Alien .. Director's Cut
When I first saw "Alien" I could see no connection between it and Joseph Conrad's great novel "Nostromo," a philosophical adventure yarn about a corrupted Latin American revolution -- the naming of the ship just seemed like a little literary in-joke. (Nostromo is the name of a revolutionary leader in the novel, not of a vessel.) But nearly a quarter-century later, "Alien" has acquired a classic quality of its own, and seems to offer some of the uncategorizable fatalism and pessimism of the book, even if it's an entirely different kind of story. Decoud, Conrad's authorial figure in "Nostromo," regards the universe as "a succession of incomprehensible images," and during his imprisonment turns suicidal, reflecting that "in our activity alone do we find the sustaining illusion of an independent existence as against the whole scheme of things of which we form a helpless part."Not sure I can agree with his ranking of Blade Runner - and especially the book; I mean ... LA's/our progression towards those scenes is practically
I think that accounts for the dread we still feel at the end of "Alien," when Weaver, memorably clad in that bikini underwear, locks herself (and her irresistible cat, Jonesy) back into that plastic egg for the long ride home. She has survived, but toward what end? And the world she is returning to is the one that betrayed her in the first place.
__/--- asymptotic
Zeitgeistwise.
('course too, before that perennial drizzle can occur - it just might be underwater. Kill rainforests | get water another way)
