, to which after follows their death, directing to the fact that human beings in the real world have limited life and we all die eventually.

Ridley Scott sketched many of the Blade Runner's design concepts himself along with the help from production designer Lawrence G. Paull,‘visual futurist’ Syd Mead, art director David L. Snyderand special effects wizards Douglas Trumbull and Richard Yuricich. The team worked using old-school, pre-digital methods such as miniature tabletop models and matte backdrop paintings [2].

One reason Blade Runner has endured so long is because of its rich mythology surrounding its difficult-to-control gestation, a backstage drama which is now almost inseparable from the narrative on screen. Ridley Scott was a former commercials director fresh from shooting Alien in London. As an outsider of hollywood at the time, his perfectionist methods clashed with his American cast and crew during the arduous all-night shoots in early 1981 [2].

What is an auteur?

Auteur:

noun: a film director who influences their films so much that they rank as their author.

It may be said that Ridley Scott was an auteur as many times he made to dominate the story elements of Blade Runner, even going into debate with Harrison Ford about the nature of whether Deckard was a human or a replicant - an interpretation endorsed by the muchly debated unicorn dream sequence (which suggests Deckard's memories are implants) [2].

Scott was also in conflicts with the studies, whereby they won and released the 'studio cut' of Blade Runner - elements added to the cut in post production included a voice over and a final scene where the two protagonist's fate is given an unambiguous ending and some unrelated [to the rest of the film's aesthetic] b-role shots of the shinning's opening is spliced in.

As in auteur fashion, Scott released a 'director's cut' version of the film a whole 10 years later. It removed the voice over and had an uncertain ending for the protagonists. Scott also had issues when it came to Kingdom of Heaven as it is regarded by audiences that the 'director's cut' of the film 'is the only version of this film that should exist' [3] - 

[1] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ridley-Scott

[2] https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/blade-runner

[3] https://filmschoolrejects.com/movies-we-love-kingdom-of-heaven-the-directors-cut-11e0e3faa3c2/

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridley_Scott