leading from
 |
| Orestes and the Erinyes |
a) Philippe talked devils with William Friedkin director of The Exorcist
AO Philippe had talked to William Friedkin about the Exorcist project that
he was working on, and they had discussed the devil.
Friedkin had talked to the Vatican about it, and they told him about how their exorcists don't see the Devil as an actual physical being with horns and a tail, but instead it is a force, it is an energy that happens, that has to be reckoned with sometimes.
Friedkin had talked to the Vatican about it, and they told him about how their exorcists don't see the Devil as an actual physical being with horns and a tail, but instead it is a force, it is an energy that happens, that has to be reckoned with sometimes.
b) A ripple effect
AO Philippe believed that everything the human race do as a collective creates a ripple effect.
So the Furies
come back through time and they come back through mythology, through
stories, through films, through things that humans do in society when
there’s something we do and there’s a certain guilt that comes out, and
they need to process that.
With that, he thought that would the whole argument that he would make through Memory.
With that, he thought that would the whole argument that he would make through Memory.
c) Humanity brings the furies vengeance to the screen
With this idea, if Dan O'Bannon hadn't been been connected to the resonance of this
particular myth, then somebody else would have had to do that because
humanity as a collective had summoned that story with the need for it to
show up on the screen so that we could process those images and ideas.
d) Professor Denise Demetriou considers the Furies
d.i) Initial confusion
Denise the former director of the Centre of Hellenic studies who also was incolved the Memory documentary saw how the chestburster connected with the Furies via Francis Bacon's painting, but what exactly would the Furies be trying to exact revenge on in terms of the crew of the Nostromo. She thought that there were likely to be as many interpretations as there are people who saw the movies.
d.ii) Considering the Furies' presence
If she was pressed to consider the alien creature as a fury and ask "Okay, why are the Furies here, and what could this represent?" She would have to ask what would the crew of the Nostromo be guilty of, or what crimes are they paying the price of. Were there crimes of their own or were they crimes of humanity erm because they might possibly carry a crime of humanity in general?
d.iii) Earth corportations's arrogance?
She rewatched the movies and watched Prometheus as well along with parts of Covenant. While the crew of the Nostromo could be guilty of many things, they were basically blamelesss but on the other hand, humanity in the film was presented as arrogrant, with there being some kind of excessive arrogance in the sense that the crew of the Nostromo works for a corporation that's mining different parts of the universe, and exploiting and extracting resources from it. So she could see parallels wih a sort of of imperialism or colonialism and perhaps that could incur the wrath of the Furies.
d.iv) Guilty of creating synthetic life?
Also having the creation of synthetic life that we see in the movie where humans are now creating synthetic life forms, and this perhaps also is excessive in a certain sense, that might also incur this, um, the wrath of the Furies,
d.v) The plan to use the alien as a weapon of war?
As the viewer watch the movie, it's also discoverd that the synthetic like life form that's aboard the ship Ash actually is there to ensure that the ship brings back a sample of the alien life form from the planet or even bring back the xenomorph itself, and so it's discovered that they would likely plan to use it as a weapon, so there war can be presented as as a crime.
d.vi) The idea of guilt in general?
But with that, she thought that guilt was a really powerful emotion erm for humans, and that's why she thought about how it appealed to to humans in this world thousands of years later, or even throughout history.
d.vii) Crimes against the father?
Looking further at the universe, she looked at Prometheus which was part of the prequel storu that gets to Alien. She thought that because in Prometheus, humans turn ut to be the creation of these tall engineer race, so the Nostromo crew must be the children who commit some sort of crime against their parent, and perhaps they're getting punished for it by the time the film series gets to Alien but this was a whole other story. But she could have the idea about there being something to do with revenge and avenging, and if the whole film series were looked, there might be something more
d.i) Initial confusion
Denise the former director of the Centre of Hellenic studies who also was incolved the Memory documentary saw how the chestburster connected with the Furies via Francis Bacon's painting, but what exactly would the Furies be trying to exact revenge on in terms of the crew of the Nostromo. She thought that there were likely to be as many interpretations as there are people who saw the movies.
d.ii) Considering the Furies' presence
If she was pressed to consider the alien creature as a fury and ask "Okay, why are the Furies here, and what could this represent?" She would have to ask what would the crew of the Nostromo be guilty of, or what crimes are they paying the price of. Were there crimes of their own or were they crimes of humanity erm because they might possibly carry a crime of humanity in general?
d.iii) Earth corportations's arrogance?
