I have been taught by masters: "The Heiress" and the Art of Cruelty

Spoilers Below

Hamlet once said  he had to be cruel only to be kind. I couldn't help but think of this while watching William's Wyler excellent The Heiress (1949), one of the best examples of classic Hollywood elegance and emotional intensity. "Hollywood" can often be a negative descriptor for movies but classic Hollywood gave us plenty of stellar films that are amongst the best films ever made in America. But back to what I was saying about Hamlet. I couldn't help but think of what Hamlet said because it matches the mentality of Dr. Austin Sloper, a wealthy doctor who believes the penniless suitor (Montgomery Clift) courting his wallflower daughter Catherine (Olivia de Havilland) is a a fortune hunter, only after her inheritance, believing she doesn't possess any qualities a man would be interested in. He wants to protect his fortune but in his own way he's also protecting his daughter from what the believes is inevitable heartbreak. He tells her many girls are prettier and cleverer, that her money is her only virtue. And perhaps he's right (ignoring the fact de Havilland was a beautiful and glamorous movie star in real life), but we also sympathize with Catherine, wanting to earn her father's respect and admiration, and grow beyond what she is. The Heiress is largely her journey, one that ends in what the audience can decide is either triumph or tragedy. 

The film's screenplay, by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, is adapted from their play based on Henry James' novel Washington Square. The script is a masterclass of emotional suspense, knowing that Catherine will reach her limits and finally push back against the men in her life. We feel deeply for Catherine because De Havilland shows us a woman so willing to be loved and swept off her feet. She's naïve but Clift's sensitivity and sincerity as Morris Townsend presents us with the possibility of genuine love for her. We want to believe he's of noble heart, that there could be a happily ever after for Catherine. 

Catherine wants to prove her father wrong an plans to elope with Morris. She tells tells Morris she will be disinherited and when he supposed to pick her up to get married, he doesn't show. This is the turning point of the film where Catherine becomes hardened. But here's the interesting part- she blames Sloper. She tells him that even if Morris was only interested in her money she still could've bought a husband that pretended to love her, something Sloper couldn't do. Sloper could never pretend but only criticize Catherine for her failings. When he learns she's not going to marry Morris he says he's proud of her. And we're happy that Sloper has finally shown admiration for his daughter and it's cathartic that she finally stands up to him. But it's also awful that her relationship with her father is never reconciled, that she breaks his heart. 

It'd easy for Sloper to come across as a completely heartless man but the film provides him, like Morris, with genuine nuance. We learn that Sloper can't help but compare his daughter to his deceased wife, who was glamorous and witty, and all those things. The implication is the mother dies in child-birth, with Catherine bearing the unfair bitterness Sloper has towards her for not being exactly like her mother. But this plot point does humanize him, gives him a past and sense that he once had human warmth, a warmth that became a veneer of iciness after his wife died. Richardson was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance and I think he should've won over Dean Jagger for Twelve O'Clock  High. 

Years after Sloper dies Morris returns, telling Catherine he only left so she wouldn't lose her inheritance. She agrees to marry Morris. He goes off to make arrangements. But she leaves him outside, banging on the door when he comes back. It'd be easy to cast a slicker more polished kind of actor, to get across that Morris is an opportunist but with Clift the answer isn't easy. The truth may be that he did love Catherine even if he was also interested in her money. I wrote about this before but Clift deserves just as much credit as Marlon Brando for bringing a new kind of raw naturalism to the screen. "Method Acting" gets a bad rap but I think early on it was valid and valuable way to find a more emotionally realistic way of acting. You always hear about actors being able to act with their eyes. Clift's eyes are deep reservoirs of emotion, and he feels he's going to break at certain instances when you watch him in a given film. His voice also often seems to shake slightly. There's so tenderness to Clift as an actor that the ending isn't a easy triumph. But maybe that's the point, there's no easy triumph in life.'

I avoided talking about De Havilland's performance because I wanted to save it for last. De Havilland ended up winning her second Best Actress Oscar for The Heiress (1946's To Each His Own was her first win). She's miraculous here, simultaneously effortlessly and painfully showing us Catherine hardening from naïve girl to more cunning ruthless older woman. Her final walk up the stairs is one of Hollywood's great endings, in a history of great endings. 

