Ridley Scott was born in South Shields, England, in 1937. He studied at West Hartlepool College of Art and later at London’s Royal College of Art, where he first began experimenting with film. While there, he contributed to the school’s magazine ARK and made a short film, Boy and Bicycle (1962), featuring his younger brother, Tony Scott.
After graduating, Scott joined the BBC as a set designer and director, working on popular series such as Z Cars and The Troubleshooters. His time in television taught him the mechanics of production and in 1968, he left the BBC to establish Ridley Scott Associates (RSA), a commercial production company. Over the next decade, he directed hundreds of adverts, developing a style of lighting, atmosphere and composition, qualities that made his transition to cinema with The Duellists (1977) both natural and visually striking.
Scott is a prolific film maker and has created some classic films. I have to say there are many of Scott’s films that I haven’t seen so in this post I’ve focussed on four particular films that I have seen and enjoyed.
Alien
Alien is a really different kind of sci-fi film. It’s not Star Trek or Star Wars and it’s not littered with sci-fi terminology. It’s a very slow burning earthy film about a spacecraft on its way back to earth with a payload of something, I’m not sure what. On the way back home, the crew are awakened from hibernation to find that the ship’s sensors have detected a beacon which maybe some sort of SOS and the company regulations state this must be investigated. Next thing we’re down on a hostile planet and one crew member has been hit in the face by some kind of creature which has attached itself to his face. Later it falls off and all is ok except that something is growing inside the crewman which bursts out of his chest in a horrible spectacular scene and suddenly, an alien creature is onboard.
It is all done really well and one by one the crew fall victim to this creature in the dark confined spaces of the ship. It’s sci-fi mixed with horror and the only survivor turns out to be Ripley played by Sigourney Weaver. Ripley is a sort of female John McClane, the Bruce Willis character from the Die Hard films. Weaver creates a really memorable character which was revived in various sequels but the real core of the film and the scene everyone remembers is probably that gruesome scene when the alien bursts out of John Hurt’s chest. Apparently, Ridley Scott didn’t tell the actors what was about to happen so the shocked faces on the actors are all really authentic.
Some years later, Scott decided to revisit the franchise with two prequel films. Both were dismal in my opinion but it makes me wonder why was Alien so good and Prometheus and Alien Covenant so bad? The effects in those two latter films were good but perhaps the actors weren’t as good as Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt and Ian Holm and the other crew members in the original, or is the classic chest buster scene so burned into cinematic lore that it can’t be topped?
The Martian
The Martian is surprisingly similar to that old film Robinson Crusoe on Mars in many ways. The crew of a Mars mission is on the surface when a major dust storm threatens to topple over their space vehicle. The crew decide to abort the mission and take off but one crew member is hit by debris and presumed dead and they leave him behind. Later, Mark Watney played by Matt Damon, awakes from unconsciousness in the desert and makes his way back to the martian base camp. The bio-data telemetry from his space suit had been damaged and so made mission control assume that he was dead. Now the martian base camp is pretty basic and although it has computer stations and food and water and so on, there is no communication to earth. The next mission is not due for four years so Watney must find a way to survive until then on the camp’s meagre supplies.
He decides to make part of the camp into an area where he can plant some potatoes and hopefully produce more food. Just like in Crusoe, Mark Watney keeps us interested in what is happening by recording his thoughts in a video diary. Not only that but back on earth, observatories notice the activity taking place on Mars and realise he is still alive.
Still unable to communicate with earth the marooned astronaut decides to dig up an old space probe, drag it back to base, plug it into a power cable and use it for communication. I won’t ruin everything for you by telling you the whole story but again, if you like sci-fi and perhaps even if you don’t, this is such a well made and enjoyable film and is well worth watching. The visual look of the film is great and the director manages to keep the viewer interested despite the fact that for much of the time there is only Matt Damon up there on the screen.
External scenes of Mars were filmed in Wadi Rum in Jordan and NASA decided to collaborate with the producers as they saw the film as promoting real space exploration. The author of the book which the film was based on was Andy Weir who tried to be as scientifically accurate as possible, researching orbital mechanics and the planet Mars as well as botany, all elements which interested Ridley Scott.