She rewatched the movies and watched Prometheus as well along with parts of Covenant. While the crew of the Nostromo could be guilty of many things, they were basically blamelesss but on the other hand, humanity in the film was presented as arrogrant, with there being some kind of excessive arrogance in the sense that the crew of the Nostromo works for a corporation that's mining different parts of the universe, and exploiting and extracting resources from it. So she could see parallels wih a sort of of imperialism or colonialism and perhaps that could incur the wrath of the Furies.
d.iv) Guilty of creating synthetic life?
Also having the creation of synthetic life that we see in the movie where humans are now creating synthetic life forms, and this perhaps also is excessive in a certain sense, that might also incur this, um, the wrath of the Furies,
d.v) The plan to use the alien as a weapon of war?
As the viewer watch the movie, it's also discoverd that the synthetic like life form that's aboard the ship Ash actually is there to ensure that the ship brings back a sample of the alien life form from the planet or even bring back the xenomorph itself, and so it's discovered that they would likely plan to use it as a weapon, so there war can be presented as as a crime.
d.vi) The idea of guilt in general?
But with that, she thought that guilt was a really powerful emotion erm for humans, and that's why she thought about how it appealed to to humans in this world thousands of years later, or even throughout history.
d.vii) Crimes against the father?
Looking further at the universe, she looked at Prometheus which was part of the prequel storu that gets to Alien. She thought that because in Prometheus, humans turn ut to be the creation of these tall engineer race, so the Nostromo crew must be the children who commit some sort of crime against their parent, and perhaps they're getting punished for it by the time the film series gets to Alien but this was a whole other story. But she could have the idea about there being something to do with revenge and avenging, and if the whole film series were looked, there might be something more
- Lisa: But this idea of, “Okay, we’re going to follow this idea back to its origins,”
and you go to Egyptian myth and you dive in Giger’s work and all of
that. There are just so many research rabbit holes that you can totally
get lost down. How do you prioritize? There’s potentially no stopping
point.
Brad: Yeah, there’s a lifetime of research.
Alexandre: For sure. For sure, yeah. To me, and this is where I have to put on my dramatic writer hat and go, “What is the story of this film?” It’s not, “What is the story that this fan would wanna see versus that fan?” Because there are always gonna be people who say, “I wanted more of this,” or, “I wanted more of that.” What is the story of this film? The story of this film is still about the Chestburster, in the sense that the Chestburster is the moment. It is the moment of Alien in the way that the shower scene is the moment of Psycho. It is the moment that everything led to it, and the moment had to work in order for Alien to resonate with audiences, and so many things could have gone wrong.
The reason that I have the opening sequence that I have, which I’m not gonna spoil, but the whole idea is that it is more than just a piece of material prop that is coming out of the chest or fake chest of John Hurt. The argument is that the emergence of the Chestburster in Alien is the reemergence of the Greek Furies showing up onscreen in 1979 to address unconscious patriarchal guilt that we need to work through as a society and to restore a balance that truly needs to be restored. And that’s what the Furies do. So if you wanna get really, really esoteric, then you wonder, “Well, are the Furies actually real? Do they really exist?” Well, it’s a force.
It’s like when I talked to Friedkin — The Exorcist project I’m working on — about the Devil. He doesn’t see the Devil. He’s talked to the Vatican. The Vatican exorcist doesn’t see the Devil as an actual physical being with horns and a tail, but it is a force, it is an energy that happens, that has to be reckoned with sometimes. I think everything we do in life and everything we do as a collective creates a ripple effect. So the Furies come back through time and they come back through mythology, through stories, through films, through things that we do in society when there’s something we do and there’s a certain guilt that comes out, and we need to process that. And so, I think that’s the whole argument that I make through Memory.(https://filmschoolrejects.com/alexandre-o-phillippe-sundance-2019/) - Alexandre O Philippe: 1979, if Dan O'Bannon had not as Will Linn said, as stenographed a larger song, as Alien is, if he had not been connected to that resonance of this particular myth. Somebody else would have had to do that, because we as a collective summoned that story, we needed that story to show up on the screen and we needed to process those images and those ideas. (https://itmodchatcast.podbean.com/e/chatcast-1-alexandre-o-philippe-on-memory-the-origins-of-alien/)