The Essential Films: “Alien” (1979)

A series of writings on films that I feel are essential for film lovers, coupled with films that are important to me. Spoilers for those who haven't seen

There's just something about Alien. It's the atmosphere, the vibe. Yes, Aliens is often considered the better movie. And yes, Aliens is one the best movies of its kind, a textbook for any aspiring action filmmaker. But Alien is on a whole other level in its visual design, acting and suggestive power. It was partly born out of director Ridley Scott's depression after seeing what George accomplished technically with Star Wars. Scott had made his first film, The Duellists, and was planning on doing Tristan and Isolde next but Star Wars gave him the urge to make a science fiction. It's funny. Star Wars appears so quaint now, which is fine and appropriate given Lucas's old fashioned influences, but Alien still the power to startle its audience. And while Star Wars is seen as the creative vision of one man, Alien acts as a debunking of the "auteur theory." The film isn't just indebted to Scott but also to screenwriters Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett and artist H.R Giger. 

Scott viewed Star Wars as the flipside of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and in turn Alien was the flipside of Star Wars. Both films, however, influenced the visual look of the film. In a Deadline interview on the influence of Star Wars, director Guillermo Del Toro elegantly summed up the influence of Lucas's and Kubrick's visions   

If you think about Ridley Scott and 'Alien,' the idea of truckers in space, which Ridley Scott does beautifully, and the way he made certain parts of the bowels of the ship feel worn and used and dingy. That is the crossbreeding of '2001' with 'Star Wars.' Ridley Scott is in the direct lineage of Lucas and Kubrick. His is a very different tone but he is as precise with his lensing. The areas of the ship that are pristine are very Kubrick-ian in a way, but there are parts of the ship where you can see the direct influence of 'Star Wars.

The other film apart from Star Wars and 2001 I can draw a comparison to is Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Both Alien and Psycho take their time getting to their most iconic moments, the shower scene and the chestburster. Marion Crane steals money to set up a life with her boyfriend, veering off course to spend a night at the Bates Motel. The crew of the freighter vessel the Nostromo are woken up out of cryosleep, supposedly because they're near earth, but like Marion they are taken off course to pick up a distress signal. From their titles, we know they're going to be a "psycho" and an Alien. But when are they going to show up. All through Marion's car journey, to her meeting with Norman, tension and unease mounts. The crew find a derelict ship with alien eggs on them. Kane (John Hurt) gets a facehugger to, well, the face. Quarantine is broken by scientist officer Ash (Ian Holm). And then there's the whole bleeding acid thing. Norman is a friendly but strange man with an unhealthy relationship with his mother. The facehugger falls, off and the crew can finally go home. Marion decides to return the money and takes a shower. The crew sit down to eat. Them it happens/ Marion is killed by a knife-wielding maniac and an alien bursts out of Kane's chest.

Both these moments take place in safe, benign settings- a shower, a meal room. The violence is shocking because every thing has returned to calm. These moments also push forward the narratives in to the second half of their stories. Psycho starts out as a crime drama, Alien starts out as a sci-fi mystery, and they both organically take us through the events as they become more horrific. It's all about structure. Alien is a perfectly structured film, with immaculate pacing. Some may find it slow. I get that but again I think the pacing is masterful.    

A big part of why the horror of Alien is so effective is its sense of realism. The film takes this sci-fi premise and grounds it in a lived-in workaday reality. Making the characters "truckers in space" was a great way to make these people relatable and normal. It also takes the glamour of the idea of space travel. These aren't explorers, there's no sense of awe and wonder in what they do. You even have tow characters, Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Brent (Harry Dean Stanton) who are only focused on getting their fair share. There's a documentary-like quality to the performances, with Scott creating a detached, unsentimental vibe to the proceedings. He creates a breathing room for the performances and the atmosphere. 

