The idea of film experiences inter tangling themselves within life events/emotions is a subject which I find hugely fascinating. Most of my favorite films of all time acquire this status usually because they were witnessed during particular parts of my life, or because they brought on some sort of significant change in the way which I understood the world (likewise, the merging of childhood and film experiences is also a theme that keeps making itself heard in this blog too).
I'm sure that there is an actual name for this concept, as I'm most certainly not the first individual to recognize it. Heck, I even recall reading several journals and other blogs this year which examined this subject in far greater detail than I ever could. Due to my sheer idleness, however, I simply cannot invest the time nor energy to dig out these previously consumed texts in order to provide sufficient referencing for this post. This means that I will probably end up committing several acts of cryptomnesia (or accidental plagiarism as it is also known) whenever I mention this very topic. But what the heck. Not only do I have a tiny reading base, but this is also a non-profit blog. I don't see why anyone would get upset if I fail to hyperlink the above paragraphs to any coined terms which I was not the founder of.
Nonetheless, film and television programs often obtain high statuses within my mind due to nostalgic and emotional connections that occurred alongside them. The most perfect of this, for me, would have to be with the first two Alien movies.
I remember fondly of my encounter with the first of these movies; Alien. I was first exposed to this story not through the film itself, but through the retelling of it via my father's own words.
I was only five years of age and we were watching a documentary about alien abductions. It must have been during a Saturday evening, as I was up far later than my bedtime (it was probably about 10.30. Oh the simplicities of childhood). At one point during the documentary, a shot of a U-shaped alien craft popped up on screen. This was followed by a group of astronauts exploring deep within some sort of bone structured cave. The image captivated my imagination like none before that.
My father must have caught on to the fact that my mind had been seduced by these brief images; as he begun to explain to me where those images originated from. It was during these moments - on that late weekend evening - that my father told me all about Alien.
The film starts with a wide shot of deep space. Gradually, a series of slender white lines fade onto the screen; one-by-one spelling out the word Alien in a simplistic, bold font. Moments later, a spacecraft drifts into shot. The craft is gargantuan in size; it possesses the appearance of a dead, godforsaken metropolis. Deep within the bowels of this drifting metropolis, seven humans are tucked away deep in the frozen safety nets of hyper sleep. Their stasis induced dreams are soon brought to a sudden close, however, when a distress call delivered to the ship awakens them prematurely. The signal is of alien origin, sent from a nearby world. As the ship's crew set down to investigate, they encounter a mighty U-shaped corpse of a UFO that has imbedded itself into the mountains of this world. Inside, the crew find the decayed body of an alien pilot, sitting motionlessly in its chair and sporting a huge hole right at the center of its chest.
My dad went on to explain the rest of the story to me. He told me of the snakelike creature that forces its way from the chest of an unsuspecting crew member; the ship's captain crawling through the intestines of the floating metropolises air vents, failing to incinerate the best which lurks nearby; the moment when one of the crew turns out to be a murderous android; and the point where the crew's last surviving member finds herself trapped inside a miniscule shuttle with a murderous extraterrestrial.
Before even seeing the film with my own eyes, Alien became my captivating nightmare. The images from the words alone painted pictures in my mind which were far grander than anything I presumed to be conceivable. I just had to see this film.
And then I did managed to view it. A couple of weeks later, I found a VHS copy of the film in one of our cupboards. My mother was out visiting her mother, whilst my dad was busy playing the drums in our garage. He would have protested to his five year old watching such a film; so I had to be extra careful. Each time he left the garage for a drink or toilet break, I would quickly stop the VHS; pretending that I was about the put a film in to watch (I'm quite surprised that he didn't get suspicious at the fact that I was trying to put a film in for 2 continuous hours. But then that's dad for you).
Hearing the story told from my father's lips was terrifying enough, but the experience of the film evoked such emotions on an even grander scale. Everything I had heard - the floating metropolis, the barren alien world, the extraterrestrial corpse sat in its chair, the long headed beast stalking a group of terrified humans through thin steel corridors, the final showdown in a claustrophobic shuttle - it was all real. It was a surreal, mortifying, engaging, heart stopping experience. At five years of age, I had just seen hell, and it was strangely beautiful.
