About Ridley Scott

The auteur theory holds that bad movies made by auteurs are more interesting than good movies made by lucky amateurs. Think Ridley Scott's worst ("GI Jane"? "Hannibal"?) vs. "Rocky."




Scott's style used to be described as "atmospheric." As if he'd been hypnotised as a young boy by the dust particles trapped in the beam of a movie projector, he'd fill up his movies with shots of dusty, steamy air, with lightbeams aimed at the camera, alternating with the darkness of some moving barrier. I'm thinking of all those electric fans in "Black Rain" and, the smoky Film Noir exteriors of "Blade Runner" and of course, those slimy dripping interiors of "Alien." You know you're looking at good mise-en-scene when you can identify the director from a still. I just saw "American Gangster" and he seems to have tired of all this and is now working in a no-frills Hollywood action style.



When "Alien" was first released, I read that Scott had "previewed" the film and had re-cut the last 15 minutes based on the audiences reaction (or lack of reaction.) I remember being very turned off by this, thinking "Here's a guy who's given millions to make a movie and he's learning on the job." Turns out this previewing business is a common Hollywood practice that I had never heard about. Even Hitchcock did it. (Speaking of Hitchcock, the actress Veronica Cartwright, one of the crew gobbled up in "Alien" played the little sister in "The Birds.")



And speaking of movie stills, are you guys familiar with Cindy Sherman? She's just the greatest living American photographer (go ahead and name a better one). She's been photographing herself dressed up every which way and she's been doing it for awhile now and she's very, very funny. Anyway, she made a series of photos (Untitled Film Stills) that look like movie stills from movies from the 50's and 60's. None are inspired by a specific movie, and that's part of the trick: the more movies you've seen, the more you look at her photos and think you've seen that movie.