Los Angeles Times - 04.10.2019

E8 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2019 LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR

The insights just burst right out

son: They sneaked up on au-

diences so craftily that it felt

as though some unspoken

narrative contract had been

violated. Movies would ne-

ver be the same.

Fittingly, Philippe bides

his time before getting to the

chest-burster scene, and he

teases us with the possibility

that he might not even show

it. There is plenty to distract

the viewer with in the mean-

time. Marshaling a formida-

ble army of professors, film-

makers (hello, Roger Cor-

man) and other enthused

“Alien” analysts, “Memory”

dives into the life and work

of screenwriter Dan O’Ban-

non, who concocted the

movie under the working ti-

tle “Star Beast.” Some of

his other projects, including

the 1974 science-fiction com-

edy “Dark Star” and Alejan-

dro Jodorowsky’s aborted

adaptation of “Dune,”

played their own influential

roles in “Alien’s” rich and

complicated lineage.

It was while working on

Sure, in space, no one can
hear you scream. But “Mem-
ory: The Origins of ‘Alien,’ ”
a well-mounted peek be-
hind the scenes of Ridley
Scott’s 1979 science-fiction
masterpiece, is more inter-
ested in what you can see, as
well as what you cannot un-
see. And there are few things
in the horror lexicon more
unseeable than “Alien’s” no-
torious chest-burster se-
quence, when John Hurt’s
Kane doubles over in agony
and has his torso ruptured
by what looks, in the memo-
rable words of cast member
Veronica Cartwright, “like a
penis with teeth.”
That the creature’s visual
inspiration actually came
from Francis Bacon’s trip-
tych “Three Studies for Fig-
ures at the Base of a Cruci-
fixion” is one of many inci-
dental details that help
make “Memory” a rich and

diverting piece of film schol-

arship. You also learn about

some of the sequence’s prac-

tical logistics: the painstak-

ing refinement of the alien’s

design, the horrible stench

that arose from all the buck-

ets of blood and beef offal

that had been poured into

the artificial chest cavity,

the attempts to keep Hurt’s

costars as in the dark as

possible about what was go-

ing to happen.

Perhaps you know those

details already; more than a

few graduate papers and

oral histories have been de-

voted to deconstructing the

sequence and teasing out

what makes it so startling

even 40 years later. Swiss-

born director Alexandre O.

Philippe treats it in much

the same way he treated

“Psycho’s” shower scene,

the subject of his equally ob-

sessive and enjoyable 2017

documentary, “78/52.” Those

two game-changing mo-

ments in cinematic horror

more than merit compari-

“Dune” that the writer met

Swiss artist H.R. Giger,

regularly identified along-

side O’Bannon and Scott as

one of “Alien’s” principal

architects. Much admira-

tion is justly lavished on

the exquisite Lovecraftian

qualities of Giger’s designs,

his creation of a monster

whose various slime-drip-

ping protuberances man-

aged to be hideous, beautiful

and unnervingly sexual all at

once. It was Giger who gave

“Alien” its vision. It was

Scott, with just one feature

(“The Duellists”) under his

belt, who gave it its impact.

To watch “Alien” now is to

marvel at just how patient

and stealthily elegant a pic-

ture it is, particularly in its

first hour, with its creeping

camera movements, hyp-

notic pacing and enveloping,

womb-like sense of dread.

Released today, it would no

doubt feel like an art film

among so many noisier,

clunkier blockbusters. If

“Alien” looks formally radi-

cal in retrospect, it was also

thematically provocative in

its moment: Here was a

movie that turned on the

audacious spectacle of a

man being raped and im-

pregnated and that gave us a

(still) too-rare female action

protagonist for the ages in

Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley.

The gender politics of

“Alien” have been grist for

endless deconstruction, al-

though “Memory” does ex-

amine a few fresh wrinkles.

Philippe unpacks the femi-

nist dimension that links

the movie to other 1979 re-

leases as different as “Man-

hattan” and “Kramer vs.

Kramer.” Elsewhere, his

subjects discuss the Alien’s

stature as a Fury, an extra-

terrestrial manifestation of

a figure from Greek mythol-

ogy, exacting retributive vi-

olence on behalf of the re-

pressed feminine.

Pointedly, Philippe be-

gins the film with a shot of

the Temple of Apollo ruins

at Delphi and a dramatiza-

tion of the Furies, played by

actresses with creepy Giger-

esque visual enhancements.

It may seem a curious point

of entry, but it reinforces

that “Alien” is timeless, in

part because it brilliantly

cross-pollinated so many of

our most ancient and endur-

ing myths. Its abiding re-

spect for the past is what

gave such shattering force to

its vision of the future.

Screen Media Films

THERE are few things in the horror lexicon more startling and unforgettable than the film’s notorious chest-burster sequence, in an image from the documentary.

‘MEMORY: THE ORIGINS OF “ALIEN” ’

AT THE MOVIES: REVIEWS

James Franco’s “Pre-
tenders” begs the question:
is this a film about bohemian
artists or a parody of a film
about bohemian artists? Be-
cause if we’re supposed to
take this laughably trite and
sexist claptrap seriously,
one has to laugh. This low-
rent production sports a
high-profile pedigree:
Franco directs and costars
with a script penned by “The
Fault in Our Stars” director
Josh Boone, and the cast in-
cludes Jack Kilmer, Jane
Levy, Shameik Moore, Juno
Temple, Dennis Quaid and
Brian Cox. But no amount of
star power can save this mis-
guided tale of sex, drugs and
the French New Wave.
It’s 1979, and film student
Terry (Kilmer), a budding
Godard, develops an obses-
sion with actress Catherine
(Levy), who styles herself af-
ter Anna Karina,upon meet-
ing cute at a screening of “A
Woman Is a Woman.” She’s
his movie manic pixie dream

girl, and he gets to writing a

script about her. His female

classmates, present only to

spout feminist theory, as-

sess from his short film that

he’s obsessed with the out-

side of this girl but knows

nothing about who she is.

