Retrospective: Alien (1979)

ALIEN: THE DIRECTOR'S CUT

Reviewed by: Harvey S. Karten
Grade: B+
20th Century Fox
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Written by: Dan O'Bannon, Story by Ronald Shusett & Dan
O'Bannon
Cast: Sigourney Weaver,
Screened at: AMC, NYC, 10/22/03

   Space ships are so complicated that notwithstanding the two
million year history and prehistory of humankind, the ability to
ascend to the heavens was gained in only the last forty years or
so.  Take a look at the ship trotted out by Ridley Scott in his
1979 film "Alien," today considered a classic which boasts
special effects as its principal star.  There are buttons all over
the place, even a series of some twenty different levers and
gadgets if you should want the vessel to self-destruct.  While
traveling beyond the ionosphere, you could be hit by a meteor
and one wonders whether there's any way the crew can steer
clear of shooting stars, particularly considering the hours they
take to sleep and the banter that passes for conversation at
meal time.  The last thing anyone need to go wrong is to have
some alien aboard: Some creature reflexively hostile to moving
objects that do not resemble its massive hulk.  When this title
figure does appear, we wonder why the command center on
earth, known as Mother, did not anticipate with a contingency. 
Then again, given the increase tense conversations engaged in
by the diverse crew, especially by a guy who seems to have
barely recognizable emotions, we begin to think that there's
something that the command center on Earth knows about the
real meaning of the mission that six out of the seven crew
members do not.

   This intriguing idea which is mirrored in the many American
movies that fantasy about special, evil, operatives in the CIA
and FBI, is just one of the subtexts of Ridley Scott's film, today
considered a classic and a breakthrough event during the
1970's an era said by some to be the golden age of both
American and European cinema. During the seventies the sci-fi
genre gained new momentum after the public tired of the corny
black-and-white features of the fifties: The "Star War" series
was born.  An audience of people below the age of thirty,
though impressed by the special effects in "Alien," at the same
time may wonder why the creepy monster that springs from the
chest of one of the crew and grows larger, stronger and fiercer
with each of its murders, should have been awarded an Oscar. 
Remember, though, that we're talking 1979, part of a decade
that saw few if any computers in the homes of Americans and
the Internet was strictly a tool of specialists in university.
research.

   What Ridley Scott has successfully created in his second
feature, two years after "The Duellists," was atmosphere.  The
film starts slowly, like Stanley Kubrick's "2001," introducing its
largest character, the ship "Nostromo," before honing in on the
crew.  We learn that the ship is headed back to Earth, an
uneventful journey that finds its astronauts joking about whether
or not they're entitled to a bonus.  The captain, Dallas (Tom
Skerritt), is the most relaxed, with Lambert (Veronica
Carthwright) in the navigator's seat.  Ash (Ian Holm) is the
principal scientist, Kane (John Hurt), excels in dry humor, Brett
(Harry Dean Stanton) is famous for tersely saying "right" in
response to others, Parker (Yaphet Kotto) just wants to party,
while Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), will prove the heavy when the
ship hits the fan.  

   Sticklers for following the contract signed with Mother back on
Earth, they are mandated to check out the source of a bizarre
communication not emanating from natural channels.  Landing
on an seemingly barren planet, they discover what appears to
be a large jellyfish.  Kane looks too closely: the small, octopus-
like creature attaches itself to his face.  

  Director Scott drives the tension as though pushing his foot
slowly on an accelerator.  From a quiet look at the Nostromo, he
carefully distinguishes each character from the other, pushing
the ante ever so slowly to bring the audience to frenzied
excitement.  In so doing, he repudiates the tendency of action-
adventure movies nowadays that begin with a bang (think of
how each James Bond work opens with fireworks before
slowing down).  The frights are calibrated, first by showing the
small creature leaping out an attaching to Kane's face, later by
the growing figure of this bizarre entity which picks off the crew
one by one.  

   Among other attributes, "Alien" punctuates a strong role for a
woman, played by Sigourney Weaver as a take-charge type
who antagonizes the others in the crew by refusing to override a
rule mandating a quarantine for Kane.  By the final twenty or
thirty minutes of "Alien," the tension has grown measurably.

   To put together digitally re-mastered version, a team of film
archeologists fetched boxes of original negatives in London,
including outtakes and original sound recordings.  Ridley Scott
then chose the footage he wanted included in this new,
director's cut while at the same time he trimmed increments of
10 or 15 seconds from various scenes to add to the film's
energy.  Jerry Goldsmith's music, influenced perhaps by Holst's
"The Planets," adds to the atmosphere, tones which some
consider among the scariest because of their very minimalism.

   I somehow missed the first showing of the movie when it
opened in May 1979 but can imagine the greater impact the
effects had on an audience not accustomed to the likes of H.R.
Giger's design of the creature.  Michael Seymour production
design is responsible for a good deal of atmosphere, keeping
the action flowing through the types of mysterious corridors that
appeared in, say, "The Shining."  The picture was followed six
years later by James Cameron's "Aliens," also featuring
Sigourney Weaver, as the sole human survivor of "Alien" returns
to the planet with a the U.S. Marines, prepared to liquidate the
creatures.

Rated R.  117 minutes.(c) 2003 by Harvey Karten at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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