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. 

 

 

                             

 

Hitchcock's Experimental, Art-House Monster Movie: "The Birds" at 60.

 

Spoilers for The Birds and Psycho

Do I own The Birds on Blu-ray and can watch it comfortably at home? Yes. Did I still head out to a theatre to see a 60th anniversary showing of the film? Also yes. There's something cool about seeing classic cinema on the big screen and since it's one my favourites from my favourite director, I'm almost obligated to go). It got me thinking that there was a time where you had to see a movie in theatres, it wasn't as easy as it is now to see films. There was something special about something being shown on TV or getting re-released. Now it feels like something's in theatres for a week before it hits streaming. But anyway, back to The Birds. This was Hitchcock's follow-up to Psycho and its notable the only two horror films in his career were made consecutively. They actually make pretty good companion pieces: with both of them displaying Hitchcock experimenting in the later part of his career (he was in his 60s when he made them) Psycho was a lower budget film shot in black and white with his crew from his TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents, coming on the heels of the proto-blockbuster North by Northwest nd was subversive in its plot structure, particularly the murder of its supposed main character almost an hour in. The Birds showed Hitchcock forgoing plot almost all together in favor of atmosphere and metaphorical/apocalyptic horror. 

The first way Hitchcock experiments in The Birds (and Psycho) is how he subverts genre expectations. The thing is, people walked in to Psycho knowing there was going to be a character who was a psycho. They also walked in to The Birds knowing there were going to be bird attacks. The suspense comes from how long Hitchcock takes to get to the shower scene and the initial bird attack. What Hitchcock does mischievously is begin the films not as horror but as a noir crime film (Psycho) and a romantic comedy (The Birds) It's almost a hour before Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a bank clerk who steals money from work to start a life with her boyfriend, is killed in the infamous shower scene.  

In  The Birds it takes a half hour before a gull attacks socialite Melanie Daniels. The film begins with her being spotted at a bird store by Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), a lawyer whom recognizes her from court appearance regarding a practical joke. He pretends to mistake for a employee, giving her a taste of her own medicine. He thinks she should've gone to jail. She thinks he's "a louse." Basically, it's the "He's arrogant, she's stuck-up but they're obviously attracted to each other" romantic comedy set-up. Mitch inquired about some love birds for his sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright's) birthday so Melanie gets two and travels all the way to his family farm in Bodega Bay. While she's watching Mitch discover them from her boat, a gull attacks her. The gull attack parallels the shower scene- a stroke of violence in the midst of water, in a moment of  calm. It also puts the audience on edge for another instance of violence. 

The Birds also has something in common with one off Hitchcock's earlier film,  Shadow of a Doubt (1943). In both, a small community is invaded by a sinister force. In the former it's a serial killer played by Joseph Cotton, in the latter it's, well...birds; but not only birds, but normally docile birds. In in the indispensable book Hitchcock/Truffaut, which transcribes interviews between Hitchcock and filmmaker Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock says "I think that if the story had involved vultures, or birds of prey, I might not have wanted it. The basic appeal to me is that it had to do with ordinary, everyday birds."  Hitchcock contrasts these normal birds' usual docile nature with random bursts of violence. And like Shadow of a Doubt, the violence is juxtaposed with a low-key setting. 

Truffaut later on in the interview says of The Birds' structure: 

    The story construction follows the three basic rules of classic tragedy: unity of place, of time, and of     action. All of the action takes place within two days' time in Bodega Bay, The birds are seen in ever        growing numbers and they become increasingly dangerous as the action progresses. 

Screenwriter Evan Hunter and Hitchcock understand the need to make each attack bigger, until the film takes on apocalyptic overtones. By the climax it feels the like the world is ending. However, keeping the story in one setting and focusing on a small set of characters also makes the story intensely intimate. M. Night Shyamalan was clearly inspired by Hitchcock and this film when making his alien invasion thriller Signs, which I wrote about here: Davies in the Dark: The Essential Films: "Signs" (2002) (thenoirzone.blogspot.com)  

I want to take some time now to focus on the character dynamics which foreground much of the film, particularly the relationship between Melanie and Mitch's mother, Lydia (Jessica Tandy), whom she meets after Mitch has looked to her wound. Mitch invites Melanie over for dinner where she also meets Cathy, who takes a immediate liking to Melanie, clearly liking her present. Lydia, however is more aloof. Melanie is staying with schoolteacher Annie Heyward, who once had a relationship with Mitch. That night, Melanie and Annie discuss Annie's former romance with Mitch and her complicated relationship with Lydia.