The film's sense of realism is also indebted to Michael Seymour's immersive production designed. The Nostromo feels like an actual space vessel that people would live on. The derelict spacecraft has this ominous vibe, one of mystery and unease. The ship, and the moment they find the "Space Jockey" suggests a mysthic grandeur that contrasts with the more claustrophobic interiors of the Nostromo

I mentioned this film's "suggestive power" earlier. I want to explain what I mean. Without the characters having to discuss it philosophically, the film conveys its deeper meanings through its actions. The facehugger and chestburster represent the themes of sexual assault. The film is often talkin about as taking the fears of women and placing them on a man. There's also what I just mentioned about the Space Jockey, a sense of mystery of what species are out there. Then there's the themes of distrust towards authority, with the company the truckers work for treating them as expendable in the face of retrieving the "xenomorph." This was the 70s. There was a whole nihilistic streak to the films of this error, The difference between 70s and 80s cinema is best exemplified in the contrast between Alien and Aliens. Alien is a bleak, unsentimental horror film while Aliens is a Reagan-era pumped up action movie with one-liners and Spielbergian sentiment, including a happy ending for its surviving characters. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) barely survives this film and the ending is more low-key than strictly happy.  

The dichotomy between Alien and Aliens can also be found in The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (funnily enough, both Terminator films are directed by Aliens helmer James Cameron). The originals are stripped down horror thrillers while the sequels are bigger action blockbusters. There's a bad robot in the first, a good robot in the second who the female lead has to learn to trust. There's the mother/child relationship, and an ending that seemingly puts to bed any need for sequels.  

You know what makes Alien scary? More than the xenomorph? It's Ash. We know there's something up with Ash. However, the film constantly draws our attention away and never reveals too much. When it his head is bashed off by Parker, revealing him to be android, it's one of the film's creepiest images. Then there's that smirk from the disembodied head and the slightly electronic voice, telling the remaining crew members that he has his sympathies. I don't think this film is as unsettling if it's just the alien. That somebody else is "alien" amongst the crew, seemingly friendly but slightly creepy, working against them, makes the film even starker. He acts as the face of the company "Weyland-Yutani," which gets a human face for the sequels but remains in the shadows here, which I like better. For the company these people are expendable. And they'll alone in the coldness of space. The film's famous tagline is "In space no one can hear you scream" which I think just sums up the bleakness of this film and this era of film so well. 

Then there's Ripley.  Weaver wasn't a star when the film was released and Ripley wasn't the iconic character she is now so it wasn't a guarantee that she would live initially. Weaver has such a unique presence as a an actress, a strong no-nonsense physical presence while also being a capable dramatic actress, believable in her vulnerability and strength to survive.  And okay, you're either going to get why she goes back for the cat or not. I would probably go back for the cat. It just makes her more human. 

Alien could've just been as cash-in on the sci-fi craze like the James Bond film Moonraker, also released the same year. But it stands up as a genuine classic in the genre. Scott may have been depressed when he saw Lucas accomplished but he helped make something that could also cause the same level of depression in an aspiring filmmaker. And even Kubrick wanted to know how the chestburster scene was done. Alien is the greatest sci-fi horror film of all time, smart and sophisticated, while never carrying itself with pretension. Just an all around immaculately made movie.  

On "On the Waterfront" at 70. Kazan, Brando, and the Method

Spoilers Below

Dockworker Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) has unknowingly set up fellow dockworker Joey Doyle to be murdered for testifying against the mob that runs the dock. As he looks towards where Joey has fallen off the roof of his apartment, Terry lets out a weathered 'pooof" of air. It's this moment, so unaffected and real  that stood out to me when I first saw the On the Waterfront as a teenager in the 2000s (geez I'm old) Brando's performance is perhaps my favourite performance of all time. I'd go so  far to say this is *the* Brando performance. Yes, The Godfather is probably his most iconic performance- and maybe the most iconic film performance of all time- but On the Waterfront is Brando in his prime.. While he had done A Streetcar Named Desire on stage and screen, played The Wild One and even challenged himself by doing Shakespeare, Terry Malloy is Brando's most complete and well-rounded performance up to this point- masculine but sensitive, a beautiful bum with the prospect of redemption. The film is also director Elia Kazan's masterpiece. If A Streetcar Named Desire is a little-intentionally so- boxed in cinematically, then On the Waterfront feels more lived in and vivid as a cinematic experience, fuller, more completer. 

