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Daniel Walber's weekly series on Production Design. Click on the images to see them in magnified detail.
While planning the look of Blade Runner 2049, director Denis Villeneuve asked production designer Dennis Gassner for something very specific: brutality. As Canadians, Villeneuve and Gassner know a whole lot about that, at least architecturally. Canada’s big cities are inflected by brutalist buildings, stark and intimidating structures that have made their mark on cinema. Enemy is a good example, along with a lot of David Cronenberg’s early work.
Of course, Blade Runner 2049 takes place mostly in Los Angeles and was shot in Hungary. But its use of brutalist design transcends the specificity of place, resembling a vaguely Canadian nightmare as much as any waking version of California...
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