A photograph can mean so much to different people, but it’s ultimate purpose is to capture an important moment in someone’s life and be able to hold onto a physical copy of a memory. Photographs enact a certain nostalgia for the past, the good times or perhaps an important person or location; it’s a memory you want to last indefinitely. It’s a subject many people don’t touch on when they examine a film like Blade Runner (1982), but director Ridley Scott’s film does place an emphasis on the importance of photographs and what they can mean to people. The film depicts photos as a gateway to nostalgia, the immortalization of important figures and how photographs can deceive their owners.
When you hold onto a photography they are generally a preserved version of a past memory that is important or a time of happiness. Blade Runner shows this when Rachel (Sean Young) shows Deckard (Harrison Ford) a photograph of her as a child with her mother, she tells him fondly of a memory that confirms
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This dreamday that only Deckard knew of is flaunted at him by Gaff, in a gesture that leaves many audience members believing that Deckard himself is a replicant. The figure of the unicorn appeared when he was looking over photos of his past, which ties directly into the daydream and into the deception that photo’s can have on people. Perhaps the photo’s of Deckard’s family are implants of a past Blade Runner, if anything these photos betray Deckard, his memories of the past and his assurance that he is human. In the end photographs can mean a lot of different things to individuals, but the film Blade Runner depicts them as a gateway to the nostalgia of the past, a way to immortalize important figures and a tool of deception against their