Essential Films: Alien (1979)

Every time I mention the sci-fi classic Alien to my friends, it seems like I get pretty much the same reaction: that is, all of them are familiar with the franchise, and many of them have seen at least one of the film's many sequels (or its one prequel), but very few of them have seen the 1979 original: the movie that started it all. And this is sad to me: it's bad to see the glory of an original movie undermined by a long list of inferior sequels, but it's even worse to see the sequels obscure the original. And yet even though this has happened to some extent, in many ways, recognition for the original film is still strong amidst geek culture and academia alike, and I believe that this movie has what it takes to truly stand the test of time for many years to come. After all, in order to spawn a franchise this big, the first movie had to have made a hell of an impact on audiences, and that's more than true for this one. In this video, I will aim to discuss exactly what made Alien so monumental, and why it still deserves to be watched today, and of course, as with all my other reviews, I'll be looking at both the stylistic and thematic elements of the film. 

First, let's talk about style, specifically, what made Alien's style stand out from other science fiction movies of its day-- because, when you really get down to the bare bones of the story, the plot is virtually no different from many of the sci-fi B-movies of the day: astronauts land on a mysterious planet, an alien gets onto their spaceship, and then one by one, it attacks them and picks them off. As the Guardian wrote upon the film's release, "You won't see anything very original in the film, other than the actual making of it."¹ It's the ingenious visuals and attention to craft that take a story that would be common and dull in other hands, but here becomes beautiful through its simplicity.

Back in my Adventures of Robin Hood video, I talked about how the film achieves a perfect presentation of a familiar story not only by studying every previous version of the story, but also by hiring all the best people to put their combined creative efforts into the production. Alien does the same thing by borrowing the best material from practically every sci-fi movie which came before it, but it also uses the collective talents of its screenwriters, its director, its actors, and especially its art designers, among them acclaimed Swedish artist H.R. Giger. Giger, a pop culture figure in his own right, is well known for his dark and otherwordly imagery-- imagery which director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Dan O'Bannon immediately knew was perfect for the film. By assigning Giger to design all of the film's alien elements, from the interior of the alien spacecraft to the structure of the creature itself, Alien establishes a rare intersection between the world of film and the world of modern visual arts, and uses that intersection to create one of the most horrifying monsters to ever grace the screen.

Meanwhile, I continue to find myself stunned by the gorgeous interior of the film's spaceship Nostromo, designed by Ron Cobb and Chris Foss. The set design for this film is among the first films to push forward the idea of a "used future"-- an idea which was largely set into motion by the game-changing Star Wars of two years earlier. As opposed to the bright and clean sci-fi futures such as the one presented in the Star Trek series, used futures present a world which is worn-down, where most of the technology has a used, warm and rusty feel. And whereas Star Wars pioneered this idea, Alien was the film which was able to take that idea and fully realize it in the context of a more realistic attempt at science fiction. Writing of the film, Brian Eggert of Deep Focus writes, "..the depiction of space travel is not romanticized for science fiction fantasists, but rather downgraded into something isolating and practical and believable."² Furthermore, the film matches its bohemian setting with the perfect cast, as the characters in this film are neither adventurers nor heroes, instead, they're just average working-class astronauts. In his book Beautiful Monsters, which explores the Alien saga in full, writer David McIntee notes that "...the audience can all identify with the characters... Everyone aboard the Nostromo is a normal, everyday, working Joe just like the rest of us. They just happen to live and work in the future."³