Brando and Kazan only did three movies together, (Streetcar, Viva Zapata! and On the Waterfront), as well as the original Streetcar on Broadway and the play Truckline Cafe (which only ran for 10 performances) but they brought forward a new kind of psychological realism on stage and screen. Before she was a critic Pauline Kael tells a story of coming in late to see Truckline Cafe (this was 1946). On stage she sees a man who she believes is having a seizure. It wasn't until the man she was with grabbed her arm and said "Watch this guy," that she realized he was an actor. Of course, it was Brando

A lot is talked about these days concerning "Method Acting," and it's become synonymous with male actors being assholes, and of course the "Try acting" story about Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman has been repeated so often that's it lost any real meaning. It's unfortunate that it has such a bad reputation because its an important piece screen and stage acting history. I think the problem is  people think method acting is something that it's not. I don't method acting was about staying in character or building a log cabin, or not wearing a wool coat because it's a period piece. My understanding of method is it was about finding a more psychologically real approach to acting. Instead of just performing an emotion, you draw from your own experiences, even painful ones to feel what the character is feeling. While it's associated strongly with American actors you have to travel back in time to Russia to find it origins. Konstantin Stanislavski called it "the system," rather than the method and then it was co-opted by American acting teachers like Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg. Brando never called himself a "method actor," disliking Strasberg's methods. Brando said it was Adler and Kazan who taught him everything about acting. 

Kazan actually started as an actor, moving to New York after studying drama at Yale and becoming part of the Group Theatre, which included the aforementioned Strasberg,  and which specialized in lesser known plays that delt with social issues, which Kazan would continue to explore as a stage and film director. In 1947 he founded the Actors Studio, a non-profit organization of which Strasberg became the director, who of course introduced "the method," and amongst his students were Montgomery Clift, Julie Harris, Karl Malden, Mildred Dunnock, Patricia Deal and Eli Wallach. 

While Kazan was never a teacher or practitioner of the method, he did use actors who practiced the method or something akin to it, actors like Brando and Malden, who co-starred in Truckline Cafe and then in the stage and film versions of Streetcar, as well as On the Waterfront. Kazan also worked with the always underrated Clift in the equally underrated Wild River. Clift often gets overshadowed by Brando, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe when it comes to 50s icons but I think he deserves as much credit as Brando for bringing a new kind of raw naturalism to the screen. His performance in A Place in the Sun is tremendous in how it creates a genuinely complex character who's neither hero or villain. He's also wonderful in his first film The Search, directed Fred Zinnemann, who also directed Brand in his first film role a couple of years later, The Men. In The Search, Clift plays an American soldier in Post WWII Germany who's attempting to reunite a boy with his mother, both of whom were in Auschwitz before being separated. Clift's chemistry with young actor Ivan Jandi (who won an Juvenile Oscar) provide the film with much humour and warmth, and it's definitely a movie worth seeking out.

 

Kazan also introduced James Dean to the world in East of Eden, based on the John Steinbeck novel, though condensed considerably by Kazan and Steinbeck, who had co-wrote Viva Zapata! together as well. The condensation of the generation spanning story of the Trask family, only focusing on the last section, centers the story on Cal Trask (Dean) and his fraught relationship with father Adam (Raymond Massey.) This was the only film of his Dean was alive to see, dying shortly before Rebel Without a Cause was released. Dean received criticism at the time for mimicking the acting style of Clift and Brando. It's true that Dean did emulate Brando and Clift, but I think the moodiness and mystery, as well as self-amusement belongs solely to Dean himself. 

Kazan never worked with Monroe but it's an intriguing what-if? Monroe studied the method under Adler and wanted to be more respected as an actress. Her last role in The Misfits, as long as Bus Stop years earlier, show a dramatic potential that could've flourished if Monroe had lived. 

