STUDIES AND RESEARCH
Aliens — An Interpretation
An interpretative study of Carpenter’s film Aliens
Anti-utopian-SF-action-horror
film Aliens (skillfully directed by James Cameron)
is not merely a sequel, second part of a series, but also
a completed and complete work of art. A classical tradition
of film storytelling, several genre and sub-genre paradigms,
as well as director’s authorial interests have masterfully
been melted into a single compact and ingeniously crafted
structure, additionally supported by numerous elements
developed on the basis of the film’s predecessor, Ridley
Scott’s Alien.
First scenes of this sequel contain more
or less all significant situations and motifs developed
in the rest of the story, as well as the code, instructions
for viewing. The viewer is therefore privileged by a deep
insight into the nature of the film’s world and the destiny
the characters can hope for. The heroin’s titanic combat
thus becomes dramatic expression of her human loneliness.
Furthermore, the convention of false happy ending not only
supplies all the semantic potential and emotional impact
it had in its horror genre origins, but is also an important
segment of the narrative mechanism, creating the world
of terrible and inevitable necessities.
However, Aliens is still a part of the serial that
fuses some elements of genre, authorial and other structures
into a new whole, only partially susceptible to the analytical
procedures of authorial policy and genre criticism. In
instances like this, we could talk of »series criticism«
as being an analytical paradigm equal to the above mentioned.
Needless to say, the essence of a great work of art (such
as Aliens) can
only partially be grasped by any single analytical procedure.
Nikica Giliæ |
