Alien

Kane with the "face-hugger" attached

Alien starts off showing the large panned out view of the mother ship and then slowly moves in and throughout the ship. As the camera finds the crew on board awakening, Kristin Thompson mentions in her chapter on Alien that Kane’s “waking first is also a way of making sure we can recognize him, since he spends most of his time in a space suit or in the concealing grip of the face-hugger” (288).

I found this opening interesting while at the same time confusing. It was interesting because it was silent with a large amount of ship detail being displayed. The opening allows for the viewer to have numerous thoughts enter their mind about the setting before reaching the cast asleep in the ship. However, at the same time it confused me because of the non-traditional nature the producer went about developing the characters. I felt that there was no one main character, which Thompson touches on in her piece about the Alien when she says, “The casting is quite ingenious, in that it avoids using any stars who would obviously be expected to survive to the end” (284).

The crew on the unknown planet where the alien is found

Alien is an intriguing film because the audience does not realize that the cast

will begin to die until over halfway through the film. It keeps the audience guessing which character, if any, will survive. According to Thompson, this type of plot “presents a challenge to filmmakers, in that audience involvement depends to a considerable degree on both suspense and surprise” (284). In the case of Ridley Scott, the director of Alien, who did an excellent job of attacking the challenge until the alien killed Dallas. At this point, I realized that Ripley would be the only remaining survivor because of her intensity in dealing with the situation when everyone else seemed overwhelmed by it.

Alien discription

In my opinion, the alien’s depiction is quite strange because of the way it is formed. The face-sucking alien that attaches to Kane’s face is not the alien that appears in the remaining scenes of the film. The alien is reproduced within Kane’s body in an unordinary fashion and Stephen Mulhall speaks about this in his response to the film when he says that “in order to reproduce, it must insert a long, flexible member into the host’s body through one of that body’s orifices, and deposit a version of itself within its host’s torso where it develops to the point at which it must force itself out again” (20). This act is not expected because all the other characters feel that he is fine until the alien forces his way out of Kain at the dinner table. This is the first time the audience sees the alien and when they do they see this very tiny, evil looking object. One thing I found interesting about the alien in the film was that it never had the same appearance. For example, the alien comes out of Kane as this tiny object then in the air ducts when Dallas tries to kill it, it appears as this massive round object with this large face. Furthermore, at the end of the movie when Ripley is in the small ship alone after the explosion, the alien appears hidden in the background but has these long tentacles similar to an octopus. These different looks that we see from the alien adds to the suspense of the viewer because they are not sure what will appear or when exactly it will appear.

Cinematography

The camera views in the movie also intrigue the viewer. I noticed camera angles in situations where the music would get intense and the characters would become more aware and freightened that the angles would increase. By increase I mean pan out down long hallways to see the character at the end then zoom in real close to the face to see the expression on their faces.

Also, the camera view was in first person at the end of the film when Ripley is looking for the alien. This was a way for the director to say that this person is now filming because they are the only remaining human alive.

One last camera angle I want to touch on is the wide-angle shot that we see when the mother ship explodes. It is an angle that allows for the entire explosion to be seen, which looks like a nuclear bomb exploded. Then at the end we see the small ship with Ripley just disappear into a vast space that exists in the universe. This shows that a small ship compares in comparison to the massive amounts of endless space.

Mulhall, Stephen. “Kane's Son, Cain's Daughter.” On Film. London: Routledge, 2002. 12-32.

Print.

Scott, Ridley, dir. Alien. 1979. Twentieth Century Fox, 2009.

Thompson, Kristin. "Alien." Storytelling in the New Hollywood. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999.

283-306. Print

Pan's Labyrinth

Pan’s Labyrinth was a film produced by Guillermo del Toro set against the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s and 1940s. Del Toro uses magnificent images and creative filming to produce a fantastic film that draws the viewer in and does not allow them out. He uses such compositional modes as mise en scène and cinematography to portray the message he is trying to get across. He also used Ofelia’s fantasy acts and objects in her wonderland to portray what is taking place in the real world.

Guillermo del Toro sets the film within the Spanish Civil War and does not tame any of the gruesome executions or torture that occurred. An example was when Captain Vidal stabbed and shot the men who were hunting rabbits because he thought they were part of the guerillas. Furthermore, del Toro puts the audience into the war with the culture, history, and location that is portrayed. Smith and Edwards both comment on this in their overviews of Pan’s Labyrinth. Smith states it like this, “Eluding nativism (shooting “in exile”), he also avoids facile multiculturalism, engaging deeply with the culture, history, and cinema of his host country” (4). Edwards says something very similar when he says, “This fecund, earthy and maternal underland is juxtaposed with scenes in the 'real' world of fascist Spain in 1944, with their steely military colours and sharp cold lines and shapes” (142). Edwards’ description not only ties the film to the time period, but also to the underworld that Ofelia is part of.

Captain Vidal

Guillermo del Toro shows cinematography in his film making that is fantastic. Take for example, a description that Smith gives in his review when he says, “In a single, extraordinary shot del Toro tilts down to inside the mother’s womb, where we see a golden fetus mutely listening, and pans right to the fantastic blossom atop a mountain of thorns” (6).

This depicts one of the many great camera shots throughout the film. Ofelia, at the time, is telling a story to her unborn brother and the camera shot enables the audience to view the unborn fetus dreaming the story as it is told. As a viewer, I also felt like the captain was portrayed as the most important person through the use of shooting him with a low camera angle that would pan up to his face.

The compositional mode of mise en scène that del Toro uses is phenomenal in my opinion. The characters in the wonderland are so realistic, but at the same time you understand that they are fairy-type creatures. An example of this that I can think of is the faun and the gruesome creature with the eyes in his hands. In addition, the costumes used on the real characters put the audience into the time period that allows for belief of everything that takes place.

Gruesome creature

I found the use of symbolism between the wonderland and reality to be intriguing. I did not catch all of these until reading Smith and Edward’s accounts of the film. An example would be Ofelia seeing red cover the page of her book and then turning to see her mother bleeding due to birth complications. Another example that Edwards mentioned was “from the tortured rebel's split hand to the Captain's split face” (143). A third example that is symbolic is the two knives that Ofelia and Mercedes use to get to freedom rather than experiencing death.