dang, now that I’ve made this comparison I can’t unsee it
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
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Alien, the 1979 landmark science fiction film from director Ridley Scott, really can't be talked about or praised enough. The movie represented a major shift in tone for the genre at the time, and led to one of the greatest film sequels in history with Aliens a few years later. But Alien is so much more than that. It's a milestone in cinematography and directing in general, with some of the greatest camera moves and compositions I've ever seen. Today, I'll look at some of those visual choices made by Ridley Scott and his cinematographer, and even draw some unlikely comparisons with one of my favorite shows of all time.
Written & edited by Danny Boyd
#alien #ridleyscott #videoessay 
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False advertising!
I've got a MUBI account and "The Host" is not available to stream there.
The Host is awesome I love it
Try using a vpn maybe idk @@jakubmarada1782
The Host is one of my fav movies of all time
@@jakubmarada1782 Or you could be in a different region that has a different selection...?
_"Why's it raining in a landing bay"_
I'm as much an automotive dude as I am a lover of tech/sci-fi... and *_my_* take was that it was due to something relating to the engine/fuel system, which was significantly cooler than the ambient temp of the bay and moisture condensing on it... ultimately dripping down.
Same reason your car will leave a water puddle if the A/C is on and you're just idling in the same spot for awhile.
_EDIT: _*_@hyperslow556gungamer_*_ said:_
_"In the Nostromo engineering schematics_
_there are condensers above the motor-pool."_
Papers moving, I figure, was easier to explain... HVAC! 😅
Ships need climate control too!
Artificial gravity is always the REAL creative liberty.
Was going to say the exact same things - well explained. I remember seeing the "indoor rain" when I was pretty young and intuitively understanding that there would be condensates or possibly leaky pipes. As for the fluttering papers - I think it makes a LOT of sense - the normal air circulation systems would be dormant while the sleeping crew are in Hypersleep - it's logical that there would be some stale air that would have to be "flushed" before the system's fans go back to a normal RPM range.
@@finalascent Another thing that just occurred to me... I don't know what the escape speed is on their shuttle, as to whether it would get hot from zipping through the atmosphere really quick _(example: SR-71 gets super hot while going 'only' Mach 3.3)._
So it's possible they spray the shuttle down after entering the landing bay, just to cool it off.
As for stale air, yea that's a good though as well. For that matter, it's further possible they might not bother to circulate air in compartments when people aren't in there, so we were seeing it in action because someone was in it.
I guess it all depends on their power constraints.... (wouldn't surprise me if it's "nigh unlimited" though)
@@DUKE_of_RAMBLE That's something I never thought of - the outer skin of any trans-atmospheric shuttle would experience friction and heat up - and who wants a roasting hot service craft radiating heat into a smallish docking bay?
Condensation of water vapour in ships is actually a thing. Some parts in the ship are hot (where the energy is created), other parts are cool (towards the outer side of the hull). Water vapour condenses on cold metal and flows down by gravity. It collects in the bilge. Apparently in the Nostromo there is some kind of gravity and the landing bay is on the lower end of the ship. That's where the water flows that condensed in other parts of the ship. The Nostromo is huge and it seems that large parts of her are pressurized. So there should be a lot of water vapour around and it condenses somewhere.
@@Rechnerstrom That first part is pretty much exactly what I meant when I mentioned "engine/fuel system", so we're on the same page! You've articulated it in a way I couldn't, at least not without rambling... lol
Thanking my lucky stars today for the internet, bringing me stuff like this. Beautiful. A meditation on a masterpiece - graceful, insightful, inspiring.
I absolutely LOVE the Knick. You missed that Soderbergh also edited in addition to being the DP and director. One of the most impressive things ever achieved in film IMO
its always a good day if CinemaStix uploads!
:)
Definitely a masterpiece. It's didn't just create a film franchise, it created a genre. Truly groundbreaking.
Know what, just watching this makes me wonder why Alien didn't have slow music like this in your Documentary, I like it.
Do it! The Knick is hands down my favorite series ever and I study cinema like you do. Would’nt say it’s underrated cuz it has an 8.5 on imdb, but grossly overlooked. The cold/warm color theory is incredible, but the ost by Cliff Martinez is my favorite part. The juxtaposition of using modern experimental electronic music against a turn of the century setting is so cool and symbolic. They were on the cutting edge of medicine and surgery, and I think it is an awesome way to account for a modern audience and make them feel the same futuristic sense that people would have felt about surgery at the beginning of the 1900’s.
Another nod to the "realism" achieved in the film: I completely buy that this ship and what we see is "real", and therefore that the alien is "real". None of the sequels, not even the glorious Aliens, make me feel that what I'm seeing could have actually existed. Even the green-screen text-based computer feels 100% authentic compared to the "floaty translucent hyper-color" artificial UI screens in the contemporary Alien-franchise movies (Prometheus, et al).
very excited to watch The Knick now, didn't know about it
I love Ridley Scott, but have a MAJOR issue with him. The MFer owned the rights to The Forever War for some years, which is my favoritest book ever. A serious film by him would have been one of the most amazing creations ever. But he copped out and made Promethius and whatever the second film was, I don't know as I only watched them once each. TALK about missed opportunites.
There were no Anniversary showings in Portland, Oregon. I feel ripped off!
My favorite part about Alien is that it takes its time with scenes and there isn't any loud music throughout. The movie doesn't treat you like a brain dead idiot who cant pay attention more than 10 seconds at a time. It doesn't treat you like someone who needs tense dramatic music to know that its a tense scene, it actually respects and trusts you to come to that conclusion on your own. So many movies are designed for you to turn off your brain nowadays.
Kinda like "show don't tell." Yeah, its a technique used by a lot of the best films/shows. The writing/acting/cinematography is strong enough (if you're paying attention) that is doesn't need sticky-sweet music or any other nonsense to deliver the message. You know what's important to a scene because of the dialogue and how the actors deliver it.
