Ridley Scott: Identify his visual trademarks and style

Sir Ridley is an agnostic but he is always fascinated by Religions, Power, Death, Violence.

BLADE RUNNER is more about The Soul, The Faith even was Directed by an agnostic.

I think Sir Ridley is a very curious person. PROMETHEUS(3D) has the same themes of BLADE RUNNER even when Sir Ridley doesn't beleive in God he is a very curious soul so he imagine a lot of Gods and not only one.

So the majority of his movies are pessimistic but his last success THE MARTIAN(3D) is the most POSITIVE and happy ending masterpiece in all of his career.

THE COUNSELOR is his most brutal and pessimistic movie ever. I think he was reall depressed by the suicide of his brother Tony so he made THE COUNSELOR so bleak and dark ending.

Visually, He is The All-Time King of the Blues. Sir Ridley said in an interview that his favourite color is Blue. But he uses ALL KINDS of Blues. He even invented some new kinds of the color Blue.

Sir Ridley uses Color Correction and Digital Color Saturation to makes His Visual More Beautiful.

Finally, Sir Ridley works very close with Pietro Scalia. Both of them make all kinds of Inventive Cuts. Sir Ridley Scott and Pietro Scalia are VERY MODERN/POST-MODERN in Their Cuts and Shots. They usually use OVERSPEED in their scenes like George Miller(MAD MAX FURY ROAD) does too.

SIR RIDLEY SCOTT, LUC BESSON, MICHAEL BAY, ZACK SNYDER, DCCU, FIFTY SHADES TRILOGY, etc....

Scotts unique visual style is the result of a process he calls "layering".

Google it.

He basically adds visual elements in every shot until it's rich and dense.

He worked as a production designer once and it shows.

He uses many visual ideas from art history.

For example "1492" references in some sequences Hieronymus Bosch.

Would be awesome if somebody could do more research on his visual design process and write a book about it.

Do it. When you do, let me know. I'll buy your book. Need help?

Haha, that's a lot of work to write such a book.

An art historian with a lot of time and passion should do that.

Everything worthwhile is.

When I think of directors who have an identifiable style, I think of people like Fellini, Lynch and Parajanov. If you watch one of their movies without knowing they are the directors, you might assume they made them or that someone is using their style. If you watch one of Ridley Scott's movies without knowing he directed it, how would you be able to tell it was directed by Ridley Scott? I don't mean for this to sound like an insult, I really enjoy his work.

If you watch one of Ridley Scott's movies without knowing he directed it, how would you be able to tell it was directed by Ridley Scott?

I know what you mean, it's an old discussion: Is somebody who doesn't write his own material or has no consistent theme
an auteur ?

I would argue that Scott is a visual auteur at least: I could recognize every one of his movies based on the direction and visuals.

But he has indeed certain themes that pop up again and again in his work:

Gender trouble, culture clashes, the search for the good life, dystopia…


And to be honest: If you didn't know, could you really recognize an early Fellini, let's say "Il Vitelloni" ?

I doubt it.

Is somebody who doesn't write his own material or has no consistent theme
an auteur ?

I was thinking more of the visual style.

I would argue that Scott is a visual auteur at least: I could recognize every one of his movies based on the direction and visuals.

I am unable to distinguish his films on a visual level from many other large scale epics. Maybe that just means his style is so influential that its become the standard for epics or his style is classical and so common to many film directors. Do you see stylistic visual patterns in his work? If so, could you point them out?

Good point about early Fellini, I should of referred to the later work.