Alien 1979

Before watching Alien, I have to admit I was disappointed to find out that it came out in 1979. I sank down in my seat prepared to watch a low quality scientific film. The movie started playing and began with the first scene taking place on a spaceship. The lighting was dim and recognizable spacey “beep and boop” sound effects are heard within the ship. The camera goes around a white room with curved walls and lets the audience see the crew for the first time while they are sleeping in what looks like glass pods. Drama begins immediately after they emerge from their space beds. They find out their course has been disrupted because of an intercepted transmission of an unknown origin and that they are only half way to their destination. The title of the movie quickly comes back to mind and suspense starts to sink in.

The camera for the next scene is stationary in the sky while audiences are able to take in how big the spacecraft is as it slowly introduces itself on the screen moving forward on top of the screen towards space. The angle is astounding and it really makes you feel as if a giant spacecraft is flying over your head. As the ship nears a planet the camera’s perspective is further out in space and makes the spaceship look miniscule next to the planet. They disengage part of the ship and go towards the planet hitting some turbulence along the way. Immediately flashing lights and a shaky camera angle are used, and you realize that their bad luck is about to get worse.

Some of the men insist on exploring the planet even though Ripley, the dominate woman on the ship, is hesitant to put anybody in danger. The men don’t listen to Ripley, which becomes a reoccurring event, and we watch them open the doors and head out into an extremely windy and dangerous atmosphere. Of course, by them not listening, Cain is attacked by an alien. When he’s brought back on the ship, again, Ripley says it’s a bad idea to let him in, and they again, disobey. I quickly sensed the male dominance and thought it was ironic that the woman who was unheard was always correct and if they listened to her in the first place, the alien encounter would never have taken place. Mulhall agrees that there is a battle between femininity and masculinity. “The strength and orientation of Ripley’s instincts here are best understood as giving expression to her instinctive familiarity with her, subconscious inhabitation of, the conception of femininity in its relation to masculinity that underpins the alien’s monstrousness” (Mulhall). However, Mulhall believes that all the humans represent femininity and the alien represents masculinity. I disagree. I think that the ultimate battle is between Ripley and the men of the ship. As stated previously, the men of the ship never listened to her.

One of the most obvious instances was when Ripley and Brett were fighting on the lower floor. The pipes were blowing lots of smoke and were accompanied by very loud windy blowing. Brett and another man were teamed up and disagreeing with Ripley pretending that they couldn’t hear her over the noise. Ripley became fed up, and left the corridor. As soon as she left, one of the men turned off the pipes and it became silent on that floor. They could have easily turned them off to hear what Ripley said but decided her voice should go unheard. I think the Ripley represents the femininity and the men of the ship and the alien together represent masculinity. Though it may seem feminist I believe all the men ultimately kill each other. The men on the ship get themselves into the mess by not listening, thus killing each other, and the alien, who also represents a masculine figure, is the actual murderer and doesn’t care what the men, or anybody in that matter, have to say either. Though it was sad the entire crew is murdered, I loved that Ridley made Ripley the last survivor and thus the heroic figure. She overcomes the men and kills the alien who represented the superior masculine figure. Mulhall agrees, “Hence our sense that Ripley’s final, isolated confrontation with the alien is not accidental or merely a generic twist but more profoundly satisfying-something that she is fated” (Mulhall).

After seeing the movie, my initial disappointment was abolished. The loud sudden sound effects during suspenseful scenes made me jump, the close ups to people’s faces added suspense, camera angles and sound effects really made the spaceship seem high tech, and the actual aliens didn’t look like the fake low tech robots that I was expecting.

After Ripley saves the cat and kills the alien I still had a sense that she was still in danger. I remembered back to Cain and how the alien was inside of his stomach and questioned the cat. The eerie brass sounds start to play at the end that were always there when the alien was around. I found it interesting that Thompson had the same suspense when watching this last scene with Ripley. “Her brightly lit hand is posed rather oddly and prominently. It looks a bit like a face-hugger lying on her chest. At just the point where we might be likely to notice this resemblance, a dissonant trumpet note joint the soothing string music. Thus the narrative ends on a slightly portentous moment, hinting that Ripley might again be threatened by aliens” (Thompson).

Mulhall, Stephen. “Kane's Son, Cain's Daughter.” On Film. London: Routledge, 2002. 12-32.

Print.

Scott, Ridley, dir. Alien. 1979. Twentieth Century Fox, 2009.

Thompson, Kristin. "Alien." Storytelling in the New Hollywood. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999.