Coming back to Brando, it's unfortunate that he got so lazy and pissed away his talent, because he obviously had a gift and charisma thar not everyone has. I'd argue Clift, Dean and Monroe had it but all died prematurely. Brando used to care so much about acting that he asked Kazan what the difference between Terry and his Streetcar character, Stanley Kowalski. This shows that Brando wanted to separate the two performances. I think it's easy for an actor sometimes to repeat themselves, but I don't Brando does in Waterfront, I think Terry is a different man than Stanley. Kazan wrote Brando a letter where he talked about the differences between the two men. He felt Terry was a more complex character than Stanley, which I agree. Kazan didn't feel there was a divide in Stanley, that he was more confident than Terry, lacking the the loneliness that pervades Terry. Kazan sums up Terry's journey throughout the film as  "A bum becomes a man." I think Stanley is a reprehensible animal in Streetcar whereas Terry feels more sympathetic and more well drawn.

Kazan's use of method actors or actors akin to method actors correlates with his tendency towards social realism. While casting a big star like Brando in the role of a dockworker amongst actual dockworkers would seem counterintuitive but Brando feels less like a movie star trying to be a everyday worker than a truly embodied kind of performance. Doing it now, you would Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pit or Bradley Cooper trying real hard to appear natural. In general they fight really hard against their movie star image and I think Brando is one of the few who did it naturally. Don't get me wrong, I think the aforementioned actors have been great in certain roles and I'll go to bat for those performances. I still think Leo should've won for Wolf of Wall Street or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

 

Brando almost wasn't in the film due to his dislike of Kazan testifying in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, giving up names of communists to Joseph McCarthy. While it allowed him to still work it did and does give him a black mark to this day. When he received his Honorary Oscar in 1999, you had people like Nick Nolte and Ed Harris refusing to even clap.  Years before, Orson Welles called Kazan a "traitor" though also called him a fine director. I think Welles was kind of blowhard. That, and calling him a traitor seems to ignore how ruthless, cutthroat and remorseless a place Hollywood. I don't mean to condone Kazan's actions but let's not romanticize Hollywood as a completely rosy place. 

Malden, who was a Academy board member, was the proponent of the Honorary Oscar. His speech in front of the board supposedly drew applause and Charlton Heston also supported the decision, saying political differences shouldn't deny him of the honor, noting that Kazan was denied lifetime achievement honors because of his testimony, and the film is often seen as Kazan's defense of his actions.

The film is  unambiguously on the side of Terry informing. Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) and his goons are thugs, bullies and murderers. When Terry's brother Charley (Rod Steiger) is killed because he failed to convince Terry not to testify, as well as not killing him, it's like yeah, fuck those guys.  Now, I don't think this film works as an defense on Kazan's part of his own actions- the people he testified against weren't murderers or any kind of villains. In real life, it was Joseph McCarthy who was the real villain. When it comes to Kazan, I think his actions are complicated than his critics believe.

 I don't straight up condone but Kazan did but I feel he believed he was doing the right thing. I agree with Malden who felt the blame needed to be placed on politics. I think we should hate  McCarthy more than Kazan.  

Budd Schulberg, who won an Oscar for the film's screenplay, was also a "friendly witness" for HUAC. His screenplay I think is one of the most perfectly constructed. The way the film sets up Terry's past as a prizefighter and finally pays it off in the famous taxi scene (which I'll talk about later.), as well as its handling of a diverse ensemble of characters all while still keeping it a character study of the Terry character. 

When Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro (who starred in Kazan's The Last Tycoon) presented Kazan with the Honorary Oscar Scorsese described Kazan as "This poetic realist," which I think may be the best description of Kazan as a filmmaker outside the oft used "Actor's director" used for directors of his kin. Kazan's films exist in a place where a new kind of psychological realism meets something more stylized and sometimes theatrical. The famous cab scene where Terry essentially tells Charley that he ruined his life, that if we wasn't asked to throw a fight years earlier he could've been a "contender." This scene walks a fine line between realism and melodrama, expertly (by the actors and Kazan) never losing the audience. It takes place in this enclosed place compared to the more lived in locations of the previous scenes, this taxi cab where the blinds are drawn in the back and we never see the driver until the end. It almost feels like a play, where everything is driven strictly by the actors and the dialogue. When we finally see the sinister driver, who we know is going to kill Charlie, it's a startlingly change of perspective. And you have to wonder, what was this guy thinking about when these two brothers were having this soul baring conversation? 