Your mention of sound design is important. Too many movies these days try to fill all the sonic gaps, which leaves no room at all for building tension or for a climactic moment to have impact. Cameron’s Aliens is also a masterpiece of sound design, using an amazing score and rich environmental sounds together-plus quiet!
Same reason I love No Country for Old Men.
(And I didn't even notice the lack of music until it was pointed out. Which goes to exactly how well it was executed/worked)
Realistic female characters. Competent, cool, and confident, and not trying to act like men.
Scene is supposed to only last 4-5 seconds. I tested this out recently as I watched a Jet Li movie, and Yep. I counted. Most scenes lasted only 4-5 seconds before moving on to the next. ( The One - Jet Li, Jason Statham)
Plus by shooting the crew a lot in groups, they feel extra vulnerable when they are by themselves being tracked
And it adds to the feeling of a confined space, the camera is squeezed up with nowhere to go, just like the crew
Yeah, it makes for a good contrast! You really notice the alone scenes because they weren't alone before!
it adds to the claustrophobia of it being a too small, functional ship. Nothing luxurious like privacy or room to stretch out. It's more an oil rig than a cruise line.
I like your line "What's important is not always the loudest voice in the room"
an incredibly relevant line.
Jump to 4:18
I often feel like I'm shouting into the void when I try to explain why I love Alien so much to people, mostly because for non-cinephiles it has a common perception as just a standard horror/sci-fi movie. But it's so. beautiful. Every frame is gorgeous and makes it all feel so visceral. Thank you for making this video, I'll be referring back to it from now on when trying to plead my case haha
One of the best-looking films ever made.
I've lost count of the number of odd looks and comments I've gotten when telling someone it's one of the best films ever made. Meeting someone who shares the sentiment is simply delightful
I totally agree, especially considering when it was made and without hardly any sfx
It's simple. It. Feels. Real.
Honestly, I prefer Alien's gritty realness and shooting style over something more pretentious like 2001. Alien feels like a real, lived in, working environment and is shot as such, whereas 2001 was just Kubrick flexing and stroking his own ego.
I would absolutely LOVE to see you do a deep dive on The Knick. One of the greatest TV shows, ever.
Awesome! Really glad to hear it. It takes a little extra something for me to do TV, since I kinda locked myself in when I chose my channel name, heh. But I love worthy exceptions, and I’m loving the support. And last time I tried it, it went well.
@@CinemaStix Maybe a second channel for TV / SerialStix?
BTW, love your work.
Would love to see a currated movie watchlist if thats something you have or would consider.
@@CinemaStixmediastix? 😉
@@CinemaStix movies and TV are all film and cinema, just storytelling, long or short form ❤️
I tell people all the time that " The Knick " was + IS the best medical drama show ever put on screen for several reasons. Including my favorite reason which was the time period of early 1900s where they were tinkering & inventing solutions / interventions + Fkn up alot of sh*t because they had to keep learning from mistakes & ego over time (sort of the Industrial Revolution of Medicine, if you will) + the racism angle + the rich v 95% poor angle & the corruption+ horrid slums + drugs evolving at the same time. It was amazing. Most realistic (& intensely exciting) portrayal medicine...EVER. I WISH they did 2 more seasons & I would not have cared if they had to RE-write and explain or otherwise throw away the ending of season 2 to do it. It would have been completely worth it for us fans. I WISH Clive would have agreed.
"Why are papers fluttering on a space craft? why is it raining in a landing gear bay?" 1: The air circulation system was firing up as the crew was about to be brought out of stasis, and 2: the the air was hot and humid and was condensing on the metal of the landing gear. These little style things had explenations that were only barely hinted at in little background details. Scott is just that good.
Well...he WAS that good...
Was.
Yeah, there is lots of vents and exhaustion pipes around the ship so there is definitely air circulation in some parts. Also, it's straight up told that the alien was hiding in the cooling vents so I don't know why someone wouldn't deduce that the rain is basically part of the coolling system. That's why world building these days is trash, people cannot spare 2 seconds to think what a hell is going on. That's why Alien Romulus spoon feeds info every 5 minutes, and still manages to be incoherent. People don't want to think, they just want to consume and not compromise.
Probably generous to give Scott that credit. There were a lot of brilliant people he brought together for this movie. We can give him that much
@@phillystevesteak6982 definitively. Scott is a great director but he only as good as the screenplay allows it.
The cameras shooting the same thing at the same time, I find, is underrated. Our subconscious doesn't get enough credit when watching, but it picks up on subtle nuances that connect shots, and if the shot is part of a separate take, we can perceive it. That's why the two cameras, one shot, feels so much more organic, in my opinion.
Love your work man, so in depth, keep it up!
Totally!
The more films you watch, the more it becomes obvious when it 's not the same take being edited together. Your mind starts to wonder about how many shots it took, why certain characters hands are in different places, and before you know it, you aren't paying attention to the moment, but instead the making of the moment as a director.
In Italy there is high demand of low effort, low quality TV series, so they use multiple cameras a lot for saving time. This make the job a lot harder for the sound department, so yeah, that sucks
I film silly drink reviews with a dual camera setup and I use the footage from the B camera about 3% of the shoot but when I cut to it and it perfectly matches and you get that peripheral effect it’s 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
I was thinking how a lot of the scenes in Alien are more about creating a fully realized scene that's actually happening *first*, and then trying to place cameras and frame everything in a way that's compelling after the fact. But then I went on to think that if you're doing multiple takes of stuff and having to repeatedly set up the same situation multiple times then it would be complicated and difficult (for the actors as well, trying to appear authentic), which is probably what being a great director requires as a skill to be honest.
