The Perfect Organism
MEMORY: THE ORIGINS OF ALIEN I Exploring the influences on a sci-fi classic.
In 2017, Alexandre O. Philippe made 78/52, a 91-minute doc dedicated entirely to the 45-second shower scene from Psycho. Phillipe’s new film, released on the 40th anniversary of sci-fi horror classic Alien, started life as a similarly forensic deep dive. “I was very interested in exploring the chestburster as another moment in cinema that changed everything,” Phillipe tells Teasers.
“But I also very quickly realised that you can’t approach it in the same way. It would have ended up being a very interesting behindthe-scenes documentary, but that’s not what I do.”
Instead Phillipe wanted to explore Alien’s “deeper meaning” through the symbiotic relationship between Dan O’Bannon, H.R. Giger and Ridley Scott, which took Alien out of B-movie territory and into the
realm of modern mythology. “There’s a case to be made for certain stories and certain images that we need to see, being collectively willed to life,” Philippe posits. “Dan, Giger and Scott were on the frequency for this myth.”
Philippe credits O’Bannon – whose role is often under-sung – as the key creative force behind Alien, with Memory tracing the evolution of O’Bannon’s script over its eight-year gestation using concept art from O’Bannon’s personal archive. But Philippe sees Alien’s true power as something the filmmakers were almost entirely unconscious of.
“There was patriarchal guilt, but it was way too advanced an idea for us to talk about in the open in 1979. Alien threw that stuff at us on the big screen,” says Philippe, whose next doc will tackle another classic: The Exorcist. “It’s only now that we’re starting to realise what Alien actually was about. It’s just as relevant today, if not more so, than it was 40 years ago.”
ETA | 30 AUGUST / MEMORY: THE ORIGINS OF ALIEN OPENS NEXT MONTH.