Just to jot down some thoughts:

So I recently watched American Gangsta, a film by Ridley Scott. As usual Denzel Washington was above par and it was an overall good flick. More interestingly, I came across a neat book in the library: The Films of Ridley Scott by Richard A. Schwartz. And so far so good. Far from just commentating on cinematic effect and visual imagery, Schwartz exposes Ridley’s political bias. He writes, “His films project a set of values that at once reflect left-wing liberalism and an essentially neoclassical conservatism that insists on tempering passion with reason, choosing wise and intelligent course of action, and acting with honor, virtue, and concern for the good of society at large, as well as for the individual…Like his neoclassical predecessors and the medieval writers before them who invoked the image of the horse (passion) guided by the rider (reason), Scott endorses a golden mean in which passion can be given full rein, but remains under the control of our rational faculties.” Social libertarianism meets our Greco-Roman heritage. Yeah, I thought it was odd as well. To be fair, however, Scott posits unconventional themes with sharp criticisms of corporate greed and avarice.
Take the case of Alien. Schwartz’s discussion revolves around several methods of analysis. Feminist, Marxist, and psychological perspectives are all utilized in uncovering social commentary that is laden within the movie itself. The Marxist approach emphasizes division of labor, control of means of production, and corporate insensitivity. It is no wonder in the movie that the crew is expendable in order for the company to have the Alien reach earth for further study. The movie in fact starts out with two laborers on board demanding more pay for their job, followed by an “order” by "Mother" (the main computer) that they must respond to a signal on a nearby planet. This mission is pressed fervently by Ash, who is later discovered to be a droid and destroyed. Essentially, the message is the expendability of labor for corporate ends. Yet, the crew does manage to pull together and fight the Alien suggesting a dynamic of how people across class and gender may pool themselves together for a common cause.
Further complications arise when one considers the androgynous nature of the Alien and Ripley’s heroism. One scholar suggests that Ripley’s lack of explicit sexual “definition” made her a hero for lesbians only to find out that when Ripley is being watched undressing by the Alien in the end of the movie it “reasserts” patriarchal control and a sense of male voyeurism. Whatever the case, Scott brings forth a unique possibility, a female hero can fight evil just as much as a male one can. And the roles are shifting.
And this plays perfectly into the psychological readings. Males giving “birth” to Aliens, an evil creature lurking in the depths ready to pounce on easy prey, the utter futility in being pawned by a company, are all motifs that test one’s psyche. It is interesting that the Alien itself was designed by the Swiss surrealist painter H.R. Giger, who had experimented with demonic/erotic themes before. As the author says in the end, “…the crew is caught between to forms of evil, one super-rational, the other completely visceral.”
And this is just a taste on how Schwartz proceeds in his criticism. My own sense of the matter is that all of the approaches mentioned above are valid. Human experience can not be contained in box like margins (and no, I did not get that off the back of a Hallmark card). I would, however, bring to light that perhaps the beauty of the film is that the tension between reason and responsibility, structured evil vs. gut reaction, and patriarchy vs. female liberation, is not resolved. If one imagines a movie to be a type of “snapshot” of our world then resolution is not always accessible for we as humans are constantly grappling and struggling with our environment. But by movies (or at least the good ones) teasing our conscience, we can realize alternative possibilities (left-liberalism?) and hopefully that can lead to responsible political choices.


(By the way, I suggest one check out the book his or herself. There is much more detail on Alien and other films of his including Legend, Blade Runner, and Gladiator.)