Final (Alienating?!) Discussion

I enjoyed that much, much more than I thought I was going to. My experiences of horror films as a kid were very similar to those others have mentioned. I still think of myself as pretty easily frightened, but I guess I have matured. Now, I see my sensitivity as a strength. I start to believe to strongly in movies, I get frightened and upset. And that just makes the screen that much more immediate for me. Haha. Making it personal. Of course, I still wouldn't rule out any possible nightmares... (fingers crossed)

I took a bit of a scientific approach to watching the film. Maybe because I didn't care about the characters in Alien as much as I did in Technolust, I found my mind wandering. And whenever it did, I kept asking myself: how did they do that? How did they build that alien? Since I have a strong puppetry background, I found myself imagining the materials, wiring and manipulation system for the aliens. How would you make a faux alien carcass to be dissected? This made the images on the screen not just palatable, but, once more, personally interesting to me. The problem was that I sometimes forgot about the plot. I was pretty engrossed in the slime, not its social circumstances.

As I was walking out of Dalton, I burst out laughing in surprise at how much male authority was lampooned in the movie. I couldn't believe that mainstream seventies Hollywood green-lighted that script. Too bad it couldn't have been progressive in other ways. I also was annoyed with the fact that the only person of color in the movie was a mostly angry, underpaid, hyper-macho mechanic whom is often disrespected by his superiors.

The two most powerful and intelligent characters were both women: Mother, a feminized computer, and Sigourney Weaver's character. Even the evil villain science officer is a robot-man controlled by orders from mother. The men and the other woman were mostly uninteresting stereotypes puffing up their feathers at any sign of danger, but ineffective at dealing with the situation. One could certainly read Alien as a treatise on the power of women. But, what is most interesting here is that Weaver's character, while predicting much of what happens, is not readily listened to or respected by the captain or science officer or even the rest of the crew. What a sad way to treat such a physically and mentally brilliant person.

And wow! The birth imagery! My favorite sequence was entering into the womb-like ship where the eggs lived. This was certainly a masculinized, "pure" (ie without women), birthing process. According to this movie, men need women to control them, reproduce and clean up after their mistakes. The men and machines are pawns in their game.

Flora

Wow I can't quite believe this, but it looks like this really long posting I wrote earlier did not make it onto the forum. That's disappointing.

Well here is a summary of what I said:

1. Birth imagery and metaphor: There is a lot of birth imagery in this movie (and the next two). When the Nostromo lands on the planet, and the crew enters the abandoned ship, it is striking how organic the inside looks. It's rounded and the surface glistens (like its wet), which is contrast to the cold, steely, rigid structure of the Nostromo. They drop Cain through a passage into a compartment containing lots of eggs. I don't think I need to explain that one. Also, I'm sure everyone caught the gender role reversal with Cain, a man, giving birth to the Alien baby. I imagine that it is no mistake that the "father" of the parasite was named such -- the evil twin giving birth to, as Ash put it, a lifeform that has no morals. There is also a lot of moving through passages and emerging through, well, holes throughout the movie (like when Dallas moves through the air ducts). And everything is wet *all of the time*. Very... womby.

2. Mothers: In addition to the ship being a mother who/that offers instruction, Ripley is a mother character throughout the films. She is constantly uttering the phrase: "I'm right here" in order to assure her fellow crew members. She is obviously unsuccessful in protecting them, but she does save a cat, a very maternal move. In future films, she saves a child, and then the world.

3. Evoltuion & Competition: The Alien is a parasite that requires a human/similar lifeform host to advance from the larval to adult life stage. Parasites are often described as being "perfect" because they have adapted to such a narrow niche, and they are very tough to kill. It is interesting that in this movie the "perfect" creature is incapable of feeling, incapable of moral judgement. Unadultered evil. Also, the Alien's outershell, Ash mentions, is made of a protein compound and SILICA, which is also the substance used in creating robots. It is said that it is just as likely that a lifeform on our own earth could have been silica based rather than carbon based, had chemical events happend a little differently. Perhaps Ash "empathizes" or relates to the creature because he is also made of this substance?

3. Gender & Science: Ripley is constantly questioning Ash, interrogating him about his motives and his methods. He tried to deflect questioning by using explanations that contain very technical terms. When she doesn't understand, she asks him to explain himself further. She refuses to let up on him even though he is the designated scientist and "expert." She refuses to trust him just because the "company" has imbued him with that power. She fights for her own agency in this story. She also acts like a scientist in trying to follow the proper protocol for quarantine (she tries to be objective in some way... trying to look out for the whole crew), and Ash takes her agency away from her in this regard, by ignoring her command.