- Denise Demetriou: is very familiar, I think to researchers in researchers in general, because we just keep persisting right and then follow our intuition. and then suddenly something serendipitous happens, and um and we find the thread that sort of holds everything together and I think that the Furies, you know, and I guess the real question is whether we can claim that the Xenomorph, the alien of the Chess Burster scene, is a form of the Furies, er whether conscious or unconscious, and what it might represent. today, you know, er 43 years ago when Alien was (17:00) when Alien premiered, or or you know, at any other moment in time. And I think that you know what the clip showed pretty clearly is that we can definitely, very easily see the visual connections right between the xenomorph as an embodiment of the furies. Because we can trace the genealogy of its shape and form to Ridley Scott who pointed Giger to the paintings of Francis Bacon, who had been inspired to paint the Furies for from this trilogy of Greek tragedies known as the Oresteia, which I mentioned in the... in the clip. But I think more interesting is really to try and think about what the Furies might represent and whether that's something that we can see erm in the Xenomorph. How can we interpret the xeno form and for me at least, and I think there are going to be as many interpretations of this as there are people who watch the movie. (18:00) The Furies in general, in ancient Greek mythology represent guilt. Erm, In particular in Ancient Greek mythology they represent the guilt that the murderer feels... feels who murders a blood relative, and more specifically, it's about children who commit a crime and kill their... one of their parents or kill their parents, er which is what we see in the myth of the Oresteia, with Orestes killing his mother, um and then, being hounded by the bloodhounds, he calls them of his mother, and these are the Furies right who pursue him, their eyes dripping in blood and this sort of has to come to some sort of resolution at some point. But if the um... if the.... If the Furies represent guilt, then how does that feed into the narrative of the movie Alien? Right. (19:00) Erm an I think we then have to think of, what would the crew of the ship, the Nostromo, be guilty of, erm or what crimes are they paying the price of? Are these crimes their own? Or are they crimes of humanity erm because they might possibly carry a crime of humanity in general? And that's also something that we see in Greek myth as well, I should say. So for me when I was er, when I watched rewatch the movie. and as Daisuke, when you contacted me to do this, I, when I post the sequels of that I went and watched some of the prequels as well, because, of course, one of them is called Prometheus. So I watch Prometheus as well, and parts of Covenant, erm, er. So where it was and I just, it just reminded me of how amazing the movie Alien really is. Erm so I was really honored to be part of your field. Erm, but so, when I was thinking about this question, what are they guilty of. The things that I could think of, at least is that the the (20:00) crew itself is not really necessarily guilty of many many things right? I think that they are more or less blameless. erm but I think humanity, the humanity I guess that's presented in this movie could be said to be sort of arrogant, or have some kind of excessive arrogance in the sense that the crew of the Nostromo works for a corporation that's mining different parts of the universe, and exploiting and extracting resources from it. So I think, you know, we can see parallels there with sort of imperialism or colonialism erm , which could bring the Furies. could I guess, incur the wrath of the Furies. Erm, and then I think also, we have these creation of synthetic life that we see in the movie where humans are now creating other, um other life (21:00) forms, erm and this perhaps also is excessive in a certain sense, that might also incur this, um, the wrath of the Furies, er, and as we watch the movie, we also find out that the synthetic like life form that's aboard the shape Ash actually is there to ensure that the ship brings back a sample or of the xeno... xenomorph of the LV alien, or to bring back the xenomorph itself, which they then plan to use as a weapon so we can also see war as a crime. You know that humanity can erm can carry out, and for which it can be, it can be punished, and of course there have been er other explanations for this, that erm that I've seen, and we can talk about those, too. ah but for me at least, those are the 3 things that I... that I generally think of. when I think about "Okay, why are the Furies here, and what could this represent? (22:00) But I think that guilt is a really powerful emotion erm for humans, and er that's why I think it appeals to us er thousands of years later, or throughout, perhaps er, history. (UCSanDiego arts and humanities events on Youtube Alexandre O. Philippe - Memory: Ridley Scott's Alien and Mythology)
- Denise Demetriou: Yuh and just let me, because the the same person who has this question also specified that they meant that Kane gave birth to the Xenomorph. Erm so that's... that's the sense in which, there were father But I think for me there's something if we see Prometheus and Alien, and sort of the whole prequel story that gets to Alien, then I think that there is a way in which er, the, because in Prometheus humans turn out to be the creations of aliens, right and so they are the children who commit some kind of crime against their parent. and then they sort of maybe getting punished for it by the time that we get to alien that's a whole other story, but I think that there are this idea of revenge and avenging might, if we look at the whole story, there may be (53:00) more things there.(UCSanDiego arts and humanities events on Youtube Alexandre O. Philippe - Memory: Ridley Scott's Alien and Mythology)
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