The film never traumatized me, it never gave me night terrors and it never injected fear into my mind (oddly enough, it was Steven Spielberg's E.T. that resulted in those horrors being bestowed upon my mind), yet it fueled my imagination for decades to come. The images of this Ridley Scott directed masterpiece leaked into my dreams. These dreams were not horror stories, but exploration journeys. Journeys which descended down into the deepest darkest corners of my childhood imagination. The hair-raising bowels of this film sparked all new life into my imagination. I was able to explore the byproducts of this spark in the land of my unconsciousness. It created a sub universe deep within my head which was far more ravishing than horrifying.
Yet the film really was horrifying. The after effects of the film may not have scarred me, yet the actual experience was almost impossible to bear. The reason for my initial terror was more or less down to the film's bog standard Jaws in space concept. When the film was pitched to studios back in the late 1970s, its writers promoted it by stating that it was essentially the film Jaws, set within a spaceship.
This premise hits the nail bang on. The film is exactly that. Both Jaws and Alien are twisted horror stories surrounding a monster in a haunted house. In the case of Jaws, the haunted house is the ocean whereas the monster is the shark. In the case of Alien, however, the haunted house is the Nostromo mining ship whereas the alien is the monster.
The choice of objects for the film's monster and haunted house was what petrified me the most on that first ever viewing. As a child, I feared two things more than anything else in the world; extraterrestrials and enclosed spaces. The choice of an isolated 'house' and a none terrestrial monster pretty much grabbed both of those fears and took them for the ride of their lives.
As I grew older, the terrors that felt for this film still remained, yet the reasons began to differ slightly. Most people who watch this film often like to compare the story to a metaphor surrounding the horrors of rape. Their claims are 100% correct. Alien is a movie which is one big metaphor for this subject. The facehugger that impregnates its host against their will, the genital shaped designs of the extraterrestrial structures and the mortifying scene where Lambert's character is violently mutilated off screen are all warped personifications of non-consenting sexual attacks. Yet there is more behind the anxieties lurking within the film's text which also still manage to haunt me right up until this very day.
I am referring to the film's themes of control; or lack of it to be more precise. This is a theme which is flawlessly established within Alien's hook-line; in space, no one can hear you scream. The distress signal which forces our protagonists from hyper sleep; the lack of knowledge surrounding the alien world; the facehugger forcing an embryo into Kane's chest; the monster bursting from within; the confined corridors of the Nostromo; the almost-immortality of the brutal antagonist; the company's expendable outlook toward the crew; the remaining survivor's only choice to blow up their ship; and mother's refusal to prevent the impending destruction of the Nostromo leave put all seven on these characters in positions where they possess absolutely no control over anything that is happening.
Even the film's core protagonist - Ellen Ripley - has absolutely no power over the narrative. She acts solely on survival instinct. She has no say or influence on any of the matters at hand. What she does is only done because the characters have been forced into making that decision. Even blowing the ship up is not exactly a choice, as there are no other alternatives left. No matter how hard Ripley and the crew try, their only valid option is to destroy a mining ship and escape into the stars with a shuttle that's only designed to house one (and even that plan goes to the dogs).
Ripley does not control the narrative, it is the narrative which controls her. From start to finish, the world of this story is the only one with any power. Our heroes are nothing more than mere chess pieces; unwillingly participating in a game that is being played by the hands of the narrative. It will not be until James Cameron's 1986 sequel to this film which finally allows Ripley to take control of this universe's narrative. Here she is nothing more than a player; operating solely on her survival instincts.
In actual fact, Ripley shouldn't have even survived this story in the first place. In one of the earlier drafts, Ripley is slaughtered by the alien in the shuttle, moments before the end credits role. As she attempts to harpoon the beast out of the ship's airlock, the devilish life form rips the hook from its chest, crawls back inside and massacres Ripley almost instantaneously. After the antagonist's barbaric success, the creature picks up a microphone and reports back to earth; using the voice of Ellen Ripley as a disguise.
The fact that Ripley managed to survive this film is a miracle in and of itself (be it a miracle that was brought about either by the fact that the studio wanted to give the film some sequel potential through Ripley's survival or because the creative team decided that the idea was one step too far in the context of this story). No one was suppose to survive, as survival was not initially intended to be an option.