I adore the Knick. I worked on the first season. It was incredible. Andre Holland may be bringing it back! Please please please do a deep dive on it. Maybe your video may bring back the hype the show needs to be either continued, or for Soderberg to make something on that scale again. Hes been shooting movies on iphones for years now with barely any "film" lighting. Everything naturalistic.
Nice, what did you do?
@@Codename-B I'm an electrician/lighting tech!
@@NeonNijahn how did you learn about film lighting for work?
@TheGoldenCapstone I work in a labor union. Iatse. It's a long story for how I got into it, but you can apply to it and get calls for work when it's busy. Just need certain certifications.
Cool🫡
Blown away. Could never put my finger on how Alien feels "real". Even Aliens, which I love, has an actors-playing-scripted-characters vibe to it like most movies.
I see ALIEN, I click it.
On behalf of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Jonesy thanks you for clicking on all those ALIEN videos.
As do we all 😊
same. i never miss any clip. love Alien and Aliens so much.
It's the only way to be sure.
Alien: I see human, I click it.
The thing that really struck me about Alien is how the movie really focused on the Characters and the Alien was secondary. Most of the parts of the movie that have you on the edge of your seat nothing actually happens so when something does actually happen it's so much more impactful on the viewer. There are plenty of times where this happens throughout the movie. It's the focus on the Characters and their reactions to the environment that achieves this and not the Alien itself. This is why I always tell people that it's a true horror film as what you don't see is far scarier than any scene that actually has the Alien in it. It's a masterpiece all the way around.
Like Jaws with the yellow barrels.
I love how no one notices or talks about one of the most important characters, but how I noticed it, and it is used in other movies and becomes very noticeable. The silence. The pauses. The non use of soundtrack, just the voices, it makes you feel like YOU'RE IN THE SPACESHIP with them!!! I love it!!!
I thought you were talking about Mr. Jonesy, the cat.
Like his framing, he learned this from one of the original masters, Hitchcock. "Our Alf" famously had to educate his music editors on how to make soundtrack for suspense thrillers: if you decide you need background music, the most nerve-wracking, shocking or worrying moment of the scene is when...
...the only thing you can here as the camera moves its focus is the gentle breeze moving the curtain that the killer was hiding behind mere moments before...
A sudden dramatic chord might make you jump but it _removes_ you from the scene, while silence that allows you to hear real-world tiny sounds and a panning shot like a head turn connects you more viscerally than any special effect, so that you can feel you really are there.
I was 11 when I first saw this film in the theatre. I am 56 now and it remains my favorite horror sci fi film of all time. This is a lightening in a bottle movie. Everything hit. Everything worked. From editing to sound design. It is fiction that on a visceral level you almost believe is real. Cameron's Aliens was a great movie. Scott's Alien is a work of art.
Yea...I was 10 and LOVED seeing that movie when it released.
Also was 11, it probably had the most impact on me, as sci-fi lover. The next seminal film of this magnitude, was of course bladerunner. Nothing else has made the same raw impact on my senses.
@@cechzc2e Great movie.
Yes PLEASE do a deep dive on The Knick! I love your work man.
Awesome! Probability rising.
:)
@@CinemaStix Please do it. The Knick is wildly under exposed. Especially now that period dramas are back on the rise.
+1
And agreeeed.
I second that. The Knick needs to be discussed more. It's so good
I was at HBO (and Cinemax, which, yeah, was the unloved stepchild of HBO) when the Knick was made. Soderbergh did something really difficult to pull off, but pretty incredible; all episodes for the season were written PRIOR to filming (typically the pilot would be the only finished script, the writer(s) would, after being greenlit, start writing ep 2 and work, during filming, on the rest of that season). Soderbergh did something amazing - he had all episodes written, and then crossboarded so that every scene, from all episodes, that happened in the operating theater set (for example) - were shot all together. It's rarely done - maybe for two episodes, but almost never the whole season. It's a very efficient way to shoot, saved a lot of $.
The problem with the Knick was it absolutely should have been on HBO, where it would have received the attention it deserved, and we could have had more seasons.
Soderbergh is amazing - so yeah, do some videos about it!
Fascinating. And I absolutely agree, it shouldn’t have been on Cinemax. I think they must have been trying to give the channel some polish and elevate it a bit, but in the end not enough people even knew it was running. I wish they’d at least done some cross channel advertising for the show.
I so wish Ridley Scott would rediscover this version of himself. That he ever changed his directing philosophy and strayed from this method is one of the great tragedies of filmmaking. We’ve had several decades of mid films from Ridley that never even approach the level of raw and smart filmmaking of Alien and Blade Runner.
I feel like Villeneuve has picked up where Scott dropped off. The visuals in Br2049 gave me similar feels to how Alien does.
Scott shoots too many movies. He's a completely different level of prolific. Scott on average has done one film every single year of his career. For a while he was shooting two. He was the ultimate director for hire. Every few years he did a movie for himself while most were things no one ever heard of that he got hired to do on a shoestring budget. Back when cheap films existed Ridley did the films one tier up from Roger Corman. That pace and low budget of most of his films is what caused him to change. 3-4 films on spec, then 1 film for himself. For decades.
I feel the same. My first RS film was _The Duellists," in the theater with my cinephile parents. Even as a young teen it really got me.
I also saw _Alien_ and _Blade Runner_ in the theater. BR was impressive but flawed; I did not care for the narration.
Everything since has been a letdown.
Nonsense, he evolved
.you guys didn't and expected him to say the same to suit your narrow nostalgia
@@o-wolf Can you name a film of his that exceeds the ones named in this thread?
0:19 Apropos of nothing and to anyone reading this, if you have the chance to see Alien on the big screen, do it. I, too, had seen the movie countless times. Knew it by heart.
And it still scared the shit out of me.
