FILM ALIEN DIRECTOR RIDLEY SCOTT
Morphologies of identity,
Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) — Part Three
Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) — Part Three
It’s actually Ridley’s own detectable enthusiasm for the non-fascistic (i.e., the not-invincible, not-super-body (the “survivor”, yes, but also therefore the vulnerable species)) meanings of the alien, and for a more specific debate regarding morphologies of identity which, if not really enabling this reading in the first instance, then very definitely frees the text for such an opportunity, opening it for prospective analyses beyond the boundaries of simple b-movie horror convention.
A while ago I came across this quote from Scott. His comments can be found in the highly recommended Cinefex Alien The Special Effects written by Bill Norton and Don Shay, and published by Titan in 1997. The quote is worth reproducing in full:
This passage can’t be taken as definitive. Ridley is well known for issuing alternative readings, at worst contradictory statements, on his films, a weakness which his critics tie in with his apparent limitations as a director of story and of character (I ultimately disagree, believing Ridley to be well on a par with, say, Michael Mann when it comes to mastering both). It's still valid to think the alien’s withdrawal to the Narcissus is dictated by an atavistic mode of instinct, the “imperatives of nature” which it “incarnates” as Stephen Mulhall puts it in his On Film (Thinking in Action S.) (2001), and this is something the two films support: the creature, not knowing where the Narcissus might take it — if it even knows at all that it is a separate technological body from the malfunctioning Nostromo itself — seeks to blend cryptically with the environment of the lifeboat, to remain inconspicuous until after a short period of dormancy. The Revised Final screenplay dated 28 December 1978, published by Orion in the Alien: Complete Illustrated Screenplay (2000), includes a passage which supports this:
From Ridley’s commentary:
Given that both scenes would have occurred towards the close of the second act in Alien’s narrative trajectory (with the cocoon sequence actually appearing in the Director’s Cut after the deaths of Parker and Lambert), it follows that the alien, having given birth to three potential alien offspring in Brett, Dallas and (in an unusual form of ‘kin’ selection) Lambert, might have withdrawn to the shadowy womb of the Narcissus, away from the combusting and stammering environment of the Nostromo (which I'd argue it does not understand is destined to self-destruct) to end its lifecycle. The final destruction of the Nostromo is only a success in that it demonstrates how and why Ripley was capable of doing what the crew of the entombed derelict on LV-426 could not: namely, the termination of a species. Had Ripley not succeeded, the Nostromo would doubtlessly continue drifting through space: a moving, desolate mirror of the derelict, with its own fateful cargo.
A while ago I came across this quote from Scott. His comments can be found in the highly recommended Cinefex Alien The Special Effects written by Bill Norton and Don Shay, and published by Titan in 1997. The quote is worth reproducing in full:
Much like the addition of the origami unicorn in the director’s cut of Blade Runner (1982 / 1992), then, the cocoon sequence opens the text to interpretation, inviting specifically a consideration of developmental biology in the alien as life-form.That [cocoon sequence which prefigures Ripley’s flight to the Narcissus] was quite spooky, and it actually worked very well ... I liked it because it was a brief way of explaining what had happened on the derelict and what was now happening on the Nostromo. And I think it provided some explanation for the alien’s killing spree — like a butterfly or an insect, it has a very limited life span in which to reproduce itself. It also helped explain why it didn’t attack Ripley in the Narcissus. Its days were over. Like a chameleon, it had found a protective corner in that ship and was working itself in there to die. So in that respect, it would have been nice to have kept that footage. But it really killed the pacing. By then, Ripley was the only one left on board and everything was moving very fast — and it just slowed down the drive. So I cut it out.
This passage can’t be taken as definitive. Ridley is well known for issuing alternative readings, at worst contradictory statements, on his films, a weakness which his critics tie in with his apparent limitations as a director of story and of character (I ultimately disagree, believing Ridley to be well on a par with, say, Michael Mann when it comes to mastering both). It's still valid to think the alien’s withdrawal to the Narcissus is dictated by an atavistic mode of instinct, the “imperatives of nature” which it “incarnates” as Stephen Mulhall puts it in his On Film (Thinking in Action S.) (2001), and this is something the two films support: the creature, not knowing where the Narcissus might take it — if it even knows at all that it is a separate technological body from the malfunctioning Nostromo itself — seeks to blend cryptically with the environment of the lifeboat, to remain inconspicuous until after a short period of dormancy. The Revised Final screenplay dated 28 December 1978, published by Orion in the Alien: Complete Illustrated Screenplay (2000), includes a passage which supports this:
Regarding the morphology of the alien – and critically the possibility of morphology in its victims: the fate of Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) remains unclear. While Parker and Brett both suffer the indignities of generic slasher deaths, importantly before our very eyes, the ‘disappearances’ of Dallas and Lambert from the narrative have attracted considerable interest about just what the alien does to them once they are executed. The emergence of the cocoon scene on numerous DVD-releases, and incorporated into the Director’s Cut in 2003, reiterated the film’s thematics of natural and unnatural birth and consumption, with Brett’s slumped body harvested or rendered into an alien egg, and Dallas awaiting a similar fate nearby.Ripley looks out of the locker window. Waiting for the Alien to attack. Instead it returns to its position in the wall. Building its new lair.
From Ridley’s commentary:
This suggestion that Lambert may have been dehumanised to whatever grisly extent by the alien in her supposed ‘death’ scene — an act which would have effectively reimagined her, or her infant, as an alien crossbreed roaming the darkened halls of the Nostromo, very much still alive, and long after all have been evacuated (a fate which might well have landed Ridley in hot water in critical circles, had he gone ahead and inferred the lesbian relationship between Ripley and Lambert which, again, he remembers considering on the 03 commentary) — isn't only gold dust for those who speculate on the potentialities of the Alien universe, but also feeds back nicely into my point about the alien’s limited lifecycle. The reconfiguration of Lambert into something altogether dehumanised, a traumatic hybrid, hierarchises the alien’s killings in terms of a basic productivity with the straight slasher killing of the character Parker positioned at the bottom of the scale; the nightmarish bastardisation of Lambert into a sadistic hybrid measuring about midway on the scale; and the reconstitution of Brett and Dallas’s bodies into the physical matter of the alien eggs (seen in the famous cocoon sequence) representing the creature’s full potentiality for self-perpetuation and material productivity.Would there be [an alien] version of the Cartwright character? Certainly, whatever happens, there would be more humanoid aliens now onboard this craft, and that’s what she’s [Ripley] now got to destroy.
Given that both scenes would have occurred towards the close of the second act in Alien’s narrative trajectory (with the cocoon sequence actually appearing in the Director’s Cut after the deaths of Parker and Lambert), it follows that the alien, having given birth to three potential alien offspring in Brett, Dallas and (in an unusual form of ‘kin’ selection) Lambert, might have withdrawn to the shadowy womb of the Narcissus, away from the combusting and stammering environment of the Nostromo (which I'd argue it does not understand is destined to self-destruct) to end its lifecycle. The final destruction of the Nostromo is only a success in that it demonstrates how and why Ripley was capable of doing what the crew of the entombed derelict on LV-426 could not: namely, the termination of a species. Had Ripley not succeeded, the Nostromo would doubtlessly continue drifting through space: a moving, desolate mirror of the derelict, with its own fateful cargo.
16 November, 2007
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