Compare the closed-off theatricality of the taxi scene with the docudrama scenes on the waterfront,. showing the workaday life and environment of the dockworkers. Then you have the noirish scenes

like when Charley is found dead and Terry and Evie (Joey's sister) are chased by a car. I mean, that shot of the goons on the roof at the beginning is straight something from a crime film. And Terry is a noirish character, a man haunted by his past, a guy who exists in a morally grey area. Terry ultimately has a more triumphant and redemptive ending than most noir characters - unlike most noir characters who are doomed by the femme fatale, Terry is saved by the angelic Evie, played by Eva Marie Saint in her film debut, which won her the Best Supporting Actress Oscar alongside Brando's Best Actor win. I feel bad for not mentioning her character earlier because she's so significant and is a big impetus for Terry's interna conflict. When she says "No wonder they call you a bum," so disgusted by Terry not wanting to help, it hurts us as much as Terry. 

Karl Malden's priest character Father Barry is also crucial to Terry's decision to testify because after Charley's murder Terry to strike out violently but Barry- who is right- tells him it's better to fight Friendly in court. Barry's character is also another instance of realism and theatricality blending and blurring in this film. Barry's sermons are probably the weakest part of this film and kind of drags it down.

On the Waterfront's denouement may strike some as too Hollywood, and it provides a bitter irony when contrasted with Kazan's reputation- which unlike Terry, is not that of a hero. Kazan never asked for forgiveness, maybe because he didn't feel he needed. Kazan did say in interviews that he probably would've done the same thing even if he had thought about it again. Despite Kazan's testimony, On the Waterfront won eight Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Kazan. It's one of the best Best Picture winners, though Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window is my favourite that year. I understand it's hard for people to separate their feelings about Kazan from the film, largely because it's so reflective of his beliefs on testifying. People use the expression "Separate the art from the artist" but I think it's so much difficult and complicated than that. Like I said, the film reflects Kazan's belief that he was right to testify, and I don't think the film works on that level, for I reasons I laid out earlier. I still appreciate the film for Brando's performance and for the story in its context. It remains a reminder of Kazan and Brando's immense talent and importance to cinema, as complicated as it is regarding Kazan.  

     

Death, Taxes, and Franchise Longevity: "Alien 3" and "Alien Resurrection" as Franchise Extensions and Parallel Versions of "Alien" and "Aliens"

Spoilers for the Alien series below

When Charlton Heston blew up the planet of the apes at the end of Beneath the Planet of the Apes, it was thought by Heston- who came up with the idea- that this would prevent any more sequels being made. But, this didn't stop 20th Century Fox from making Escape From The Planet of the Apes shortly after. James Bond is dead but we'll see a new Bond...sometime in the future. Avengers: Endgame felt like, well, the endgame of the MCU. The thing is, a franchise will always find a way to extend its life, even when it probably should end (though I guess there were several loose ends at the end of Endgame).  The question is, how do you continue on a story after it's logical end point. "Rebooting" is always the easy option but there was a time where you didn't really wipe the slate clean- you just continued on with new characters or a new actor as Batman or Bond. When it comes to clear-cut endings, James Cameron's Aliens gives Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) a pretty neat ending-

having overcome the trauma from the original Ridley Scott Alien, and gaining a surrogate daughter and possible love interest. But of course, a third film had to be made. After having difficulty nailing down a story, and even without a finished script, Alien 3 was made, helmed by first time director David Fincher. Alien 3 gives an even more definitive end to Ripley's story- having her commit suicide but, again, a sequel had to be made, and Ripley was brought back as a clone for Alien Resurrection, this time directed by French auteur Jean Pierre Jeunet. Neither Alien 3 or Resurrection are beloved as the first two films but in this piece I want to talk about how they operate, not only as franchise extensions, but also largely as parallel versions of the first two films. 