Annie: I was seeing quite a lot of him in San Francisco, you know. And then, one weekend, he asked me up to meet Lydia.

Melanie: When was this?

Annie: Four years ago. Of course, that was shortly after his father died. Things may be different now. 

Melanie: Different?

Annie: With Lydia. Did she seem a trifle distance? 

Melanie. A trifle.

Annie: Then maybe it wasn't different at all. You know, her attitude nearly drove me crazy. I simply couldn't understand it. When I got back to San Francisco I spent days trying to figure out just what I'd done to displease her.

Melanie: And what had you done.

Annie: Nothing. I simply existed. So what was the answer? A jealous woman, right? A clinging, possessive mother. Wrong. With all due respect to Oedipus, I don't think that was the case at all.

Melanie: Then what was it?

Annie: Lydia liked me, you see. That was the strange part of it. In fact, now that I'm no longer a threat, we're very good friends.

Melanie: Then why did she object to you?

Annie: She was afraid.

Melanie: Afraid you'd take Mitch?

Annie: Afraid I'd give Mitch.

Melanie: I don't understand.

Annie: Afraid of any woman who'd give Mitch the only she can give him- love.

Melanie: Annie, that adds up to a jealous, possessive woman. 

Annie: No, I don't think so. She's not afraid of losing her son, you see. She's only afraid of being abandoned.   

On a sidenote, Hunter's dialogue is so good. While Hitchcock always believed in the idea of "pure cinema," telling the story strictly through the visuals, his films often had stellar dialogue passages. What I like specifically about this passage is it's all about small but significant differences. While everything points to Lydia being a "jealous, possessive woman," Annie doesn't feel it's that simple. She can't see Lydia as purely jealous, she even says Lydia liked her. Annie also makes distinctions between fear of giving vs. fear taking and fear of lost vs. fear of abandonment. Minute differences but they tell us about how Annie views things and maybe tells us something about Lydia as well.

We get to understand Lydia quite a bit in a later scene, which comes after Lydia's seen the dead body (with eyes gouged out by birds) of a neighbor. She's alone with Melanie and in a vulnerable position. She talks about the death of her husband, her reliance on his strength throughout  the years and her wish to be a stronger person. It's the first time Lydia warms up to Melanie and she says something surprising to her, which is she's not sure if she even likes Melanie. A honest statement, and one that reflects Lydia's complicated feelings towards Melanie and her relationship with her son. It'd be easy to just have Lydia outright hate Melanie but her confession feels more nuanced and sympathetic.

Mitch also has his own complicated relationship with Melanie. His lawyer side dislikes her troublemaking side but when he spies her on the boat, he smiles, amused, and probably surprised she went though all that trouble to bring hum those birds. He's clearly concerned when she's attacked by a gull and invites her over for dinner. So, he's not completely hostile towards her. And I suspect there was likely already an attraction towards her. There's something playful already at play in the initial encounter,  

And how are we, the audience, supposed to take Melanie? She's maybe not as easily "likable" as the main character is "supposed" to be. Hitchcock, Hunter, and Hedren allow us to feel our way through the character as we learn more about and spend more time with her. I personally find Mitch to be kind of a judgmental ass at the beginning, though as I said, he's compensating a little for his attraction to her.. Watching the movie this time, I quite liked Hedren's performance. She has the right amount of cool and warmth needed for a character who goes from socialite who glides through life to a more mature, deeper feeling person who becomes part of the Brenner family. Just before the first bird attack at Cathy's, Melanie and Mitch have a conversation where Melanie, like Lydia a few scenes later, shows her vulnerability. We learn Melanie's mother abandoned her when she was young and Melanie tells about the things she does with her life, including putting a Korean boy through school. Of course, it's obvious what's Melanie is missing in her life- a family.  

