Tag Archives: Alien

Check it out, Film Jukebox

Carter Tutti’s Film Jukebox

Carter Tutti
Carter Tutti © CTI

After the demise of Throbbing Gristle in 1981, former sound engineer Chris Carter and performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti formed Chris & Cosey. Pioneers of industrial music, they were among the first bands to fuse electronic and acoustic sounds, and went on to become hugely influential in techno and electronica, releasing albums through Rough Trade, Nettwerk and Wax Trax. They have continued to release albums on their own label, Conspiracy International, while staging a number of works at museums worldwide, performing as both Chris & Cosey and Carter Tutti. We had the pleasure of catching their live scoring of Murnau’s Faust as part of the Scanner: Lachrimae night at the BFI last December. For Record Store Day on April 19 they release a limited edition CD of Carter Tutti remixes of Chris & Cosey. They play in Copenhagen on May 16, Stockholm on May 18, Barcelona (Sonar Festival) on June 12 and Berlin on August 2. For more information, please visit the Carter Tutti website. Below Chris and Cosey tell us about the 10 films that mean the most to them.

1. The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick, 1955)
Cosey: An Ealing classic is always perfect to provide the atmosphere for a relaxing Sunday afternoon’s viewing. The film evokes the kind of warm humour of that time – no game play, no hidden agendas, just great, understated comic interaction between wonderful actors (Alec Guinness, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers, etc.) playing loveable rogues trying, and failing, to outwit their sweet elderly landlady (Katie Johnson). So very British and so of that era.
Chris: I love this film for all the reasons Cosey has said, but for me, being a North Londoner brought up in the 1950s, the locations give it an even deeper nostalgic resonance that harks back to naive, lost, rose-tinted days.

2. A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
Chris: One of my all-time favourite films, including probably the best electronic soundtrack… ever. When I left school my first job was as an assistant sound recordist, and this was one of the very first films I worked on. Well, when I say worked, I spent maybe two days ‘helping out’ on location at the Chelsea Drugstore in the King’s Road for the record shop scenes.
Cosey: Aaaah, the film that spawned the copycat skinhead gang in my hometown of Hull. The sight of white rolled-up trousers, braces, cherry red boots, etc., was a sight to behold. Though the violence that came with it wasn’t welcome – albeit quite the norm in Hull at the time. Thankfully they were acquaintances of ours, alongside the Hells Angels of the time. All ‘outsiders’ together. An amazing film that I happily revisit.

3. Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)
Chris: This was one of the first really big-screen, 70mm, Dolby Surround blockbuster movies Cosey and I went to see at the Odeon Leicester Square in London – very romantic. I remember everyone in the auditorium ducking when the Star Destroyer first came on the screen. Later, I managed to get hold of the audio from the film, and if you listen carefully to some of the early Throbbing Gristle recordings (the live tracks) you can hear all sorts of Star Wars clips that me and Sleazy (Peter Christopherson) were spinning in from cassette – bleeps, explosions, bits of dialogue. Here’s a funny six degrees of separation: in 1977 I was also working part time in a furniture store in Hampstead, London, when a buyer from Lucas Films came in and ordered a dozen or so expensive Italian black high-backed chairs. I was tasked with delivering them to Elstree studios, which I did, right onto the Star Wars set. The chairs were used in the ‘Death Star conference room’ scenes with Darth Vader and Peter Cushing.

4. Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
Chris: I sometimes wish I could un-see or un-remember certain movies, just so I could watch them again, as if for the first time, to re-experience that combination of dread, awe and wonder of a really great thriller or horror film. It’s an amazing movie – even more so considering it was all done without CGI.
Cosey: Chris and Nick (our son) were avid fans of the Alien movies. They went to the all-nighter and the ‘Alien War’ experience together at the Trocadero Piccadilly Circus, where the Alien films were brought to life. It was scary as hell – I heard the screams from outside, and some people who couldn’t cope were spat out early. The actors were from nearby West End shows, and were fantastic and took to their roles with great relish.

5. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
Chris: We saw the original 70mm print in 1979 in San Francisco, at The Northpoint Theatre, I think. It was one of Throbbing Gristle’s many regular film outings. From the first surround sounds of the helicopter and strains of The Doors’ ‘The End’, we all kept looking over at each other while the movie was playing and we were like… WTF! Monte Cazazza was with us, Vale from Research, there were about 10 of us. It was one of those unforgettable ‘shared experiences’, like when you drop acid with friends. We were all a bit speechless afterwards.

6. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
Chris: An iconic movie in so many ways – the concepts, the art direction, the production values and of course the music. As with 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien, in my mind at least, it was one of the first non-CGI future-set films that was presented in such a way that it all seemed utterly believable and required almost no suspension of disbelief.
Cosey: Such atmosphere, the coldness, the fear, and deeply sad. It just hits so many emotional trigger points for me. We wrote our track ‘Raining Tears of Blood’ after watching the closing sequences with Rutger Hauer’s ‘tears in the rain’ speech.

7. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
Cosey: I was so drawn into this world, partly by my own tendencies, but primarily by Lynch’s amazing ability to present the depths of desire, despair and beyond. I love films that inspire me and stay with me until that inspiration has been fulfilled. ‘Deep Velvet’ (from our 1989 album Trust) was a direct result of watching this film.
Chris: Classic Lynch. Weird characters, surreal imagery, uncomfortable scenarios, thought-provoking and sexy as hell… probably his best – well, of that period.

8. Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)
Cosey: When I first watched this I was in two minds whether I could enjoy it simply because it captured the 70s porn industry I’d experienced first-hand quite well. But I soon got over that, and it was precisely because I had such specific reference points and empathy, that the film is kind of special for me… all the craziness of those times. The seduction/manipulation techniques, sexual performance expectations and cavalier attitudes. That’s not to say it wasn’t fun too. So the balance is pretty good.
Chris: Love it! We watched this (again!) recently and it’s held up wonderfully well as a pretty accurate time capsule of the period. Though watching it with Cosey can be ‘interesting’ as she’s constantly analysing and deconstructing the scenes.

9. Ringu (Hideo Nakata, 1998)
Chris: One of the only horror films that freaked me out so much the first time I saw it that I had to close my eyes. The soundtrack is a masterpiece of creepiness too. Dark Water (2002, also by Hideo Nakata) had a similar effect on me. The Japanese do horror so well.
Cosey: Spine-chillingly scary. One of the most iconic and referenced horror films.

10. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Peter Jackson, 2001–03)
Chris: Being fundamentally a hippy at heart, my later teenage years naturally involved dropping acid and reading LOTR countless times, and when the trilogy was released I wholeheartedly embraced the films too. They are wonderfully well-made, totally engrossing films, especially when viewed as a single body of work. We’ve watched the extended versions, in one sitting, a few times, including once with Sleazy. He wouldn’t admit it to many people (it probably wouldn’t sit well with the Coil mythology) but he liked nothing better than to have a tray of snacks, a bottle of port, a large-screen TV and an evening of Lord of the Rings – well, that or Transformers: The Movie (yes, seriously!).
Cosey: I always think of Sleazy when we watch these. He was totally overwhelmed by them to the point of tears, and proclaimed that in his view all children should see these films so they had an understanding of humanity as an alternative to organised religion and consumer culture.

Alter Ego, Check it out

Paula Brackston is Alien’s Ripley

Alien1
Alien

Author Paula Brackston lives in a remote part of Wales and spends her spare time walking in the mountains and being serenaded by buzzards and skylarks. So it’s no surprise the landscape plays such a vivid part in the world of her book. Set in 19th-century Wales, The Winter Witch (Corsair, £7.99) is a story of love, conflict and magic, and lyrically describes how ‘wild places make wild people’. A New York Times best-selling author with an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, Paula is also a visiting lecturer at the University of Wales, Newport. Eithne Farry

My alter ego is Lieutenant Ellen Ripley from the movie franchise Alien.

This might come as a surprise to anyone who knows me, as I find it almost too scary to watch that film, and am not given to dashing about being brave, strong (and tall, let’s not forget tall) and generally kick-ass in a Ripley-esque fashion.

But, hey, what would be the point of having an alter ego where there is no alteration? There’s not much mileage for a film character who spends her days making things up and writing them down while eating her body-weight in shortbread. As multi-tasking goes, the action movie of my own life cannot compare to Ripley’s. Not only does she fill two screen hours (not to mention those covered by several excellent sequels) with derring-do, but she broke new ground for women in films. Hers was the character that gave writers, actors, directors et al. licence to create bold female roles who could save the day perfectly well on their own, thank you very much.

I love that Ripley is not saved by a man. I love that she isn’t stupidly glamorous, and yet is still powerfully feminine. I love that she is smart. I love that she can fire a gun/fly a spaceship/battle aliens/wield a flame-thrower better than anyone else in the film. I love that she saves the cat.

Of course she still had to strip down to her underwear – this was 1979, after all (1979!) and certain things were still expected of a female lead. Yet there was something quite progressive about even that. She may be down to her smalls, but there’s no lace or push up bra, and the scene does feel necessary to remind the by-now astonished audience that yes, folks, she did all that and she really is a woman!

So, while I might appear to do no more than sit and daydream, my alternative persona is out there slaying dragons without so much as a cup of tea, showing everyone what can be achieved with the right motivation (save life, save cat), a well-toned physique (acquired from chasing/being chased by aliens), a sound working knowledge of over-sized firearms (the hefting of which eliminates all possibility of bingo wings), and a healthy dollop of self-belief.

More information on Paula Brackston can be found here.
Check it out, Features

Prometheus and Panspermia

Prometheus

When considering the origin of life on Earth, it’s worth thinking of the planet as a giant petri dish. Between 3.9 and 3.5 billion years ago life began to evolve. It’s unknown exactly what started the conversion of the primordial soup into the single-celled and then multi-celled organisms that would first populate the seas and then climb out of them, but there are two main theories. Abiogenesis suggests life naturally began to evolve when the surrounding conditions of the soup, the temperature of the Earth, cloud cover and so on, became ideal for the amino acids in the quagmire to start to coalesce. The other, exogenesis, requires an outside element, some kind of cosmic dust (rather than, say, a dissolving 8-foot albino humanoid) falling to Earth in a meteorite and starting off the chemical reactions.

