Subject: Retrospective: Alien (1979)

From: "Matthew K. Gold" <[email-masked]>
Date: 26 Apr 1998 18:18:24 GMT

ALIEN (1979)

A Review by Matthew K. Gold
from the Book-Lover's Guide to Cinema
http://www.panix.com/~mgold/meter.htm
Copyright 1998 Matthew K. Gold

Smoke Without Mirrors

The first third of Ridley Scott's Alien contains a brilliant reworking
of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. In the
opening scenes of the movie, Scott appropriates Kubrick's modernistic
set design and lighting, and finds a similar, patient sense
of rhythm and pace. Where 2001 is theoretical and abstract, however,
Ridley adds a dimension of gritty realism. He photographs a crew of
space travelers emerging from cryogenic sleep like butterflies unfolding
from their chrysalises, but when these characters come to life, the
first thing they do is gather around the breakfast table, slurp coffee,
smoke cigarettes, and argue about the wages they're receiving on the
trip. On board a commercial towing vehicle, they're like a bunch of
space-age
mechanics tooling around in a run-down jalopy. At one point early in the
film, we see the crew trying to land their vessel. Scott
shows this as a difficult, stressful task, which is unusual for the
sci-fi genre: usually directors cut from shots of a
tractor-beam-pull-in to shots of mechanics walking up to a safely landed
ship. In ALIEN, by contrast, we see the characters
sweat and grimace, and we come to know that grit is an indelible aspect
of the human spirit.

As exhilarating as the first third of this movie is--with Scott's long,
snake-like continuous shots, which mirror the motions of the aliens who
appear later in the film--the movie takes a downward turn exactly when
the alien kills its first victim. Scott replaces the deliberately slow
pace of the opening scenes with the dull rhythms of generic conventions.
Suddenly, instead of watching a great movie, we're watching a great
sci-fi/horror flick. The eccentric cast of characters, who are set up so
well at the beginning of the movie, are transformed into shallow,
murder-by-numbers victims by the end. Plot contrivances begin to build
up and annoy the viewer: why, for instance, when she has only seven
minutes to meet up with her companions, does Ripley suddenly obsess so
much about her cat? Yes, it shows that she has an execeptional
understanding of species other than her own, but it feels forced.
Earlier in the movie, she had an iron will, and was willing to sacrifice
two humans; near the end of the film, she turns unexpectedly
sentimental.

For many people, the ALIEN series is valuable because it places a woman
(Ripley/Sigourney Weaver) in the role of the action
hero. Weaver does a great job, and the battle-of-the-sexes scenes at the
beginning of the movie have an extremely realistic feel.
However, near the end of the film, Scott's camera resorts to the
familiar male gaze as it watches Weaver get out of her uniform.
Although this scene is undeniably sexy, it's also completely
gratuitous--I'm simply not convinced by explanations such as "her
nakedness is symbolic--she has to fight her last battle with the alien
when she is at her most vulnerable." After all, she gets out
of one uniform in order to get into another. It feels like a step
backward to me.

If I could split a movie in two, I'd take the first third of ALIEN and
put it in the shrine, and take the last two-thirds and give it a
3.5. Overall, it's a fine film, but in the end it doesn't live up to its
own promise.

Rating (1-5): 4.0
12/24/97
© Matthew K. Gold 1997

     Directed by Ridley Scott. Cinematography by Derek Vanlint.
Production design by Roger Christian, Leslie Dilley, Anton
     Furst, and Michael Seymour. Written by Dan O'Bannon and Thilo
Newman.
     Starring Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerrit, Veronica Cartwright, Harry
Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet
     Kotto, Bolaji Badejo, and Helen Horton.