Okay, let's come back to how Hitchcock is experimenting in this film. What I find notable about The Birds in contrast to Hitchcock's other work is it's virtually plotless. Hitchcock usually has a Macguffin (the thing every character wants but doesn't matter what it is, it's just there to get the ball rolling), a murder, or an innocent man on the run. According to Hunter there was almost going to be a murder mystery plot, with the birds being the culprits. Instead, there's no real mystery except when the birds are going to attack. Hitchcock once used the example of a bomb under the table to highlight surprise vs. suspense. You see two men at a table. A bomb suddenly goes off- that's surprise. What's suspense is seeing the bomb under the table and wondering when it's going off. The film goes for the latter approach and I think that's the proper choice. It also allows the film to foreground the characters more.

I mentioned earlier the escalation of the bird attacks gave the film apocalyptic overtones, which again shows Hitchcock playing with something new- a world ending scenario, as well as a "monster movie." Hitchcock's monster were typically serial killers or Nazis. But here, the monsters aren't really monsters. Mother nature is simply fighting back against humanity for taking them for granted, or at least this was Hitchcock's explanation. I believe the film is thematically more fascinating and starker if there isn't an explanation for the bird attacks. In his book, Hitchcock's Films Revisited, Robin Wood views the birds as 

    a concrete embodiment of the arbitrary and unpredictable, of whatever makes human life and human     relationships precarious, a reminder of fragility and instability that cannot be ignored or evaded and,     beyond that, of the possibility that life is meaningless and absurd.

He also compares the bird attack to Marion murder in Psycho, in that they're both unprovoked and unearned. Horror often has a nihilistic streak to it. In horror we witness innocent people die and evil winning out. It's a ruthless genre and Hitchcock showed how ruthless he could be in Psycho. He further shows this mercilessness when Annie is unceremoniously killed by the birds offscreen. Annie's death is more painful because it's not seen and it demonstrates Hitchcock's preoccupation with placing us in the mind of his characters. We have to imagine Annie's end as Melanie and Mitch must do. 

Aside from providing no clear explanation for the birds' war against humans Hitchcock also doesn't give us a neat ending either. Melanie and the Brenners live but the final shot is the car driving off in to an uncertain future, with the birds still covering the Brenner house, in what we already know is a short reprieve from the attacks. This is arguably the most ambiguous ending Hitchcock ever concocted, though Psycho and Vertigo's endings also create a sense of unease in the audience. The Birds was ahead of its time, for a Hollywood movie at least, in providing no clear finish for the story. The film end before it seems to end. 

The only resolution the ending contains is the shared look between the injured Melanie and Lydia in the backseat of the car, suggesting Lydia has finally accepted Melanie and will care for her in her weakened state. Is the ending partly hopeful? I don't know. However, it does suggest that as the world is ending, people will stick together, that we need each other and must accept one another. It's also the resolution to Melanie's arc, where she starts out as an aloof loner but becomes part of a family.    

Adding to the film's escalating terror is Hitchcock's choice to forgo an accompanying score, another experimental choice. During the bird attacks all you hear is the flapping of wings and squawking sounds. This accomplishes two things: giving you the felling of being in the middle of  a bird assault, with your senses being overwhelmed. It's also another way the film sets itself apart from a traditional Hollywood feature. We may not first notice the absence of a musical score but when you realize it it's a brilliant way to an even stronger sense of fear in the audience. When Melanie is waiting outside the school for Cathy, the children's choir is the ironic soundtrack to the birds gathering behind Melanie on the jungle gym. George Tomasini's editing is so in tune with Hitchcock's dark sense of humour as the editing steadily builds the flocking of the birds behind the oblivious Melanie. Tomasini deserves recognition as being a key Hitchcock collaborator, editing several of Hitchcock's most famous films, including Psycho, Rear Window, and North by Northwest. He also edited the original Cape Fear, which I wrote about on this blog as having a heavy Hitchcock influence.