The suspense is all-encompassing. The space of the ship feels bigger, deeper. The void of the unknown, the playground of the alien, has so much more room that it feels like it could be anywhere, come from anywhere, at any time.
IDK. On the small screen it feels more claustrophobic, controllable. On the big screen the membrane between danger and security feels so much thinner.
Beautifully said.
Yes, There are few movies I vividly remember seeing in the theater. Alien from 1979 is one of those movies. I can still remember to this day watching this movie in the theater in 1979 and being enthralled by it.
One more comment. Many have criticized the scenes toward the end with Sigorny in her underwear as being gratuitously revealing. I disagree. I think it is 100% in keeping with the story line where she had gone through a harrowing experience and thought it was over. She then lets her guard down and becomes very vulnerable. That is when the horror of the next attack comes. Yes, that trope has been overdone, but in 1979 it was how the actual ending was set up. Just such an excellent movie!
I totally agree, and would add that I had the same experience with The Exorcist. Watching it on VHS in my apartment... meh, what's the big deal? Watching it in theater on an anniversary re-release, finally saw why it blew audiences of the day away and became the piece of film history it is.
Also underappreciated is the ship itself being a character in the film. The Nostromo (Italian for 'shipmate') is a behemoth gliding through the starry space in the opening scene, and the crew are essentially internal parasitic organisms co-existing within the massive refinery.
Extra: The name Nostromo being borrowed from Joseph Conrad's novel of the same name and main character.
Bonus: The next Aliens film also used the fictional port of 'Sulaco' as a ship name.
I've read that Nostromo is also a contraction of 'nostro uomo', or 'our man'.
Also Sevastopol in alien isolation
Ooh, I knew about Nostromo but I never noticed the ship's name in Aliens!
interesting spin
Every little element of the name is cool for Alien’s/Conrad’s context, from the connection to the crew to the connection to the company to the connection to the divine to the other names and imagery in the film.
‘Nostromo’ in Italian = “boatswain,” specifically the petty officer on a ship in charge of the crew and crew affairs. ‘Nostro uomo’: “our man” (from the crew’s perspective).
Space is always maritime-themed so that makes sense, and cool that sport and seas blend so much in our languages-outside of marine usage, it’s mostly likely to be used today as “coach,” but the connotation is from an intra-team angle: not the boss, but closer to what we’d in English call “captain [of the team].” This is like how we say “captain/capitán” of a team in North American English/Spanish and “skipper” is the captain of a rugby/soccer/cricket team in Europe.
Skipper comes from Old Dutch shipper-a vessel is ‘a ship’ because it ships things: the verb ‘to ship’ came before the noun ‘a/the ship.” Nostromo is a ship containing and sustaining our tiny crew but ultimately/primarily, was meant as what? A mining vessel/intentional Alien-hosting timebomb activated by the company.
When we move the word further from the sea and closer back toward sports again we see another cool link: it’s also connected to ‘entrenador’: “trainer,” the person who or thing which prepares you.
It was indeed taken into Italian from Catalan ‘Nostramo,’ “our master”-figuratively, same as “our lord/our master/our patron,” which in modern parlance is a title for a Notary Public. Notaries… well, they literally rubber-stamp things. It’s official when the patron or Notary says it is… until then, it isn’t. Company vibes. Ripley being gaslit in endless HR meetings. Nice.
When it broke into patron territory, “amo”as ‘Lord’ historically meant “landowner,” just like we think of Lords/Lairds/Dons.
So then it became often now what’s known as an “archaic Catholicism,” meaning not in common usage across many languages, yet in the breakdown we can see how it stems etymologically back to what it still is today in Catalan - a way they refer to Jesus.
None of the other languages have it as a contracted one-word title, but we see ‘Nostromo’ lay the groundwork for Jesus’ references as “Our Lord” in English, “Nostro Signore” in Italian, and “Nuestro Señor” in Spanish.
To bring it back full circle in my unhinged etymology rant, we could note that “amo” means “Lord” but it is a back-formation: atypically for language, the feminine “ama” came first. It came from Late Latin “amma,” which meant “mistress”…
But that Late Latin came from a word that stays the same in nearly ALL proto-languages, in which “amma” meant what?
“MOTHER.”
Amma still means mother in many languages today. Others use mama. It’s the root of mammary and mammal, of course.
Proto-languages may have said ‘amma’ or ‘emma’ or ‘mamma,’ different variations, but they almost all used this sound to mean milk/breast/mother-all of the above-it’s believed that it’s always been the human baby’s first and easiest sound to make, so it came to mean “yo! feed me” which is Mother’s job… and so then came to mean Mother explicitly…
Thus there’s no older etymology to be found within “mamma” itself, because it’s onomatopoeiac. It’s a word from a sound with no inherent earlier meaning.
Couldn’t have Nostromo without Mother.
Love that one of the "astronauts" is smoking on the ship. The vibe is really like truckers in space. Ridley Scott is a master craftsman.
I hated the smoking on the ship. I thought it looked stupid. It was stupid.
@@kitano0 Although in the seventies everyone smoked everywhere it was pretty embedded in the culture. You could imagine that in-film it might be not allowed by the company but the crew of the Nostromo don't necessarily care about that.
According to a classmate who worked on a nuclear sub, sailors under water would smoke up a storm. I guess the filtration system was overspecced and could handle that fine
The cancellation of The Knick was practically criminal
The only consolation for me is that supooosedly it was always meant to be an anthology of three double seasons, each arc taking place at a different time in history. And thus what we got was technically the complete story as it was conceived of. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t want more of it.
@@CinemaStix Does that mean that wraps up the story at the end of season 2? Or does it leave to much hanging? I'm now interested in watching it.
@RobGMun Yeah. It definitely, definitely wraps itself up. It’s quite the ending.
..so nobody here spoil it.
@@CinemaStix always leave the Audience wanting more.