283-306. Print

Pan's Labyrinth

Pan’s Labyrinth written and directed by Guillerimo Del Toro is an amazing film that captures the violence and cruelty between the Spanish after the war and a young girl’s fantasy world full of magic and mystical creatures. Watching the film was breathtaking in itself. The film is one of a darker nature and thus has darker lighting and mainly blue hues. I associate blue with coldness or feelings of sadness. I noted when the lighting was significantly blue and found it’s blue when the Captain murders the innocent rabbit hunters, when Ofelia is about to enter the magic world, and near the end of the film when the faun is trying to take Ofelia’s baby brother as a sacrifice to the Labyrinth. Ofelia is the main character in the movie. She was referred to being similar to Alice, as from the movie “Alice in Wonderland” by Kim Edwards. Edwards refers the Labyrinth to be similar to the “rabbit-hole” and says that Ofelia’s stepfather Captain Vidal is the white rabbit because he always carries a watch and is very punctual and task-oriented. Edwards mentions that the most obvious relation between Alice in Wonderland and Pan’s Labyrinth is the Mad Hatter’s tea party in the two dining rooms. “The hypocritical, greedy, devouring adults at the Captain's dinner table are visually doubled with the luxurious and horrific temptations of the Pale Man's banquet hall, complete with the two hosts at the head of the tables framed by fireplaces with leaping hell flames.” (Edwards 144) I didn’t realize the connection between the two movies until I remembered the faun yelling at Ofelia for breaking the rules and then disappearing into the background like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland.

During the time of the post Civil War in Spain gender roles are very obvious. Women serve the men and do not speak up for themselves. Del Toro had a rather ironic scene in which one of the female workers, named Mercedes, helped the rebels right under his nose and then overtook him in the torture chamber. She straight up tells him that he doesn’t pay attention to women and that’s how she got away with it.

Cinematography and camera editing is creative and interesting. As noted, “Del Toro tilts down from the tub to show her descending the fantasy staircase to the Faun’s lair, once more in a single shot. This technique of the masked cut is vital to the fluid texture of the film: the camera is always tracking behind tree trunks only to emerge unexpectedly in another place, another time.” (Smith 8) I noted that while Captain Vital is introducing his torture tools the camera is lower than him angled up, as if it were showing that he was superior or powerful.

Important scenes in the movie where the real world and fantasy world are interrelated are the feast scenes. The captain holds a large feast and Ofelia is not allowed to eat from it and then the next scene is in the fantasy world with the pale-man monster and Ofelia is again instructed not to eat from the feast. “The visual comparison of the two as brooding demons in hellish dining rooms relocates the site of true horror, for the war atrocities we witness are far more distressing than the fantasy monsters, and the Captain is revealed to be far more frightening and deadly to Ofelia than anything she faces underground.” (Edwards 144)

I noted a certain song that was played multiple times throughout the film. It was first heard when Mercedes was asked by Ofelia to sing a lullaby. Mercedes said she only knew one but forgot the words and proceeded to hum the lullaby. The lullaby is again heard when Ofelia dies and when she appears as a princess reunited with her family, ending the film.

Edwards, Kim. "Alice's Little Sister-Exploring Pan's Labrinth." Film as Text. 141-146. Print

Smith, Paul. "Pan’s Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno)." 4-9. Print.

Ethos, Pathos, Logos

"But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"

Here, Dr. King is using pathos with his choice of words. The images he creates in the reader's eyes makes the reader have a much better understanding of how terribly colored people were being treated. Dr. King's use of specific examples give the reader gruesome and sad images in their minds and maybe even anger or astonishment. He references to upsetting a 6 year old daughter and a 5 year old son, which could persuade or appeal to any parent. He mentions the police killing his black brothers and sisters and mobs lynching mothers and fathers, this really hits home to everybody because everybody has some sort of family.

Dr. King is using ethos when he states, "I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights." He is in a credible position since he mentions that he is the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the reader can respect him for that.

He also uses ethos when he is defining just and unjust laws. "Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest." He is credible since he mentions he in fact was one of the men who had been arrested for an unjust law and persuades the reader to agree that it was unjust.

"It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason." Here Dr. King uses Logos to persuade the reader with logical reasoning. Dr. King knows that the police are enforcing discipline but for the wrong reason. He's showing the reader specific examples and a quote by T. S. Eliot that infers to the discipline the police are acting out with. This may also have a sense of pathos in it, because Dr. King is using words such as "wrong" and relating to morals which will give the reader the feeling of guilt.


I will be writing my first essay on the documentary "The Cove", which takes place in Japan. "The Cove" documents a special area in Japan where fishermen trap dolphins in a cove and kill a mass number of them. The subject of animal cruelty will allow me to use pathos in my essay by making the reader feel emotions such as sorrow, anger, and a feeling of disgust. Though I don't have much credibility I have seen the documentary and done a lot of research to have a better understanding of the subject. I could use logos in my essay by giving facts and statistics about the cove in Japan and detailed information on the cruelty that the dolphins undergo.