What happened to Lambert?

Like many moviegoers in 1979, I was not prepared for “Alien.”  The film relentlessly burrowed into my brain the same way the titular creature stalked and killed the ill-fated crew of the Nostromo.  I had nightmares for years.  I drew the alien compulsively in an attempt to define its features and therefore reduce my paralyzing fear.  It helped a little.  Though the slavering star beast rarely haunts my dreamscape anymore, any sight of it will always produce a brief yet electric thrill of terror as I instantly relive my first harrowing experience of watching this benchmark sci-fi fright fest in the forbidding darkness of the theater.

There are many things that make “Alien” an iconic film:  the excellent cast, the superlative set design, the quiet yet haunting score and the slow, inexorable build up of white-knuckle tension.  However, above all these great things is the work of Swiss surrealist Hans Rudi Geiger.  There can be no doubt that his artistic contributions resulted in the most distinctive and disgusting alien creatures ever to explode onto the cinema screen.  The deeply disturbing hybridization of biomechanical and sexual overtones in Geiger’s work achieves a level of instinctive repulsion as yet unmatched by any other science fiction monster.

The alien is an implacable force of death; but it is the creatures’ method of attack that incites such utter panic.  It rapes you.  It literally rapes your brain to death.  Both Brett and Parker are mercilessly skull f*cked by the fanged tongue which bears no small resemblance to a penis with a mouth full of metal teeth.  This terrible tongue erupts from a giant curved cranium that further embodies the phallic threat.  It’s a double dose of male aggression and forced penetration.  Worst of all, the alien appears to enjoy the effect that its appearance has on its victims.

The death of Lambert near the end of the film is the one that affects me the most.  She is one of only two females in the Nostromo crew, and from the very beginning she displays a pensive mood that suggests that she can feel the impending doom awaiting herself and her crewmates.  As they descend to a godforsaken planetoid to investigate a purported distress signal, Lambert is afraid. We can see it on her face.  We just don’t know yet how right she is to be frightened.  Lambert's subconscious is thinking what the audience is thinking:

“We’re all fucked.”

As the individual crew members fall prey to the extraterrestrial invader, Lambert’s rising terror renders her useless.  When the alien finally appears in front of her, it doesn’t attack her immediately as it did Dallas.  It rises slowly, as if knowing that by merely revealing its hideous majesty Lambert will be petrified into immobility.  It is only Parker’s vain attempt to save Lambert that the alien breaks off and kills Parker rather quickly before returning its attention to its initial victim.  Still unable to move, Lambert remains frozen in place as the alien slides its tail between her legs.  This is the last time we see Lambert alive.

Now I know that this shot of the alien’s tail was borrowed from the attack on Brett, but it has a particular significance here, especially when taking into account the implicit sexual aggression of the creature’s nature.  Lambert is the only female crew member that the alien kills, and it seems to take a unique approach to her demise.  What is most lasting about the horror is that we do not see how Lambert is undone.  We only hear hyperventilating, and then her final scream merges with a roar from the creature.  Alien orgasm, perhaps?

Lambert’s now naked feet swing freely above the floor while rivulets of blood trickle down and drop off her toes.  How did her shoes and socks come off?  How is she hanging from the ceiling?  Was she hung there by the alien or did her death throes lock her muscles into a post mortem grip?  Ripley’s reaction to seeing Lambert's corpse suggests a visceral revulsion that can only be expressed in quaking shudders and unintelligible gasps.  Ripley's brain cannot believe what her eyes are telling her, and she bolts like a rabbit from the hastily glimpsed carnage.

Part of the lasting allure and terrifying mystery of “Alien” is what we don't see.  The film knows exactly what to show us in order to scare us out of our minds.  More crucially, it knows what not to show.  Sometimes suggestion is more potent than the literal.  Sometimes all that's needed is to hint at the horror, and the mind unwillingly delves into psychological depths previously undared.  At the bottom, we are assaulted by the acknowledgement of the basest instincts of human nature.  We are confronted by our Id, and it wants to kill us.