@@Fryzzi Maybe, but that can be overdone. i mean, I'm this close to never starting another new series on Netflix until i know it's wrapped up and has a ending.
I noticed it too. It's mostly a 70's or early 80's movie kind of thing. If you watch the Exorcist, Caddyshack, or National Lampoon's Vacation and try to imagine the same movie being made today, it seems impossible. The way people made movies back then seems like a completely different era that won't comeback. It many ways they seem like better movies. Movies nowadays seem unoriginal with recycled camera work techniques, and what I mean by that is that the camera work seems repetitive that you can sometimes predict what's about to happen and sometimes what's about to be said. New movies with big budgets and a lot of special effects often seem boring and very uninteresting.
Each decade has its own style. 80s films are very different generally to 70s films.
The reason aspects like camera techniques seem unoriginal now is because they've mostly been honed over decades of experimentation. An additional problem is that although there is probably room for further experimentation it is hard to do that on an expensive film. Adjusting for inflation the Alien budget was probably $50-60 million, but today they'd probably be tempted to turn out a big budget spectacular and spend at least $200 million.
I can’t believe The Host was filmed in 2006. I watch it all the time, it’s timeless.
Right?
I always get confused by this because my brain automatically thinks of The Host (2013) with Saoirse Ronan and Diane Kruger first.
@@CinemaStixThe snack break is one of my favorite scenes of all-time. Pure Korean cinema.
@@schulzbrianr I love that movie. I don't care what anyone says. It's delightful.
@@schulzbrianr Saoirse Ronan's HOST is a great film in its own right. She looked alot like my teenage daughter at the time so it really hit home for me.
The "blocking" (if you will) of keeping multiple people in frame also underscores the claustrophobia-inducing atmosphere of the ship, its submarine-like internal spaces.
It's amazing how little nuances like this, that only film people will be able to call out, are still noticed by regular viewers. Everything sets a mood, everything tells a story, and our brains can fill in all of the hidden pieces. It's truly the difference between a movie made by someone who WANTED to make the movie vs a movie made by someone who was told to make a movie.
That is so true
i love the fact that Alien is still talked about cause i always watch everything i get recommended about it and rewatched the movies really a lot of times, its soooo good, im so happy CinemaStix did a video on it
The rain in the landing gear bay is most likely due to condensation or melting of ice.
The fluttering paper is a sign of air being actively circulated to prevent, 'dead spots', like on the ISS. (International Space Station)
@@TattiePeeler Yeah, that's excusable. But something that isn't is the "drinking bird." Those drinking birds are powered by the evaporation of the water. The water would run out within a few days at most.
And the gravity comes from…
I only say this to point out that there’s no need to create an explanation. It doesn’t really matter where the water is dripping from. It just looks cool.
I always thought it was drool from an alien perched above.
@@MrOtistetrax From the gravity sphere bro.
The “rain in the landing bay” I’ve always thought to be excess coolant leaking down onto the landing gear after a more than rough take off and landing. Simple, but effective. Plus one of the best sound effects of the whole movie when the drops hit Brett’s hat.
Its a big ship, with a big air volume that has humidity, lots of temperature differentials, so there will always be condensation somewhere. And the paper is moved by one of the air vents that are necessary in the ship too. Overall Alien was astonishingly consistent in its details.
It's insane how good this movie still looks - the design, the lighting(!), the attention to detail. Even though it's more than 40 yrs old, I'm not sure if I've seen anything better looking in the SF genre... For me it's 50%, scratch this 60% of the appeal. It's so... alien and at the same time so familiar. Masterpiece when it comes to production design.
R.I.P. Yaphet Kotto, Ian Holm, John
Hurt, Harry Dean Stanton. So many good actors in this film.
Watching masterpieces like this that were made four decades ago show how far the film industry has fallen.
You have to remember this wasn't the norm, this was a gem surrounded by dreck at the time. There are good films that slip through the cracks today. But a middling effort from a major studio not noted to death? That is gone now
If this movie was a drama it would be studied at the level it deserves, it's flawless, perfect filmmaking and should be recognized as such at the highest levels of the film industry. It was released the same year as Apocalypse Now and Kramer vs Kramer, but it's rarely included in that group of legends.
The reason Alien is not grouped with Apocalypse Now and Kramer vs. Kramer is that it's even more important. It is one of the most critically admired movies of the 1970s, and in the Sci-Fi genre perhaps second only to Star Wars. Many later directors claim to be influenced by Scott's cinematography in Alien, but the fact the film still looks distinctive shows it's a hard style to imitate.
Danny already mentioned its second-most influential aspect: the grungy, lived-in sets. Besides that, Alien broke new ground with H R Giger's realisation of the titular creature. Next, the script: if it seems routine fare today, that shows how cinema absorbed the then-radical ideas about future societies, including the sheer banality of space travel and the roles women and ethnic minorities could play. Even the premise of a team trapped in a tight space being picked off by a hidden monster was unusual at the time (I can't think of any Hammer horror that did that, for example). The actors and their direction are important too - there are good reasons it made Sigourney Weaver a star. To be honest, it's hard to think of any aspect of the movie that later filmmakers have not picked up.
After I have praised Alien for influencing later films, it might be ironic that I think the single best decision Scott made was to keep his hands off the sequel and allow it to be made in a very different style. It would have been very easy for Aliens to tread on the toes of the original, but instead it leaves it space and helps it grow larger.
I disagree on another point: I would say Alien is a drama in every sense of the term. More specifically, it has the unity of action that Aristotle in his Poetics considers a defining feature of drama. In contrast, Apocalypse Now is a series of set pieces, which makes it in classical terms an epic along the lines of the Odyssey, or in more modern language a road movie.