Why did Hitchcock move towards something more experimental, forgoing plot and certain Hitchcockian tropes. It may have something to do with Hitchcock's fascination with the international art house cinema of the 60s. Richard Allen, in his essay "Hitchcock and the Wandering Woman: The Influence of Italian Art Cinema on The Birds," argues that Hitchcock was 

        challenged and provoked by the remarkable and rapid developments taking place in European art            cinema. The Birds was conceived by Hitchcock in part as a response to this challenge, a work that         at once would continue continue his commercial success and confirm his status as an auteur on a            par with the European directors he so admired. Hitchcock engaged with art cinema to inspire                  creativity and sustain his critical reputation

In an interview with Charles L.P. Silet, Hunter also makes the claim that Hitchcock want be seen as a serious artist: 

    Hitch also told me later, and I learned later from other sources, that he was looking for some 'artistic     respectability' with The Birds. This was something that always eluded him, and he deliberately chose     to work with a successful New York novelist, rather than a Hollywood screenwriter.

Hitchcock was embraced by the French critics as a genuine artist, an auteur, whereas he wasn't as highly regarded in the states, seen as more of an entertainer than an artist. Of course, he wasn't one who was reclaimed by the French: Howard Hawks, another great mesher of entertainment and artistry, was another to whom the French applied the Auteur Theory approach of criticism, the idea that the director was the "author" of their films and had a singular visual style and consisitent themes running through their work.

Not only did Hitchcock go to a novelist for screenwriting duties, he chose a short story from Daphne  Du Maurier, the author who wrote the basis of his first American film, and the only one of his that won Best Picture: Rebecca. While Hitchcock considered Rebecca as belonging to its producer, David O.Selznick, he may have felt the Best Picture victory and Du Maurier's literary pedigree could provide him with the basis for a true artistic picture. 

As relating to the thesis of Hitchcock being influenced by European cinema, Allen argues that The Birds shares quite a bit in common with F.W. Murneau's 1927 silent film, Sunrise, where a woman enters a small town to seduce a man who lives with the family. Allen argues that Hitchcock drawing from Murneau displays a return to Hitchcock's roots in the 1920s as a young filmmaker, where he also took inspiration from directors he admired. Allen also sees a reverse influence by way of Michelangelo Antonioni recontextualizing Rear Window and The Lady Vanishes in the shape of his 1960 film L'Avventura. In that film a woman goes missing, after which her boyfriend and friend engage in an affair, which echoes the disappearing women plots of the former films.

Allen further develops the Antonioni connection by citing David Bordwell's classification of the art   house protagonist, a wanderer who is in a passive relationship with the environment. "The wandering woman" walks without purpose, and is both observed and observing. This is a character that can be found Antonioni's films in the form of actress Monica Vitti. Allen relates Melanie to the archetype of the wandering woman but stresses that the difference between the women in Hitchcock's film have agency, whereas the women in Antonioni's film don't. In the early parts of the film, where Melanie travels to Bodega Bay show us a woman on a mission but by showing us every part of her journey suggests something distinctly European in terms of plot, or lack of plot I should say. It's all very banal, but in its banality it creates the proper contrast to the gull attack. 

I'd say Hitchcock combined the art-house with the monster movie, but also blurring those lines, where the birds take on the same thematic weight as the environments do in Antonioni. Admittedly, it wasn't until this viewing of The Birds and reading up and thinking about the connection between the art-house and Hitchcock that I saw it as the experimental work it really is. While Hitchcock would eventually retreat in to familiarity with Torn Curtain, when looking at Psycho, The Birds, and his next film, Marnie. these films showcase what could be called Hitchcock's art-house phase- and I think you can certainly add Vertigo in there as well. While some see these films as quaint, I'd argue they represent an artist in his later years re-thinking of what he was capable. The Birds is singularly Hitchcock, however one looks at it, however, and one of his boldest experiments in suspense.