Micro-fest of two emerging directors! "Mean Streets" and "Manhunter"

While house and cat sitting for my folks recently, my wife and I decided to treat ourselves to a couple of movies courtesy of their ample DVD collection.  My East Coast-born Sicilian girl had a yen to watch “Mean Streets” again, and also fancied revisiting “Manhunter.”  Suddenly we realized that we had constructed a double feature that was a micro-fest of two emerging directors.  “Mean Streets was Martin Scorcese’s second studio feature, and “Manhunter” was Michael Mann’s third.  Although rough around the edges, both films are excellent examples of each filmmaker’s nascent yet distinct style.

“Mean Streets” immediately establishes one of the foundations of Martin Scorcese’s visual storytelling.  The opening credit sequence is comprised of Super 8 footage of Little Italy in New York shotgun wed to the song “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes.  Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” and Martin Scorcese’s gutter of heartbreak starkly contrast the romantic fantasy of this classic early sixties love song against the gritty reality of modern city life.  This heady concoction creates a striking visual and audio contradiction that would become a Scorcese signature for many years.

Another distinct artistic piece is the long tracking shot which often follows one character or set of characters through an entire scene without any edits.  Several sequences in the neighborhood bar trail just in front of or behind Harvey Keitel’s character Charlie as he struts or staggers his way through the leering, blood-red atmosphere.  Charlie is torn between his gangster ambitions and his Catholic upbringing, and the slo-mo delirium in these shots beautifully yet repulsively evokes his emotional and spiritual conflict.

Though it is an early Scorcese film, “Mean Streets” boasts a terrific cast, with Robert De Niro erupting in a volcanic display of self-destructive narcissism as the compulsive gambler and perpetual loser Johnny Boy.  Charlie’s Catholicism has dug deep roots of guilt into his conscience, and Charlie feels compelled to save Johnny over and over even though both men are ultimately doomed by their flaws.  While some dialogue scenes feel rushed or incomplete, the vitality of the performances and the fresh yet rotten stench of the decaying urban milieu are no less captivating.

As the executive producer of “Miami Vice”, Michael Mann displayed a mastery at combining austere modern architecture, high contrast monochromatic lighting and a simple, throbbing synth soundtrack.  He established an iconic visual style that would make "Miami Vice" a major pop culture trendsetter for over a decade.  This moody but sleek style reigns heavily over “Manhunter”, and it perfectly suits the story of a former FBI profiler lured reluctantly back for one last job.  William Petersen is Will Graham, the man who caught Hannibal Lector, but was nearly gutted during the capture.  Beside the physical pain, Will is also wary of being psychologically compromised by once again adapting his consciousness to the maniac he is pursuing.

Few people knew that Jonathan Demme’s “Silence of the Lambs” was not the first film in which the character of Hannibal Lecter had haunted the cinema with his withering wit and scalpel-like stare.  For “Manhunter”, Michael Mann chose Brian Cox to play everyone’s favorite cunning cannibal, and his portrayal is just as terrifying as the indelible turn by Anthony Hopkins.  Hannibal never leaves the confines of his cell, but his calculating intelligence makes the possibility of escape seem a very real and immediate threat, and the implacable malice that Cox exudes lurks in the shadows of every scene.

Tom Noonan’s role as the current killer-on-the-loose Francis Dolarhyde is mesmerizing, and it is not just his towering physicality and the subtlety of his performance that leaves so potent an impression.  Despite his compulsion for serial murder, Dolarhyde’s character becomes surprisingly sympathetic when it is shown how heartbreakingly close he comes to living a normal life.  Dolarhyde asks a blind co-worker on a date, knowing she cannot see and judge him by his disfiguring harelip.  Yet the decades of self-imposed isolation have made Dolarhyde’s fantasy world too powerful to be subsumed so quickly.  Whether the victim is innocent or guilty, Dollarhyde’s demons must be fed.