How do you mean “post-modern”? The film never seems to critique or reflect on itself, which is what I understand post-modern to mean. Of course the term is used in a million different circumstances and has a pretty loose definition.
As for being politically charged, there’s nothing subversive going on. The good and bad guys are clearly defined and we know the right thing to do is kill the bad guys. Look at “Black Hawk Down” for a more obvious outline of Scott’s political convictions.
Like the “Sex in Alien” thread of a few days back, I think high-falootin ideas are being made up to justify love for a pretty shallow action blockbuster.
I thought it was Modernism that was self referential-
Borges,twelve tone music, Antonioni, Joyce,Beckett,etc…
(Opening conversation)
PARKER: Brett and I think we deserve a full share.
The first conversation is between two computer terminals that is shown reflected on the pilot helmets.
dp
Okay, I’ll bite…
in preparation, I produced a little write-up of how I conceive postmodernism.
I think Alien is indeed a highly postmodern work, because it’s incredibly intertextual. As much so as Godard, with his genre deconstructions… but maybe even moreso, because it’s fully invested in its genre (horror sci-fi), and it’s really one of the defining members. And yet, it also addresses a bunch of other topics in bizarre ways: gender subversion and politics, as seen in the previous thread, which also acts as a commentary on the mechanization of the human body as a tool for labor. So does the Alien, as a hypersexual predator, prey on that sterilized human machine-body? Eek.
And there’s also that capitalism subtext, about how all the people are forced to fit into this structure, defined by their production. It’s like a Marxist movie, except with a cosmic demon as the karmic retribution for being assimilated into the superstructure. Ripley eventually becomes a sort of galactic resistance fighter, but for now, she’s only just realizing that capitalism is devouring her, even as it’s supporting her.
Ultimately, all these themes try to submerge and engulf one another, but none of them succeed in taking over the story and becoming a metanarrative. So it does what good art does – it tackles ideas at their point of collision, but it doesn’t allow us the indulgence of seeing them boiled down into a “moral” or a central argument. It just lets them free-float in a weird, horrific narrative soup.
Hahaha. Nice Francisco. First conversation between humans, then…
“Ultimately, all these themes try to submerge and engulf one another, but none of them succeed in taking over the story and becoming a metanarrative. So it does what good art does – it tackles ideas at their point of collision, but it doesn’t allow us the indulgence of seeing them boiled down into a “moral” or a central argument. It just lets them free-float in a weird, horrific narrative soup.”
Right. Not only does it deals with postmodern themes but does so in a postmodern way. No metanarrative, no moral. More descreptive than prescriptive. More text (1) than work of (total) art. Compre it to 2001, maybe the peak (or nadir) of modernist film.
“Post-structuralism and deconstruction can be seen as the theoretical formulations of the post-modern condition. Modernity, which began intellectually with the Enlightenment, attempted to describe the world in rational, empirical and objective terms. It assumed that there was a truth to be uncovered, a way of obtaining answers to the question posed by the human condition. Post-modernism does not exhibit this confidence, gone are the underlying certainties that reason promised. Reason itself is now seen as a particular historical form, as parochial in its own way as the ancient explanations of the universe in terms of Gods.
The postmodern subject has no rational way to evaluate a preference in relation to judgements of truth, morality, aesthetic experience or objectivity. As the old hierarchies of thought are torn down, a new clearing is formed on the frontiers of understanding: quite what hybrids of thought will metamorphose, interbreed and grow is this clearing is for the future to decide. "
(1)
“Jacques Derrida (1930- ) developed deconstruction as a technique for uncovering the multiple interpretation of texts. Influenced by Heidegger and Nietzsche, Derrida suggests that all text has ambiguity and because of this the possibility of a final and complete interpretation is impossible”
Both quotes from
http://www.philosopher.org.uk/poststr.htm
I loved the Alien, but it seems to me the movie just showed how life doesn’t change much, guys asking for a pay raise, the man screwing everybody, everyone was expendable, the mission was the thing, , but I thought the idea of a molecular acid bleeding villain who eats anything that breathes was pretty interesting.
Francisco J. Torres
Recently I re read The Post Modern Condition by Lyotard and realized that Alien is one of the the few mainstream films( also Bladerunner and Robocop) to deal with the post modern.
The use of language by Ash, the role of science vs technology, the uses and abuses of Capital, the new role of the state,the coming of the post human,.. All these are dealt with in Alien. The scene where Parker rips Ash’s head and screams “The fucking company!” must be one of the most poitically charged moments in contemporary cinema.
As I said to a friend once- “We all work for Weyland-Yutani now”