What also assists in making this film so intensely terrifying is how easy it is to relate to the story's protagonists. These are not super intelligent, futuristic, overly handsome space warriors; but are nothing more than your bog standard average Joe and Johans. They are just a group of people who are out on the road, doing their job. They are the truck drivers of space travel. Working/middle class guys and gals who have seldom interest in the wonders and mysteries of the universe. They are flawed, self-interested individuals who are only out there in order to make a living in the only way that they can.
Throwing such people into an intense situation such as this one is a perfect way to capture the minds of a large audience base. A majority of people can easily relate to them. We know these people. They are our brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends, enemies, colleagues and even ourselves. Being able to relate to characters in horrifying fictional situations can help audiences to understand the feelings that such individuals are going through. None of us will ever have to experience what these people had to, but their connection with our own existence gives us a great sense of empathy which manages to pulls us further into their traumas than we may have initially liked to have gone.
And there really is no doubt that what the seven humans in this film are going through is nothing short of truly awful. As I mentioned, they are merely a group of truck drivers in space; only out there to earn a living. Nothing in the universe could have prepared them for the nightmare which they were destined to find themselves trapped within. Just imagine, locked inside the claustrophobic bowels of a ship which drifts amongst the vast vacuum of deep space; sealed in with a beast whose life began after forcing its way from the ribcage of a fully conscious human. A beast whose sole aim is to murder any other being who is not one of its own.
This living nightmare of a creature could very well be the devil himself, yet is he really the one and only true villain of Alien?
Maybe not, because this is where the film manages to become even more brilliant in my eyes; as there is another terrifying theme that lingers deep within the background of this story.
I say maybe not, because despite the horrors which this beast commits, there's certainly little evidence to suggest its acts are consciously committed. For all we know, this creature is acting on the basic survival instincts which are wired into its being. It is a life form born into a world which consists solely of a group of people who are terrified and evidently hostile toward its presence. Naturally, in the most aggressively Darwinian of manners, the life form is going to do all that it can in the selfish name of survival.
Now there are a great number of theories on the awareness that the creature in Alien possesses. Many suggestions point toward the idea that this is an entity that is far more intelligent than the animalistic qualities depicted on screen. Such ideas can help to explain the horrific and hugely ambiguous scene toward the end of the film where an audio of the alien murdering Lambert gives off the impression that it is doing more than just killing her.
Yet if we dismiss this ambiguous audio and that potentially bizarre alternative ending which I mentioned above, the visible on screen creature appears to be nothing more than an uncivilized animal who is only striving to continue its own survival.
If this is the case, then can this sort of creature really be seen as a true villain? Or does a villain have to be a character who can make choices; who can pick between the path of darkness and the path of light; who knows full well that what they are doing is morally corrupt? More to the point, can such a villain actually be found in alien, and if so, where?
Well surely the company is the answer to that. Let us look at the company in the context of this narrative for a moment. In Alien, the company have decided that the entire Nostromo crew are completely and utterly expendable. The company are also aware that there is an extraterrestrial - and potentially dangerous - life form living on the planet that they have (as revealed at the end of act two) consciously sent the Nostromo to. Not only that, but they send an android - in disguise as a human shipmate called Ash - along for the ride, so that it can make sure the other crew members do not kill their findings.
Some may say that Ash is one of the true villains of this story - as it is he who is performing the company's desires - but remember, Ash has been programmed to obey its masters. He has no conscious choice over his actions. So surely the only definitive guilty party in this story are the off-screen murderous; the men and women who have free will and who have decided to drop all of their ethical views toward the loss of innocent human life so that they can obtain an extraterrestrial specimen.
This back-story does not diminish the horror of the creature from Alien. Instead, it adds to the film's terror. Not only is this a story about the dark corners of the universe being dangerous, but it is also a story of a world in which the future of humanity is similarly just a brutal. No one is safe; whether that's because of the claws of a murderous alien, or because of a greedy company who has no empathy for the value of human life.
Alien is a nightmare of unfathomable intensity. A universe where no one is safe and no one has control. It is a film that has fueled countless imaginations decades after its release. This is a story that no self aware life form would ever dream of finding themselves in. Yet regardless of the film's horror, it is an absolute treat to witness.
Two whole hours of unforgettable brilliance.
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