Some critics have accused the characters of Alien as being two-dimensional pawns for the purposes of the story, as in a sci-fi/horror film like this one, there's not enough time to fully develop any of them. And in a way they're right: Alien doesn't have time to develop its characters-- and yet, it develops them anyways. In fact, movies like these deserve more respect from critics than they get, because they have to convince the audience that the characters are human, complex, and relatable, and what's more, they have to do that in an incredibly short amount of time. Alien is a perfect example of a science fiction film which does this right: apart from protagonist Ellen Ripley, each of the crew members only gets a few short lines here and there, and we're only able to examine their personalities in brief glimpses. Dallas, the first in command, is a capable leader, but when he comes across a challenge too great for him (that is, the alien) his naturally relaxed and passive attitude allows the situation to spiral out of control right under his nose: his tragic fault is underestimating the seriousness of the situation. Kane's inexperience and foolish curiosity are the personality traits which get him into trouble in the first place, while the two engine workers continually reference the subject of their lower level of pay, adding naturalism to the dialogue by reminding us of each character's pragmatic self-interest. Meanwhile, Ash, the science officer, is set apart by his stoic and almost sinister demeanor-- his subtle facial expressions during the infamous chest-burster scene let us know this man is hiding something even if we don't notice it at the moment. And then there's Lambert, the only other female character besides Ripley, who presents a contrast to Ripley's assertive and undaunted attitude by behaving cowardly and hysterical, a reminder of women's roles in more traditional horror films-- which brings us to Ripley.

Ellen Ripley is, without a doubt, my favorite female movie protagonist ever, and so naturally, there has to be something very special in the way that the movie deals with her character. Crafting a strong and well-developed female main character is something that it seems like people won't stop talking about in regards to action movies today; everyone says that it's something we need to see more of-- and it is. But I'm surprised that more people aren't going back and examining Alien to take a look at what this movie did right. Because what's surprising about Ellen Ripley is that her character was originally written as gender-neutral: that is, the role could be played by a man or a woman. Studios wanted a female to be the last survivor, because somehow that was the trend in horror movies at the time. So, is Ellen Ripley really a female character, or is she just a male character being played by a woman? 

I feel that if anything, Alien proves that the actor or actress is just as responsible for creating the character as the script is. What we're seeing throughout the film is Sigourney Weaver's interpretation of the character, and who she believes Ellen Ripley should be, and because of this, and because of the minor details that she brings into the role through her performance, she takes a good character and turns it into a good female character. First, Ripley is a strong: the film doesn't begin by giving us any indication that she is the hero; instead, she starts out as one character within the group and then emerges as the protagonist when she takes command. In the face of unthinkable terror, she displays superhuman courage. At the end of the film, she finds herself attacked when she is at her most vulnerable, and yet she turns this apparent checkmate scenario into an opportunity to take charge. And yet, she is also complex and troubled. From the film's beginning she seems distant from the other characters, defying their concerns for Kane by deferring to her instinct to keep procedure. In her strict adherence to duty, Ripley makes herself out to be a tad less emotional than the other members of the group, and yet she is still relatable to the audience: it's no surprise, then, that her strongest bond just happens to be with the only non-human member of the group.

By casting a female as the assertive hero of the story, Alien inverts the traditional science fiction trope of the helpless female attacked by the monster, and cements this inversion by going after all of its male characters and killing them off first. The film is creepy enough to begin with, but it goes the extra mile to make male audience members uncomfortable by loading the film with enough sexual imagery to keep Freud scholars busy for weeks. "I'm not going to attack the women in the audience," said screenwriter Dan O'Bannon of the film, "I'm going to attack the men, and I'm going to put in every image that I can think of that I know will make the men in the audience cross their legs. The thing lays its eggs down your throat, the whole number."