@@tulliusexmisc2191 Alien did popularize a lot of those tropes you mentioned in terms of cinema, but most of them had been around a lot longer in books; of course it's easier to do something unconventional in print than in a feature film, but the 70s was a time of incredible experimentation maturation for the medium, letting it catch up in many ways. As far as the small group of people getting trapped and picked off, at the moment only The Thing From Another World comes to mind. Which happens to be based on a novella. :) Agreed though. Interesting how realism (in whatever sense) was the envelope-pushing quality in cinema for so long, starting with postwar European modernist stuff, eventually filtering down even to genre films... I could stand quite a bit more of that personally, solid grounding and human characters go a long way toward making the conceits come alive. Blue-collar workers in space will always be fun.
@@Vossst No disagreement there, many aspects of the story would fit in well with science fiction writing of the 1970's or indeed the 60's.
I was thinking of the Thing from Another World too, in the context of its second movie adapation, The Thing (1980). That film appears to draw heavily on Alien in many ways, but it had already been in production for several years when Alien was released.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable video to watch. Concise, eloquent, and intelligent. To have someone put a piece of cinema which you love into such unique focus and describe details which you may have known intuitively but couldn't put into words so astutely was a uniquely refreshing experience. Thank you for this.
That scene of Ash and Ripley is so unconventional and powerful in terms of the edit and blocking. So glad it's getting attention here. It always blew me away.
the way it made you feel like you were trapped there with the crew
I’ve always loved how the shots in Alien have multiple people crammed in, it really helps give the feeling of these people living in a confined environment, practical on top of each other.
It also adds to the dystopian feeling of a corporate world beyond government reach, stripped to the bearest minimum for cost reasons. Not a thing that's new, not a thing that's perfect, with everything used up 102% before even thinking about replacement.
Loved this video (huge Alien fan) and thank you for pointing me towards The Knick, I never got around to it but it seems well worth a look. Just want to add, that I believe the fluttering in the air was because the ship was blowing the oxygen in for the crew to breathe. The water was condensation. 😊
Thanks! Definitely recommend the show, as long as you can handle some gruesome imagery.
Yeah, that’s how I always rationalized those things, too. And continue to. I was just surprised to hear in an interview recently that Scott himself thought those details were kind of unrealistic, but just wanted them because they looked good.
And yet, with all this skill, they released the film (and its many reincarnations) with the appalling scene when Ashes' head is removed and switched to Ian Holmes's actual head, which is so badly cut and jarring that it is unforgivable. The film must have garnered hundreds of millions, and it has not been corrected; it is absolutely greed.
Alien has always been one of my favorite movies and it was cool to hear even more reasons why subconsciously I always thought it seemed so high quality. Another great video!
I absolutely think you should do a deep dive with the Knick, if only because of it's unique production process. My experience with The Knick, and there may be limitations or exceptions to this that I'm not aware of, was Soderbergh did everything camera related: Director, DP, Operator, editor. He had an AC, but even then rarely swapped lenses. He rarely changed the lighting. The Operating Theater lighting, for example, was a constant wash. IIRC, it was even all incandescent bulbs with old style filaments, and not just for close ups. He made all adjustments in camera.
He didn't move around and shoot coverage, he shot sequentially, and only the shots/frames he wanted until he got the take he wanted. He then essentially edited at the end of the day by removing the bits he didn't need, rather than constantly moving back and forth splicing and matching. It's how he managed to have time to edit in a timely manner while still doing so much else as well.
That's a lot of oversimplification and lot of these elements may be common to a lot of his projects, but it was the 1st time I'd seen it done, and the process was fascinating if you were aware of what was happening and how different it was from typical production methods.
It wasn't raining in the landing bay. This was condensation from the heat exchanger for the environmental control system (ECS). Same set up as a rooftop air conditioner on a high rise building, which most people never see. On the smaller scale a swamp cooler or an RV rooftop AC unit.
Basic thermodynamics. Removing residual heat and cooling it. Frost, condensation and water capture are the by-products
Bumping this. Seems obvious but a lot of people don't seem to get it.
Alien..Saw this aged 14 in the cinema when it was released. Strangely it’s been in my top ten favourite movies ever since
Same. I was 9 when it was released so it scared the crap out of me, lol. But I've always loved its elegance despite being sci-fi horror. It's patient, it's mostly quiet, it makes you lean in so when the scary parts happen you're in it. That's unheard of these days. People don't have the patience or attention span. It's a classic.
Had an 18 restriction for us and the cinemas strictly enforced it, so the first time I could watch it in its original aspect ratio was when DVD came out.
1:48
Do it! 🙃 Do i t.. 😃
Yessss
What I love about Alien is that from the beginning right until the end is that there is no main character. This makes every character a target
Wow. Liked in short order. Subbed at the end. While I’m not a huge stones fan, and haven’t seen the referenced documentary; I really appreciate your work here. There is a certain power to this film. You’ve done an excellent job discussing a part of its magic I hadn’t really stopped to consider before. Alien altered the way I look at the world, and so did your talk about it here.
Wonderfully written, eloquently narrated. Hats off.
3:00 Why are papers fluttering on the space craft? Because they've been put down near an air vent - air, it's pretty important on a space craft! Why is it raining in a landing gear bay? Because its not a landing gear bay, its the maintenance area of the cooling system for the ships reactor, the "rain" is condensation that builds up on the cold pipes etc. There were people working on the movie apart from Scott, who did really think about these things.
I have to say it astonishes me how much of your taste in movies / shows align with mine- My heart jumped with joy when you talked about how well Constantine is shot and written, as it was THE movie that reinvigorated my interest in cinema.
Then, the love for one of the best comedies of all time (Namely, Hot Fuzz), a film that just oozes with elegant cleverness.
And now not only Alien (which is still one of the best sci-fi movies ever made, from top to bottom), but The Knick, a show I randomly stumbled upon on Sky and was enamored with for its naturalistic, yet sophisticated style and class (how this was not a true HBO show is beyond me).