If Aliens is one of the quintessential Hollywood blockbusters, incredibly audience friendly- filled with one liners and an almost Spielbergian sentiment, then Alien 3 is perhaps the bleakest, nihilistic and audience-unfriendly film of any franchise. It essentially tells its audience "Hey, remember that cute little girl and the cool Colonial marine you loved so much from Aliens? Yeah they're dead, and our supporting cast is now of group of ex-convicts guilty of rape, murder and child molestation. And, oh yeah, Ripley has an alien growing inside of her and wants to kill herself." I've heard Alien 3 compared to a Michael Haeneke film and yeah, the tone of the film does feel like you're watching a depressing European art-house film rather than the 3rd film in a popular film franchise. But that's what I kind of love and appreciate about it. I can't think of another franchise installment that gut punches its audience the way this one does (though I understand many had the same experience with The Last Jedi).

It's pitiless and remorseless, in stark contrast to the sentiment of Aliens.

If Cameron makes very audience friendly films with a certain kind of sentiment, than Fincher often really puts the audience through it, not really giving them easy joy or comfort. I can't really see Cameron ever doing anything as bleak as the ending of Seven. This isn't a judgement call on Cameron as a filmmaker, just an observation. What I love about the original 4 movie cycle is that each film stands out as distinct vision. Aliens could've been the template for all the Alien sequels afterwards, similar to how Terminator 2 became the basis for pretty much every Terminator sequel afterwards. Alien 3, on the other hand, feels increasingly radical as a sequel as the years pass since it stops the story of Aliens in its natural path, saying we're not going to Earth or continuing on the family story of Ripley, Hicks and Newt.  We're not doing a bigger scale film but something small, intimate and sad. 

Alien 3 takes a back to basics approach, limiting itself to one alien, and removing guns from the equation. As with the original, the characters have to get creative in how they'll kill the xenomorph. As franchises go on, there's usually a tendency to keep going bigger with the set-pieces and more of what people liked before. However Alien 3 is pretty minimalist as far as sequels go, surprisingly somber and understated. The setting- a former prison colony now overseen as a lead factory by its former inmates who've found religion- also gets back to the original's gothic atmosphere. Star Wars' lived in universe aesthetic influenced Scott when making Alien and its present in Alien 3,  filtered through Fincher's 90s grunge aesthetic. This is perhaps the most visually striking film in the franchise, Alex Thomson's cinematography creating something beautiful out such a bleak setting.

 

The horror of the original Alien was largely based in its theme of sexual assault and death through childbirth. Many have remarked in the past how it subverts the image of sexual assault by having a man raped instead of a woman. . In Alien 3, the fear of sexual assault is placed back on the female character, but this time with the threat of sexual assault coming from the former inmates. If Alien didn't make a big deal of Ripley's gender (I believe Ripley was originally written to be a man) this film positions her as the lone female, the first and only time in the series, with the threat of male violence against her a constant undercurrent. There is an attempted rape by some of the prisoners on Ripley, who's saved by Dillon (Charles S. Dutton). The irony is clear- this is the man who straight out told Ripley he was a "murderer and a rapist of women." Dillon is a man looking for some kind of redemption and he and Ripley become unlikely allies. 

One of the criticisms of the film is its hard to care about killing these men who are guilty of such heinous crimes, which I get. Outside of Ripley, the character we're allowed to feel the most warmth towards is Clemens (Charles Dance), the medical doctor who was once a former prisoner. He there because he got drunk and prescribed an incorrect dose of painkillers on survivors of a fuel plant boiler explosion. Ripley and Clemens become intimate- the only time we actually see a romantic interaction in the four films- but Clemens is killed off pretty early, Psycho-style, leaving the audience with pretty much just the inmates. Again, I actually kind of appreciate how the film doesn't make it easy for the audience. We're not given them easily identifiable or straight out likable characters but I'd argue the film is asking the audience if they're willing to sympathize or at least get on board with these characters. I find something compelling about Ripley and these inmates having to team together to fight the alien. This is essentially a story about people who have either lost everything (Ripley) or had nothing to begin with (Dillon) having to work together against a common enemy. Dillon sums it up pretty well when he tells the inmates that they're all going to die, you just have to decide how you're going to do it. This may sum up the whole franchise- when facing certain death how are you going to do it? 