Indeed, the concept of not just sex, but non-consensual sex, specifically, pervades and defines the film's story, both literally, in the way the alien reproduces, and also metaphorically, in the scene where a magazine is almost stuffed down officer Ripley's throat. But, before you go ahead and dismiss this film as another needless celebration of unsavory subject material, let me go ahead and put forward this counter-argument: that this unsavory subject material is integral to the film's symbolic meaning. What I'm saying is, this is not a film which is strictly about rape, but rather, it's a film which uses rape as a key part of its larger presentation of its true motif: motherhood. Ellen Ripley and the alien thus act as foils, human and anti-human, mother and anti-mother. This is why one character that most people ignore may, in fact, be one of the most important characters in the film: I'm speaking, of course, about Jonesy the cat. Earlier I mentioned that out of all her fellow crew members, it just happens to be the cat that Ripley shows the most concern for-- this not only singles her out from the rest, but it also gives Ripley an opportunity to have an unreciprocated protective bond with a more vulnerable creature, thus setting her up as a maternal figure. This way, the heroine stands in perfect contrast to the villain. The creature, referred to by fans as the xenomorph, violates the sanctity of motherhood by forcing the responsibilities of pregnancy and birth onto other beings, and it is this practice which defines the entire creature's existence; therefore it qualifies as the narrative's anti-mother, as opposed to Ripley, who shelters and protects a lesser being she has no obligation towards. It is an understanding of the themes present in the first film which makes the sequel work so well. James Cameron's Aliens highlights and brings forward the these ideas of motherhood and makes them easier to recognize when you go back and look at the first film, and continuing on this note, it's the abandonment of these themes and the attempt to form a bridge of empathy between human and alien which makes the third and fourth installments in the series so bad, because they've lost sight of what the first two films were really about. And if you're not convinced, may I add that even the ships computer, housed in a warm, cozy, womb-like room, is named "Mother". This both cements the maternal motif and calls to our attention a third mother figure: the company the astronauts work for. Here's where the spaceship's name Nostromo becomes important: this title is a direct reference to Joseph Conrad's 1904 novel of the same name, in which a character finds himself betrayed by the company to which he devoted his entire life. I mention this because at the end of the film Ripley finds herself in the same situation: after realizing that the company had a secret agenda to secure the alien life form at the expense of the crew, she realizes that she has similarly been betrayed, and her cold and procedural distress signal recorded at the end of the movie represents her acceptance of her defeat-- in spite of the sequels, the original film does end on an ambiguous note, and Ripley remains aware that her escape craft may never be discovered, in which case the company's actions would be responsible for her demise. Thus the corporation serves as an omnipresent yet hidden villain throughout the film, and what's worse, it's a villain that is never defeated, an irresponsible mother who endangers rather than protects her children. Granted, this is is a bit of a tangent, and one which I don't have enough time to fully explore, but I thought I'd go out of the way to briefly address it anyways.

Alien works excellently as a horror film: by starting with a small cast, the film enables us to establish more of a connection with each of the individual characters, and thus there's a greater impact when they're picked off one by one. On top of this, the interior of the spaceship presents an atmosphere of isolation and claustrophobia, which is only enhanced by the dread-inducing silence that saturates the film. Unfortunately, horror is a genre which has a reputation for not only being bad with critics, but also for alienating certain groups of audience members who have no problem with virtually any other film genre. Some of you watching this may even wonder, why would any one watch something like this, and, more importantly, why should they? I believe that there are a lot of horror movies that exist solely for the purpose of scaring people, but I don't believe that's what the genre is about. A good horror movie doesn't just take people on a thrill ride; it also tells a solid story and has some sort of a statement hidden in there. Alien is a perfect example of this, because there are ideas in it that resonate with people. I don't think that movies like this are a bad thing because, on the contrary, I think that being presented with fear in an imaginary setting, without any real danger, can help us learn how to handle our own hidden fears and concerns. In this way, a movie like Alien can tackle difficult concepts in ways that other genres can't.

Fortunately, Alien is more than just a horror film. It's also a science fiction film, an action film, and, as I hope I've explained here, a character study. As David McIntee writes, "Fans of Hitchcockian thrillers like it because it's moody and dark. Gorehounds like it for the chest-burster. Science fiction fans love the hard science fiction trappings and hardware. Men love the battle-for-survival element, and women love not being cast as the helpless victim."⁴

Sources:

¹Malcolm, Derek. Rev. of Alien, by dir. Ridley Scott. Guardian 1979. Print.

²Eggert, Brian. "Alien (1979). Deep Focus Review. Deep Focus Review, 4 June 2012. Web. Retrieved 28 July 2016.

³McIntee, David. Beautiful Monsters: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Alien and Predator Films. Telos Publishing, 2005. Print.

⁴McIntee.