Scott's work on "The Duelists" is a masterclass in setting, location/timing shots for light, and framing.
I’m making sure I watch this now before the studio abuses the RUclips copyright claims process.
Have you looked into joining Nebula?
Either way, keep it up, Danny!
:D
And yeah, Nebula would be great. But the service is by invitation only. I need to be referred by another creator who’s already a part of the platform.
@@CinemaStixmaybe give Patrick Willems a shout. He cofounded Nebula I believe. And he also loves making videos about movies.
Absolutely ❤ love ❤ your work. Your breakdowns are so damn insightful and an unmitigated joy to watch.
You bring the entire scope of the art of film, the entire package of the craft of filmmaking, all the technical prowess seen in key details both subtle and blatant, and share the the glue of the director's vision ringing it all together for us - with delightful clarity through the lens of your own passion for the art. I am so very impressed.
Every teacher and professor of film should be as good at this as you. They should use your work as teaching tools, launching points for discussions, and illuminate important concepts in class - and thus enhance their own educational style.
Keep up the great (exceptionally so!) work.
"...unpressured by any obligation to what's conventionally understand to be right, or good." ...what a brilliantly profound line. And I think you've just summed up the philosophy by which I'm trying to live my life by. Which wasn't entirely clear to me, until just now. ;)
Yes please do a deep dive on *The Knick* That would be fabulous (it’s such an underrated masterpiece)
Nothing bad with comparisons. Kinda helps us segregate topics that feel it has been needing more detail analyzation and attention.
yap
I’d love to see a vid on “the Knick” .. never watched that series but I think I will now
Definitely worth a try. Just be prepared for a lot of graphic imagery and a despicable (yet completely magnetic) protagonist.
I tell people all the time that " The Knick " was + IS the best medical drama show ever put on screen for several reasons. Including my favorite reason which was the time period of early 1900s where they were tinkering & inventing solutions / interventions + Fkn up alot of sh*t because they had to keep learning from mistakes & ego over time (sort of the Industrial Revolution of Medicine, if you will) + the racism angle + the rich v 95% poor angle & the corruption+ horrid slums + drugs evolving at the same time. It was amazing. Most realistic (& intensely exciting) portrayal medicine...EVER. I WISH they did 2 more seasons & I would not have cared if they had to RE-write and explain or otherwise throw away the ending of season 2 to do it. It would have been completely worth it for us fans. I WISH Clive would have agreed.
The fact we don’t know what to expect from you is EXACTLY why I subscribe. You’re a big inspiration for the video essays I make :)
God she was beautiful. Sigourney Weaver would've been a star no matter the decade she was born.
One thing I love about these videos is how often it just deepens my enjoyement and appreciation for the film being discussed. great work
Papers fluttering and rain are really easy to explain even within the context of alien: The ship is already breaking down, as alluded to by Brett and Parker [ie the company is trying to save every penny]. The life support systems aren't at 100%, so you get errant air flows, or certain places with unusually high humidity. It's one of these things that doesn't take too much of a stretch to see that a future corporation would absolutely run an interstellar ship like that.
Gorgeous homage to a great movie
I've always said that the camera angles in Alien makes the watcher feel as if they are really there. It's a very human perspective. We don't always focus on the person speaking in the room. I think that's why Alien can give you such chills, because you feel like you are there. A part of the crew.
Short, but sweet. Thanks.
Thank YOU.
Fascinating video. I remember the Stones video. Richards’ boots. The doc aspect is further enhanced by characters first sitting next to spotlights, then leaning in front of them. Very well done.
And YES! I’d love to hear more about The Nick!!! Also, where can I watch The Nick?
Most excellent video! I've long loved the (first two) Alien movies. hadn't made this connection myself either, great points!
What I love about Alien is that they don't spend any camera time on the models, the interiors and such. Not anymore than you would in a movie about an ocean going cargo ship and it's interior. Some of these built scenes probably cost a hefty sum, but they're not where the camera focus attention. In many movies they linger as long as possible on models and CGI because its expensive and someone thought that they needed to get their money's worth out of it. That he also really understands that a spaceship isn't well lit freshly painted cardboard, but a place where you work and live in. Stuff is around. Paper is thrown in a heap. Your breakfast table is a mess. Clothes and people has wrinkles and blotches. The ship feels more realistic by not putting the camera in front of the expensive stuff. Its just a place where the play happens.
Look on Ridley Scotts movie before this one: 'The Duelists'. He perfected his art there by framing, using both darkness and blocking to give the story a spirit. You'll see the same scenes. The same way of promoting the actors over the surroundings. Or even better, telling the story with both the actors and the surroundings.
You captured what I thought leaving the theater! I’m not much of a horror buff but I wanted to see Alien because it’s considered a classic. I loved the movie, specifically because the characters and all their interactions felt so real, in a way that takes a lot of skill from a lot of different people to pull off. I was thinking “it must be a great script with great actors” but you showed me how the way it was shot also contributed to this sense of realness. Great video of a great movie, thanks!
Alien is in my top ten list. "I love the calm before the storm" - my friends think I sound like Gary Oldman in the movie Leon the professional.
"I like these calm little moments before the storm. It reminds me of Beethoven."
The movie looks quite modern for it's age too.