"No One Will Save You"

Some spoilers below

My favourite director, Alfred Hitchcock, always believed in the concept of "pure cinema," which is basically telling of a film's story purely through the visuals. Hitchcock thought many films were "photographs of people talking" and that the silent cinema was more ideal than the "talkies.". Writer/director Brian Duffield seems to taken Hitchcock's commitment to pure cinema to heart for his sophomore film, No One Will Save You, which asks the question "What if Signs was a silent, one-woman show?" It's another ambitious venture for Duffield, whose 2020 film Spontaneous took a "How do you make out of that" premise and made an unexpectedly emotional love story out of it. As with Spontaneous, No One Will Save You is a character piece with a genre conceit as its background, grounding its fantastic premise in something authentically human and relatable.

Kaitlyn Dever stars as Brynn Adams, a woman who lives in a huge house all alone, doesn't really have any friends and is still mourning the loss of her mother from several years earlier. One night her house is invaded by alien...and that's pretty all I can tell, one- because that's pretty much what the movie is. As I said it's Signs but with one person, but also, where the film eventually goes is perhaps too vague on Duffield's part and honestly, I'm still not sure about what these aliens want or what happens in the film's final act and closing scene. It also feels like it has three big emotional climaxes, with Duffield not knowing where to end it or tie all three together. 

But if the film doesn't completely live up to it's potential, it's a still worth seeking out due to its commitment to visual storytelling and also to is lead performance. Dever was so good in Olivia Wilde's Booksmart and last year's Shakespeare-inspired comedy Rosaline, and this is a great showcase for her underrated talents. She creates a sympathetic and dimensional character out of the sparsity of Duffield's script. From the very beginning, with Brynn waving to herself in the mirror, Dever reveals Brynn's awkwardness in social situations, and Dever carries herself as someone who's only really comfortable building model houses. Dever has such an appealing face and a down to earth to beauty that you have no problem watching her.

Though there are scenes with other people, the lack from Brynn to them or them to her gives us this isolating feel, putting us in Brynn's shoes and making everyone feel as much like an uncomfortable presence to us as they are to Brynn. Everyone feels...alien. The only time Brynn comes close to speaking to anyone, the parents of her friend Maude who died years ago, she's spit on by Maude's mother. Then, when Brynn's on a bus attempting to leave an the initial attack, a man sits behind her on the bus. We expect this is some kind of creep, but then it's revealed it's an alien in disguise who attacks her. Everyone feels like they could be a threat to Brynn and since Duffield so effectively puts us in Brynn's head, it's like a radical form of empathy.  Coming back to Hitchcock, he was adept at putting you in the minds of his characters, good or bad. Remember when Norman is cleaning up the mess after "shower scene"? Remember how Hitchcock makes you worried Norman is going to be caught when the car doesn't sink in the river? Part of why Hitchcock's films are so suspenseful is because you're feeling the suspense the characters are feeling.   

I want to talk a little about the aliens. Duffield and his VFX artists go for a retro look with the invaders, which I think works. A more original look would've put the focus more on them than on Brynn. There's also something humorous about this young woman killing aliens right out of a 50s B movie. On a side note,  it's always hard not to think about Home Alone when you see someone preparing for a home invasion. Spielberg's shadow, like a mothership, will always hover over the alien visitor sub-genre, so Duffield was also likely thinking of Spielberg's own retro take on aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, another film that's essentially a character piece. And if Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) was a family man who becomes a loner who runs away from his life, Brynn is a loner who has to deal with her past.  

We admire Brynn for her resourcefulness in facing off against the aliens. There's a believability to how Brynn interacts with these creatures, a simplicity to how these kills them. It's close encounters in closed in spaces. While the aliens do have psyhic powers, it's the only advantage they really have. They're Kryptonian warriors from Man of Steel or even the terrifying tripods from Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Again, there's kind of a humorous touch to the proceedings, without dipping in to full comedy. 

So yeah, I would say check this one out. Again, I think it needed a little more clarity in the final act to bring it together seamlessly but it's a worthwhile experiment. So, what's your favourite alien invasion/contact story. Comment and let me know.

 

The Essential Films: The Terminator (1984)

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 the film. 

