Alien and the Spectator
In this essay I will be exploring spectator theory in relation to Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). I will touch on the marketing of Alien as a cinematic experience, and the themes of Scopophilia that run through the film.
Spectator Theory expounds on the way film induces pleasure in the individuals watching. According to Phillips “Spectatorship is primarily concerned with the way the individual is positioned between projector and screen in a darkened space” (144) and the connection made between the viewer and the action as it’s happening. The theory focuses on the audience member as a passive figure, sat in the dark and entering into the world of the film. Whilst there are issues with this theory, primarily it’s disregard of cultural effects on film viewing, the marketing and presentation of Alien very much plays to the idea of the spectator as a consumer.
In 1979, the time of the film’s release, cinema going was having a resurgence. With the proliferation of multiplexes throughout the 60s and 70s and their capabilities to show wide screen film, high-concept movies became more prevalent. The growing popularity of TV was being challenged by the kind of spectacle only available at the cinema. Alien fit itself into this mould through its marketing campaign, including TV spots that uniquely presented the horror element of the movie. The trailer for Alien utilises sound and image to tension-building effect. “Completely lacking dialogue and featuring a deeply unsettling sound design, [the] original trailer is all about creating mood” (Cummins, 2018), the trailer relies on the look of the spectator to make sense of it. This abstract and probing presentation of the film, along with the tagline “In space no one can hear you scream” creates a sense of isolation shared only between viewer and screen. The emphasis on sound and the solitary nature of the outer space setting is a mirror of the spectator, sat alone in a dark space where, at least socially, they aren’t able to cry out either.
The movie’s merging of horror and sci-fi, both genres which rely heavily on suspension of disbelief and an atmosphere of tension, expertly highlight the importance of the quiet, dark environment of a movie theatre- the opening of Alien shows the Nostromo gliding silently through space, the camera takes us on a wordless tour of the ship. This characterless sequence sets up the world this film take place in, which insists upon the spectator paying full attention to every inch of the screen. The darkness engulfing the world on screen bleeds into the movie theatre’s endless blackness.
The fascination with spectatorship and the act of looking has often made its way into the content of the movies themselves. Hitchcock’s acknowledgement of the human desire to observe is evident in many of his films such as Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958), both of which centre on a character obsessed with watching, allowing the audience the guilty pleasure of looking into other people’s lives. The scopophilia of spectatorship has been satirised in films such as The Cabin in the Woods (2012), a film which acts as a comment on how an audience’s expectation of a movie genre can stall progress in storytelling and lead to exploitative filmmaking. This sexual element to spectatorship has also been spoken about and psychoanalysed at length in academic texts.
Mulvey’s famous article Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema is a psychoanalysis on the spectator, and states how “cinema satisfies a primordial wish for pleasure looking”, this theory can be applied through the character of Ripley (Sigourney Weaver). Whilst Ripley grows during the course of the film to be sympathetic and admirable, and the only survivor for the viewer to identify with (Baird, p16), she is still at times framed as a sexualised ‘final girl’, a trope which correlates with the scopophilia element of spectator theory. The audience are invited to observe Ripley in some of her most intimate moments. At one point, we are invited to watch as Ripley undresses down to her underwear. The look of the camera is of softness and familiarity, juxtaposing the hard, metal aesthetic in the rest of the film and so invites the spectator in to watch closer and observe the vulnerability of Ripley’s character in a way that could be deemed voyeuristic. This scene feels reminiscent of Hitchcock’s spectator, in particular Psycho (1960), where Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) undresses in her hotel room after a traumatic day. In this scene we are observing Crane through Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) eyes as he spies on her through a peephole in the wall. In Psycho, Bates acts as the spectator and we then look through him, in Alien however, there is no middle man- the camera itself informs our illicit “look” and thus we become the direct spectators of this intimate moment. These scenes directly play into Mulvey’s theory of the spectator mostly being the “male gaze” with woman as the image (3), and the scopophilia of Alien is often evident in how the camera tends to frame Ripley at various points during the movie
Throughout the 60’s and 70’s, the notion of the spectator was relatively uniform. The spectator existed only as the film is taking place- the communion between the individual and the movie world occurs when the lights went down and once the credits ended the spectator fell back into being an audience member again. The movie viewing experience was seen as being a solitary pursuit, “a private experience in a public space”. As I touched on briefly in my introduction, this theory does have issues and the “the spectator” has evolved over time and continues to be debated today. The main problem with this spectator theory is that it does not take cultural or social contexts into account, assuming that everyone will experience a movie in the same way. This leaves no space for diversity of experience or recognition of how film can be a shared experience, as much impacted by the audience as the audience impacted by the film. It has been argued that the spectator theory does not take into account the individual. Janet Staiger remarks that:
“individuals have multiple (albeit socially constructed) identities. These identities, as well as specific historical situations, intersect to produce groups of responses that may be linked to broader dynamics of class, race and ethnicity, generation, gender, and sexuality identities” (2).
Whilst Alien is marketed at a mass audience of spectators, I believe there are features of the movie which speak to a wider interpretation of the audiences as individuals, bringing their own social contexts into the cinema. The figure of the ‘final girl’ is now a common trope of the horror genre and can be given as further evidence of the scopophilia of film watching. In 1979, however, it may have been a subversion of the genre for a black man and two women to outlive all the white, male characters. It could then be argued that Alien is aware of the growing diversity of audience and the different experiences they may bring to a screening. Alien is undoubtedly a high-concept movie, yet it still leaves space for an audience to interpret and interact. The continuation of the Alien franchise is further evidence of this willingness for the spectator to interact with the story world presented in the first movie.
In conclusion, Alien is a film which I believe thoroughly reflects the ideas behind spectator theory. The marketing’s use of darkness to mimic the dark of the cinema screen harks back to Hitchcockian methods of advertising, inviting the audience to an experience that could not be replicated at home. This, combined with the camera’s ‘look’ at Ripley, illicitly inviting the spectator into the role of voyeur, defines and reflects on the audience’s role as spectator. While it is a high-concept film, aimed at a mass audience, Alien seems aware of the power of the individual spectator and one can see how this is reflected in the casting of the shipmates and how the story frames them. The fact Alien expanded into a franchise also shows us the filmmakers’ awareness of changing audiences and utilises the constantly evolving nature of the spectator to interesting effect.
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Bibliography
- Phillips, Patrick, ‘Spectator, Audience and Response’ in Nelms, J. Introduction to Film Studies, 4th London: Routledge, 2007, pp. 144-147
- Cummins, Chris. ‘The Weird Marketing of the Alien Films’ . Den of Geek, 2018
https://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/alien/264678/the-weird-marketing-of-the-alien-films Accessed 7th December 2018
- Mulvey, Julia. ‘Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema’, LuxOnline, originally published 1975. http://www.luxonline.org.uk/articles/visual_pleasure_and_narrative_cinema%28printversion%29.html Accessed 7th December 2018
- Baird, Robert. “The Startle Effect: Implications for Spectator Cognition and Media Theory.” Film Quarterly53, No. 3 (Spring, 2000), pp. 12-24. University of California Press. https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.uwe.ac.uk/stable/1213732?seq=5#metadata_info_tab_contents Accessed 10th December
- Staiger, Janet. “Perverse Spectators: The Practice of Film Reception”, New York University Press, 2000
- Clover, Carol J. “Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film”, BFI Publishing, 1992
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