1:42 Yes please! A deeper dive into “The Knick”! More detailed analysis of The Knick! As a guy who did his graduate school work in History of Science I loved this show! Absolutely nothing else has ever made me feel like the past of a scientific or medical working institution was being experienced by the viewer almost like you’re there as a living breathing participant among other living breathing participants. I can’t quite put it in words but they did an excellent job of recreating a world of medicine just “this” close to being modern North American medicine practiced in real places by real people almost identical to us … but still on the other side of a curtain that separates us from them in ways that are incommensurable from the present. The shocking resistance to anti-septic practices by some doctors who otherwise champion scientific methods and innovation. The absence of modern aesthetics. The total lack of antibiotics and antibiotic theory is accurately shown and the lingering skepticism about germ theory and the related lack of enthusiasm for strict antiseptic practices by some doctors who saw it as overly theoretical and unnecessary to everyday practice. All of this and more is shown as a reality the forms the background to the story which as I said is wonderfully realistic and naturalistic in its portrayal. Part of the realism is accomplished no doubt by filming either in actual 19th century academic or medical building or totally accurate recreations of them made from nineteenth and early twentieth century contemporary photos. Academic and institutional buildings those of us who who like me have lived and worked in 19th century cities like New York have direct experience of in the late 20th century … after all the old gas lighting mains and other old technology had been capped, stubbed off, or removed, we can see the ghosts of those men and women whose pictures we see on the walls, now recreated for us and animated within those buildings once again in The Knick as they would have appeared in life over a century ago, struggling to bring modern scientific medicine, united for the first time with academic scientific-based surgery and mental illness and mental health “medicine” (in its barely recognizable pre-modern late 19th and early 20th century state), into existence.
The effect of this show was for me quite uncanny due to having worked so many years as a graduate student within buildings exactly those of The Knick, studying the history of science and medicine often among old 19th century staff photos of the very kind of men (and a few women too) who are depicted, almost recreated actually quite accurately, naturally and realistically.
A video about just HOW this wonderful show made someone like me get this uncanny feeling while watching it would be very interesting; how exactly the makers went about using their skills and techniques to create the visual and dramatic depiction in just such a manner that this effect on me (and I am sure I am not alone in this sense of uncanniness about much of this show) was made possible and accomplished.
Thanks!
"Alien" is a masterclass example of casting. Superb, superb casting. I can't imagine replacing any of the actors - it would be an inferior film, in my opinion. Yaphet Kotto is the real standout for me in "Alien." The back-and-forth he had with Stanton was as real as it gets. Two blue-collar dudes bitching about their pay after a long haul... that's real life.
I love how the character of Lambert is already gone and useless, even right at the beginning of when the mayhem starts, so if you kind of follow her demeanour in contrast with Ripley, you subliminally get told that she will be useless when the sh*t really hits the fan.
And that bears out, when she freezes in the presence of the full-grown alien and Yaphet Koto's (RIP) character has to attempt to review her or do something.
I agree it's all kind of shot in a very organic way - almost as if we're either watching what's happening in a real scene, from the shadows, from afar or that we are (as the viewer) kind of ghosts, strolling amongst, around and through the characters, without being actively engaged.
Great show. It really knocked you off center. As did Alien. You didn’t quite know what and how it was going to go so badly but you immediately recognized characters you felt for. It gives you stakes; villains and heroes.
This is one of my all time favorite movies so I am stoked to watch this. I love your videos but I do not love how often you change the title if your videos.. good luck to people searching because these titles are so damn long and they change! Great content but oh my is it confusing
that was brilliant, enlightening, so many things i never thought about, so much creative freedom to tell the story, that often seems unexploited, following some rote paths because 'that's how its done'. even the plug fit well to the video. thankyou.
I was 15 when this Movie came out. And it was a game changer. Nothing like this existed but from then on it was the blue print for all that followed it seemed.
This channel is cool and all but what's up with all these essay channels speaking the same exact way, trying to sound like the one dude that started all of this? It honestly has become so repetitive. I was going to list all the channels that do this but I think people will know what I'm talking about, it's literally every other video at this point. Like I said though this channel offers good content same way Costco does while just rebranding the same stuff other stores have, I just couldn't help but notice the same exact formula being copied because, like Costco, if you know the products are going to be almost identical, as soon as you see it somewhere else you'll just go there instead if it's more convenient because there's nothing unique keeping your attention (except Costco's kicker is it's low prices for high quantity).
I also re-watched Alien the other day. Every time, I forget how natural the characters are. Except the stiff and gaslighting Ash - masterfully written.
I guess yiu must be an artsy kind of person to buy all this. To me, this video was just gibberish. Alien was awesome for its effects and story. It was made in the shooting style that was new, common, or whatever. I didn't go see it for the artful way it was filmed...
Yes, analyze and break down the shit out of "The Knick." I just happened upon it one day and understood immediately that this show was special.
To me for the time it was filmed probably one of the best movie ever made and the cinematography was a big reason why. Great video!
You should put the title of the shows in the video. I heard you say the Neck. Although subtitles said The Nick
This and the original Blade Runner. Both had this dark, wet, future grungy tecno to it. Loved both movies.
Another great video! The Knick is some of Soderbergh's greatest work besides Logan Lucky in recent memory. The energy of the show visually is something we direly need more of
Your review of this great movie that I saw at our Catholic Church Youth Center (of all places!), makes me want to go back all these years later and see it again, this time in the company of the lady I love and our Cats of course!
Really enjoyable and well crafted vid. Please re title. Unless I missed the comparison? As if that is important to this otherwise worthwhile work
I am reminded of George Lucas doing the same sort of "documentary" style camera work in American Graffiti and even Star Wars.
Another favorite is the original "The Thing". Incredibly cinematic.
I think Ridley was also striving to follow where the most intense emotion is concentrated in a scene. A woman anxiously reacting to a talking man, the tension of a robot being caught. And Most of the times in the movie eliciting an emotion of mystery by seeing the emotion but not entirely knowing everything that is happening around you, creating a tone of terror.. And that is what space is like, you're in a space suit, you are aware of the void around you but you do not know what is around you, so you're left with just the suffocating fear.
Alien. greatest movie ever.
2:11 yeah, but no. You need to capture you master, medium, and close ups until you have done that enough times that you know how to do something actually intersting. and not just declare yourself a genius before you start rolling your first picture