The Terminator is maybe my favourite movie. Many people prefer Terminator 2: Judgment Day but I always go for the first one. T2 is more of a crowd pleasing summer action film about a boy and his pet terminator (I like the movie but have complicated feelings about it) but The Terminator is much bleaker and dirtier, a mixture of sci-fi and horror which its writer and director James Cameron called "tech noir." Like most first films in a franchise there's a real purity to it. There's no formula or call backs, just an inventive story its director, like George Lucas with the original Star Wars, wanted to put on screen.

While Lucas had the success of American Graffiti to his name when he did Star Wars, Cameron had Piranha 2: The Spawning, which bombed with critics and audiences. It was during post production of that film where Cameron got sick and had a fever dream/nightmare about a robot skeleton dragging itself along the floor with kitchen knives. This obviously stuck with Cameron and became the basis for The Terminator. The film is often considered a horror film and of all the Terminator films it's the only one that feels like a pure translation of Cameron's nightmare on screen. The sequels go more for bombastic action than the pure terror of an unstoppable killing machine. And while Cameron could've just made a killer robot movie, he places the "slasher" element within the context of a intriguing time travel narrative that has, what I think, is one of the most underrated twists/payoffs in any movie.

In terms of the slasher genre, Cameron clearly took inspiration from John Carpenter's Halloween. Both Carpenter and Cameron show us ordinary women being stalked by hulking killers who feel out of place in the normal world. Tension is created through this unease and question of when they'll strike at the main character. Cameron's original conception of the Terminator was that of a normal looking guy who could come up to you in a crowd and kill you. But when he met Arnold Schwarzenegger, he rein-visioned it as what we see in the film. This is one of rare instances of Schwarzenegger playing a villain. The image we have of him is the goofy cartoon come to life but here Schwarzenegger is actually quite intimidating, a real beast. We see him kill a couple of innocent women point-blank. Before he kills the first Sarah Connor (he only knows the name of the woman he's after), there's that striking shot of him in the door frame, emotionless. Arguably, one can't call the Terminator evil. Rather, it's just a machine with a program.  

At first we don't know why the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) wants to Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), a waitress who's barely making it by. All we know is there's some future war between humans and machines and, as the opening text crawl tells, the final battle will be fought in the present day- with the Terminator , as well as another guy, Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), coming from the future. We eventually learn that in the future her son John Connor will lead the human resistance against the machines and winning the war. In a last ditch effort the machines have sent back the Terminator back to kill John before he's even born. 

The key to good exposition is to make the audience forget they're hearing an info dump. Cameron does this creating a sense of urgency during these scenes.  When Reese tells Sarah about her son and the future war, they're on the run from the Terminator, hiding in a car and then attempting to get to another. Cameron also avoids using flashbacks during this scenes so we're allowed to imagine Connor leading the humans against the machines. And when Reese is being interrogated at the police station, talking about the time displacement field, he's talking to a psychologist who clearly doesn't believe him. We're sharing in Reese's frustration with Silberman (Earl Boen), since we know the Terminator is going to arrive at any moment. Reese is captive and Sarah is isolated.  

A more routinely structured film would've given us all this information via Reese being told his mission at he film's beginning Reese would be this version's main character and the story would be that of a cool time-travelling action hero. Instead, Cameron takes a more subversive path, withholding the information regarding Sarah's significance from the audience until she learns it. Cameron wants this to be Sarah's story, a human story rather than just merely a time-travelling action movie.

Cameron also subverts the typical male action hero archetype of the time. Physically, Biehn is not a big guy but pretty skinny. And Biehn plays the character in the early parts of the film as very sketchy individual, possibly as dangerous to Sarah as the Terminator. He doesn't scresm "heroic" but makes Sarah nervous when she first sees him, thinking he's the ma who killed the other Sarah Connors (the Terminator doesn't know what Sarah looks like). It's only when Reese saves Sarah from the Terminator at the "Tech Noir" club that it becomes clear he's there to protect her. Cameron slows everything down as the Terminator approaches Sarah. In one of my favourite shots in the film- it points a laser target at Sarah. The suspense builds as Kyle takes out his shotgun and then everything goes back to normal speed as Kyle fires, almost as if the action has brought everything up to speed.