The exogenesis theory is part of the notion of panspermia: that life – in the form of dormant bacteria (perhaps from the disintegration of older planets) floating through space – might seed a planet like ours and lead to the long process of evolution. More fanciful ideas of exogenesis and panspermia involve fully formed aliens (rather than bacteria) landing in spaceships and using the planet as a laboratory to create new life or give the existing fauna a push in the right direction.

This science-fictional concept was at its most popular in 1968 thanks to the book Chariots of the Gods: Unsolved Mysteries of the Past, written by Swiss author Erich Anton Paul von Dä;niken, who, not long after the publication of his most famous pseudo-scientific work, was arrested for other successes in the fields of fraud and forgery, in particular the embezzlement of $130,000 over a twelve-year period. The uncredited co-author of the book, filmmaker Wilhelm Utermann, found fame for disseminating another story that captured the imagination of the public a decade later – the adventures of the von Trapp family in The Sound of Music.

Chariots of the Gods puts forward the theory that aliens visited the Earth in ancient history and had a hand in forming religions and civilisations. The popularity of this notion in the late 60s was further bolstered by the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey in the same year. Kubrick’s film shows aliens playing an active role in evolution, leaving a black monolith in prehistory, which inspires our primate ancestors to first pick up tools, and another on the moon to act as a calling card, suggesting that modern man, having found this second monolith, should travel on further to the next sign post on the galactic road.

All of the above, in a tangential way, brings us to the $120 million entertaining sci-fi epic Prometheus. Including elements from the science and pseudo-science I’ve talked about so far – the film mixes elements of panspermia, exogenesis, Chariots of the Gods, alien star maps and so on – Prometheus is a prequel to the seminal (and I mean that in every sense of the word) sci-fi horror film Alien (1979). Its status as part of the ongoing Alien franchise is something that the filmmakers became ambiguous about as the film neared release, which is understandable given the failure of many recent prequels. Furthermore, ‘prequel’ implies a direct narrative link to an existing story, which Prometheus doesn’t specifically have; the film certainly puts some of the 1979 film’s events in motion but it doesn’t end in a way that immediately sets up the plot of Alien, so using the term ‘prequel’ could lead to disappointment.

That said, I think any fan of Alien who sees Prometheus is much more likely to be disappointed not by the lack of explicit joining of dots, but rather by the poor quality of the dialogue and plot details that drive the film forward. There are lamentable lines of dialogue such as a geologist defining his character with the immortal line, ‘I’m a rock guy, I fucking love rocks’. Another problematic area is the cavalier attitude the characters display while on a scientific mission (compared to the miners in the original film, who might be forgiven for their actions): they open their helmets in an alien environment; finger the exogenic slime in a subterranean chamber; and try to befriend extra-terrestrial snake creatures when they rear from said obsidian goo… These are dumb movie characters acting in dumb movie ways and saying dumb movie lines; something that was not true of the original Alien films but did characterise the Alien vs Predator spin-offs, which this new film was supposedly created to replace and eradicate from our memories.

In fact, Prometheus can’t help but evoke the first AvP movie (2004), which echoes Chariots of the Gods with the existence of an ancient Mayan-style temple covered in alien symbols built beneath or before the Antarctic permafrost; this was designed as a weapons testing ground and discovered by a group of archaeologists, led by the titular head of the Weyland Industries corporation. That film received a worse critical reception than Prometheus has and certainly is the less impressive film of the two, but it also contained the input of some of the creators of the original Alien, in this case, the writers rather than the director.

There is one thing that AvP does better than Prometheus: the lighting of the sets. Much of the atmosphere of Prometheus is undone by overly lit chambers, in contrast to the stygian locales of Alien, which allowed the eponymous creature to hide in the shadows and create a genuinely disturbing world. One of the reasons for the existence of Prometheus seems to be to render some of the unused designs H.R. Giger had produced for the original film, such as the wall relief depicting the messianic original alien, a giant head in a mysterious cavern and more of his archetypal biomechanoid set designs. While it’s great to be able to see these on screen finally, having them too well lit destroys much of the atmosphere that made the first film so great.

Prometheus tries to be scientifically credible – the recent discovery of extremophiles, creatures that can withstand environments we didn’t believe could sustain life, improves the odds of finding life on another planet or moon – but it ultimately disappoints for having loftier aims than its predecessors, which it doesn’t realise in nearly as satisfying a way. In its characters and scenarios, Prometheus mines the rest of the franchise. Ripley’s iconic flame-thrower makes a return, as do mad scientists who mix alien DNA with humans – previously seen in Alien Resurrection (1997) – and an emotionless android who acts both in the interests of his human colleagues (as did Bishop in Aliens, 1986) and against them (as did Ash in Alien), and meets the same fate as one of his fellow robots. All this means that you could see the franchise itself working as panspermia, with characters and plot elements dispersed among the sequels where they take root and grow in different directions. Prometheus sows the seeds for a possible sequel, and leaves the door open for its makers to try and correct their flawed creation through further evolution in a future Prometheus 2.

Alex Fitch