A Good Year
One of the great things about Ridley Scott is that not only is he a prolific film maker, he doesn’t just stick to one particular genre. The first time I saw this particular film I would never have guessed that it was a Ridley Scott film. It’s based on a book by Peter Mayle who wrote the wonderful A Year in Provence. Scott had wanted to make a film in Provence as he owned a house in the area. Peter Mayle was approached to write a screenplay but he declined but decided to write a novel and for Scott to buy the film rights and have a screenplay written based on the book. The screenplay was written by Marc Klein and both the book and the film incorporated some of Ridley Scott’s own ideas. The basic story is about a London stockbroker who inherits a property in France belonging to his late uncle. The stockbroker, Max, played by Russell Crowe, goes back to France and after a while begins to fall for the old place again. A gorgeous local waitress plays a large part in his feelings too. His late uncle is played by Albert Finney and his scenes are all shown in flashback.
I have to say I didn’t like this film the first time I saw it. I thought the flashback scenes were confusing because I didn’t realise they were flashbacks at first. I didn’t like Russell Crowe and thought he was miscast. I feel the role was more something perhaps Hugh Grant could have played effortlessly. Over time though I’ve warmed to this film and now it is one of my absolute favourites.
Gladiator
This is a film which really revived the kind of classic epics that Hollywood and directors like David Lean used to make. It’s a really fabulous film with these huge set pieces set in the Roman arena, beautifully photographed and acted. It concerns Russell Crowe as a Roman general, Maximus Decimus Meridius who Marcus Aurelius decides to nominate as his successor as emperor of Rome. Unfortunately, Marcus dies at the hand of his son, Commodus who quite fancies being emperor himself. Commodus has Maximus arrested and sentenced to death but Maximus fights off his executioners and escapes. He returns home to find his family murdered. Various events then see Maximus become enslaved and later a gladiator determined to seek revenge.
One of the main characters was played by Oliver Reed who died during the production. During a break from filming in Valletta, Reed had encountered a group of Royal Navy sailors and challenged them to a drinking match. He suffered a heart attack in the bar and died in an ambulance en route to the hospital.
His role had not been completely filmed and so a body double was used in some shots and in one scene Reed’s face was digitally inserted into the film. I have Gladiator on DVD so I thought I’d give it a watch just to refresh my memory. Gladiator was just as good as I remembered and the secret of the film, for me at any rate, is that even though this is a great epic in the same tradition as David Lean’s later films, at its core is a very human story about a man betrayed who longs to be reunited with his murdered family which makes his death a sort of victory.
Other Films
I could of course have mentioned many other classic Ridley Scott films. Thelma and Louise is one I have seen. I always thought it was a good film, nothing less and nothing more but watching a TV show on Sky Arts not long ago the reviewers thought it was a work of genius. It was certainly new in that it was a road movie featuring two women rather than two men. Blade Runner is another classic sci-fi drama directed by Scott and I look forward to the day I see it listed on my TV schedule.
Scott directed Hannibal, the follow up to Silence of the Lambs which I thought was a little gruesome and so apparently did Jodie Foster who declined to reprise her role as FBI agent Clarice Starling.
All the Money in the World was a pretty good film which was about the kidnapping of J Paul Getty’s grandson and his refusal to cough up a multi million pound ransom. Interestingly Kevin Spacey played Getty but after allegations of sexual misconduct Scott cut Spacey from the film and asked Christopher Plummer to play Getty, calling for some last minute refilming of parts of the film.
I was hoping to see Ridley Scott’s Napoleon at the cinema but these days films seem to have such a short cinema showing. It doesn’t seem to be streaming anywhere so I’ll just have to look out for the DVD.
What are your favourite Ridley Scott films?
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Every couple of weeks or so I hop into my car and set off on the journey back to Manchester. I usually have some provisions packed although a lot of the time I will pop into the shops and pick some things up, a loaf of bread, a bottle of milk. I’m a man of simple tastes.
In this technological age, one item in particular has come to the aid of the dedicated couch potato and that is the hard drive recorder. It’s a wonderful invention which enables the recording and playback of programmes at the touch of a button.
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