Biehn's performance is all raw, gritted teeth, sweaty, fried out energy. It's the type of character the franchise never revisited, even when they brought back Reese in later sequels. With the sequels, it's always Schwarzenegger as the robotic protector who fight another Terminator. Here, it's two humans against a unstoppable killing machine. It makes things more intimate, especially when Sarah and Reese do have sex. It's implied that Reese is a virgin before this and I can't think of another action movie of this kind that infers this about the main guy. 

Even barring the "mother of the future" thing, Sarah is understandably skeptical of Reese telling her there's a robot from the future trying to kill her. It's only when the Terminator mows down the police station that she truly and fully believes Reese is telling the truth. My favourite moment from the film is when Sarah thinks the Terminator is coming through the door but it's Reese. She's relieved it's him and the two share a brief moment before escaping. It's at this moment that the two are completely together, and will be for the rest of the film

Cameron knew he wouldn't have the budget to do a story set in the future so he wrote this smaller story which has big implications. The fate of the human race depends on the outcome of this chase thriller, and by the end we realize what has occurred is even more monumental and mind-bending, which is that Kyle is John's father. We can also  put 2 and 2 together and realize Sarah trained John because she knew about the future. The whole thing is a time loop and this chase thriller takes on a more mythic quality. 

Unlike most of the sequels, we never see John on screen. I prefer this because I believe John works better as off-screen presence, a symbol. "I'd die for John Connor," Reese tells Sarah, and I don't know if any of the actors who've played John have conveyed what we get from Reese talking about the guy. It also puts the focus on Sarah. She's the hero of the story, not John John can only become the man he is because of his mother's training and being told the truth about his father, the man Sarah loved. At the end she questions whether she should tell John this, if it'll influence his choice to send Kyle back. I believe it's because John Kyle is his father that he sends him back. "No fate but what we make" becomes the philosophy of Terminator 2 but the original implies there can only be one path. Could Sarah ever have done anything different than tell John the truth. I don't know. 

While the film concerns a future war, it's one of the great time capsule films of the 1980s. Sarah's hair is one of the most memorable images and the Tech Noir club, the music, the dancing, its just all drenched in 80sness. The film is also one of the great unsung L.A movies, especially L.A. at night. Cinematographer Adam Greenberg's shooting of the city at night has a Michael Mann-esque quality. I love the shot of the Terminator looking over the L.A cityscape, a city full of people who don't know of the coming apocalypse. And Brad Fiedel's score, that throbbing sound that's like the Terminator's mechanical heart, the mournful and metallic main theme, it's so good.  

The biggest challenge Cameron when writing, casting and direction, was how to convincingly take Sarah from this timid waitress to a survivor who drives off in to a storm at the end, symbolizing, not subtly. the coming apocalypse and the dark days ahead. Even when Sarah accepts there's a terminator after her, she still can't see herself as the actual person it's after. I think we as the audience are also supposed to wonder how this person could ever train a child to become the leader of the human race. But by the end, when Sarah drives off, it feels like we've been on an epic journey with Sarah. Again, Cameron took a small story and makes it feel bigger through its implication. Hamilton is convincing as both the afraid young woman but also the woman at the end who says "You're terminated, fucker." Cameron puts Sarah through so much, and has her bond with so Reese so deeply, that it's completely believable she would harden and be able to save herself, as well as taking on the responsibility of training John. And as I argued earlier, the film is fatalistic. There's only one path for Sarah to take. 

What brings back me to the movie is Sarah and Reese's relationship, as short-lived as it is. This feels like the most intimate of the Terminator films because, as I said earlier, it's two humans up against a machine rather a machine against a machine as in the sequels. Reese dies tragically while destroying  the Terminator's legs, a brutal hit to the audience but necessary for Sarah to eventually survive. That The Terminator ends up as a tragic but also triumphant love story is what makes this film stand out amongst other 80s action movies. While the Terminator is cold without feeling, the film itself, like the Tin Man has a real heart.