Returning to the theme of sexual assault, the ultimate irony comes when Ripley realizes she's already been sexually assaulted by a facehugger, with a xenomorph growing within her. In Alien, Ripley fought for her own survival, and in Aliens, for her surrogate daughter. Here, Ripley is fighting the right to end her own life.  largely to stop the alien from getting in to the hands of the Weyland-Yutani corporation who want to use it as a weapon. In his video essay on the film for his "The Unloved" series, Scout Tofoya remarks how rare it is to see a mainstream Hollywood emphasize with a woman's desire to have an abortion. Ripley does ultimately succeed in killing herself.  This  may not be the happy ending people were left with at the end of Aliens, is a sort of final triumph for this character, going out on her own terms.

And for a while, Alien 3 was the conclusion of the story. Of course, the ending didn't stick, with Alien Resurrection coming several years later. Just as Alien 3 parallels Alien, with its gothic setting and bleak tone, Resurrection attempts to ape Aliens' more humorous, fun action movie vibe. We have multiple xenomorphs, the return of guns to the equation and the broader characterizations.  The film's director, Jeunet, is probably best known to people as the director of Amelie though he hadn't directed it at this time, though he had directed The City of Lost Children and Delicatessen. Jeunet is the franchise's most off-beat and out of left field choice, with Resurrection being is the strangest, ickiest, and tonally conflicted of the four films. Screenwriter Joss Whedon has expressed his dissatisfaction with the film, saying it was directed wrong, acted wrong, and cast wrong. Unlike Aliens, which I think balanced its tone pretty well, Resurrection can't completely decide what kind of film it needs to wants to be. It wants to be, I think, a fun action movie in the vein of Aliens, but's it almost too grotesque and weird, and not really as exciting as Cameron's film.  

 

We almost had a deeper connection to Aliens with Whedon's original idea of cloning Newt, making her the lead of the film. 20th Century Fox however didn't want a story without Weaver. I feel Newt had potential as the lead of the franchise, if they had cast a strong actress in the role (Carrie Henn quit acting after Aliens, her only film). The idea of cloning Ripley was actually a joke producer David Giler made to Weaver when Alien 3 premiered. Resurrection definitely feels like the textbook definition of a franchise jumping the shark, or maybe we should say xenomorph, in an attempt to extend its life cycle, though the film does do funny and bold things with the idea of Ripley being a clone, though she's not just a clone, she's an alien human hybrid. In interviews Whedon said he thought Weaver wouldn't want to play Ripley in such a weird way but he was surprised she told him to push things further. Like in Aliens, Ripley is a mother figure, having been the bearer of the xenomorph embryo, a queen which gives birth to a human/xenomorph baby- yeah, it's very weird. Ripley was attempting to save her surrogate daughter before whereas now as he she has to kill her literal offspring. 

Another parallel with Aliens, and something I think is integral to Ripley's story, is the continuation of the "Rip Van Winkle" thing with Ripley waking up years in the future. Ripley was in cryosleep for 57 years between the first two movies, now it's 200 years in the future. Ripley becomes more and more of an isolated character as the sequels go on- with the Resurrection positioning her as not even being completely human or even the same Ellen Ripley. When we arrive on Earth at the film's end, the android Call (Winona Ryder) asks what's next, to which Ripley replies that she's a stranger there herself. While I get why killing Newt off is seen as an unforgivable sin by many, I think Ripley works better as a loner, a ultimately a tragic figure. Sure, a big part of me wonders what alternate universe version of Alien 3 looks like but I love that the Alien 3 we got makes you feel the pain of triumph snatched away, that sickening irony. Each sequel does undo the victory of the previous film's ending, though I guess that's just the horror genre- it doesn't matter how many times you kill Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees, they'll be back for the sequel. I think it's best to look a the Alien quadrilogy as variations on a theme, with each director approaching their film as a stand alone film rather than as a Marvel-esque serialized piece of storytelling.

I never know how to end these things so I'll hand it over to you. What are your thoughts on the two latter Alien sequels. Are you a fan or do yo find them huge disappointments. Comment and let me know.