Terry holds his torch for

Catherine for years, even as

she’s seduced away by his

roommate, photographer

Phil (Moore). The trio falls

apart and comes together

over years of breakups,

makeups, broken marriages,

sex addictions, AIDS and,

always, creative projects. Ul-

timately, this pompous,

poorly executed project has

the same shortcomings as

Terry’s short: obsessed with

the outside of a woman, but

saddled with a myopic vision

of what’s going on inside.

— Katie Walsh

“Pretenders.” Not rated.

Running time: 1 hour, 35

minutes. Playing: Laemmle

Music Hall, Beverly Hills.

Cleopatra Entertainment

JANE LEVY,Mustafa Shakir and Jack Kilmer are
featured in James Franco’s woefully muddled drama.

‘PRETENDERS’

Impressive cast

can’t save this one

The group of poets and

musicians known as the

Last Poets are largely con-

sidered to be a huge influ-

ence on the genesis of hip-

hop as we know it today.

Their spoken-word poems

detailing the realities of Afri-

can American life predate

Gil Scott-Heron, with the

first iteration of the group

coalescing in 1968 at Marcus

Garvey Park in Harlem. In

his feature documentary de-

but, “Scared of Revolution,”

Daniel Krikke crafts a mel-

ancholy portrait of one of the

Last Poet’s most troubled

members, Umar Bin Has-

san.

Krikke’s film is rooted in

the past as much as it is shot

in the present. Bin Hassan,

who struggled with an ad-

diction to crack in the 1980s

while performing with the

Last Poets, is still standing,

but barely. The film gives

him a moment to reflect on

his impoverished and abu-

sive upbringing in Ohio,

visiting the spaces of his

childhood with his siblings.

While there are personal

accounts from Last Poets

associates such as Abiodun

Oyewole, friends and family,

and some history offered by

music journalist and Def

Jam PR man Bill Adler,

Krikke’s film doesn’t provide

much context for the lasting

impact of the the Last Poets

on culture. Rather, the film is

a mood piece, a moment in

time with Umar, and a tone

poem, underscored by a few

recording sessions of Umar

performing his spoken-word

poetry. While “Scared of

Revolution” offers intimacy

with Umar, it is otherwise

unmoored from the impor-

tant cultural history it could

have been.

— Katie Walsh

“Scared of Revolution.”

Not rated. Running time: 1

hour 12 Minutes. Playing:

Laemmle Music Hall, Bever-

ly Hills.

Film Movement

UMAR BIN HASSANis profiled in Daniel Krikke’s

feature doc debut on Last Poets’ troubled member.

‘SCARED OF REVOLUTION’

Last Poets’ figure

Bin Hassan noted

Repugnant by design,

period serial-killer saga

“The Golden Glove,” ad-

apted from Heinz Strunk’s

2016 novel and set in grimy

1970s Germany, shocks as a

bizarre entry in celebrated

auteur Fatih Akin’s already

eclectic oeuvre.

Drowned in copious

quantities of alcohol, Fritz

Honka (Jonas Dassler) fre-

quents the establishment in

Hamburg’s red light district

that gives the horrifying ac-

count its title, a place where

men meet barely conscious

older prostitutes. Mean-

while, at his home in an attic

with pornographic images

for wallpaper, the dismem-

bered bodies of multiple

women rot. Dassler’s per-

sonification of the real-life

infamous and misogynistic

character startles.

Putrid imagery drenched

in blood and perspiration

paint a statement of moral

corrosion in a society still

haunted by postwar ghosts.

Akin ramps up the bleak-

ness as if deliberately want-

ing to push audiences to the

fringes of their tolerance for

brutality. It’s a grand sym-

phony of depravity featuring

murder-induced vomit and

the sounds of ripping flesh.

Although psychological

substance runs slim, Akin

renders most mainstream

depictions of degenerate

minds lighthearted. For the

filmmaker, the jump be-

tween Golden Globe and

“Golden Glove” won’t be fa-

tal even among those who’ll

find this odd echelon repre-

hensible. His acute narra-

tive prowess still manifests

in how he tricks us into be-

lieving what we are seeing is

worse than what’s actually

on screen.

— Carlos Aguilar

“The Golden Glove.” In

German with English subti-

tles. Not rated. Running

time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

Playing: Alamo Drafthouse.

Gordon TimpenStrand Releasing

JONAS DASSLER, working in makeup and pros-

thetics, plays killer Fritz Honka in “Golden Glove.”

‘THE GOLDEN GLOVE’

Depraved drama

about a real killer

‘Memory:

The Origins

of “Alien” ’

Not rated

Running time:1 hour, 33

minutes

Playing: ArcLight

Pasadena; ArcLight

Hollywood; ArcLight

Sherman Oaks; ArcLight

Beach Cities; Laemmle

Monica Film Center, Santa

Monica

Doc examines enduring mythologies behind Ridley Scott’s sci-fi masterpiece

JUSTIN CHANG
FILM CRITIC