Cultural Instrumentalities Kuhn Applied in Alien Zone for Film Analysis - Report Example

Cultural Instrumentalities Kuhn Applied in Alien Zone for Film Analysis College: Overview of the cultural instrumentalities Cultural instrumentality of a science fiction film refers to the impact or what film does in cultural terms to society and the readers such as cultural production or ideology, spectators, reflection, Intextuality and repression instrumentality (Kuhn, 1998). This is based on fiction about stories and the story telling, narratives and narration and keep in mind that we are also talking about science fiction cinema. Science fiction therefore conveys its message through cinema via the narration and the story telling. Reflections Social trends and concerns are reflected via mass media for instance film with cultural forms is viewed as the benchmarks for social changes and attitudes. The examination by the feminist critics on woman portray in feminist films such as cinema at varied times based on their roles and specific story they represent. Women power and status in the society as well as the changing fortunes of women are seen as been revealed via science fiction cinemas (Hanson, 2005). Cinematic representation of family, criminal activities, masculinity and wars are reflected via the science fiction. Repression As noted by Freud Oedipus crisis, the cinematic films will meet the audience expectations of a pleasurable view and advances to establishment of the scopophilia in regard to narcissism. This analysis tends to put bare the linkages that exits between the human environment and its forms based on individual visual recognition in the world. This look is further classified into three subsections as characters look between the diagesis, camera look and spectators look (Hanson, 2005). In relation to the Hollywood films, the look of the spectator is evident with respect to the masculine story characters in contrast to the feminist object of visual look. Spectators According to Philips spectatorship study is pegged at cinematic famous pleasurable, resolution, emotional and spectacular films based on conventional narratives and generic. The cinematic technology is greatly attached to spectator’s experience (Hanson, 2005). As quoted by Philips, “The cinema experience is acknowledged as special and different and is considered to be worth taking seriously as a topic of study.” The manipulation of audience is necessary in gaining their attention which is done via the camera and the subsequent film interpellation. Ideologies / cultural production . This instrumentally thus treats real-representation potential contradictory and dialectical and not mere reflective as represents results into autonomy and very influential in the generating ‘real’ (Kuhn, 1998). This analysis is understood as symptomatic readings aiming at poking holes at the gulfs and the silences. The tendentious approach employed by its criticism based on political impulse with the sole objective to unearth linkage relations of power to which ideology is a party. Intertextuality This refers to an instrumentality that is based on the borrowing from already used text in writing to stress further on current work. This is applied in several forms such as quotation, allusion, translation and claque. It has become a substitute for the intersubjectivity and traces its significance on helping the audience to understand more of what is being watched by making allusions and text transformation. Analysis of Alien Science Fiction Film Alien Critical Praise Despite the several Alien critics, the film is rated higher amongst the Science Fiction films based on reviews based on its unique environment and realism. More turning of events came in 2003 upon release of the “Director’s Cat.” The most featured attribute of the film is its pacing which form the underlying strength of the film (Kuhn, 1998). Jerry Goldsmith thumps up its attractive opening shots as the story is ranked top in terms of, “it takes its time. It waits. It allows silences” these have drawn audience based on spectators theory explanation of potential, actual to collective audience making them pay more attention to every line based on its far-off metallic, scarcely audible chattering. Many audiences are left deeply into the film unfolding asking whether it is of SOS or a warning based on signal interceptions and crew’s discovery through establishing steps by steps. The ship design, alien’s pilot sigh as he is frozen in his chair revealed as his source of power, Brett and Parker only interested in share collections, surface murk masterstrokes, crew’s lighting helmets that merely penetrates the soup, it is described as full leathery eggs. Its harmonious incorporation of horrific thriller and science fiction all thumps up film’s attractiveness as revealed by Mclntee. He adds that it is in part a horror and a science fiction. It reflects the reality of the outside world as it answers the challenges faced by people via use of monsters (Kuhn, 1998). It setting in the spaceship indicates how people are trying not to be hurt by the drooling animas which in a nutshell indicate fear for being raped. Men are satisfied by battling to survive and females hate being associated to vulnerable victims. The film attracts several audience as it is dark and mood answering the repression theory and totally condenses every element that one fears in a film. Science fiction fans are associated with hardware and hard science fiction naggings to which the Alien film has fully captured. The loneliness about the humans is attached to the psychological torture one undergoes based on repression as explained by Freud Oedipus crisis. Sexual imagery Alien is based on various sexual overtones. The use of Alien creature as monstrous-feminine representation of archaic mother comparison of face-hugger’s attack to men rape and the violent chestburster scene depicting birth showing the brutal strategy of claiming the lives of the crew based on Alien’s phallic head reveals sexual imagery. Kuhn utilizes reflection in this case to analyses and show what happens in the outside world based on the sexual imagery employed by the film. Sexuality desperate females are attributed to rape by male monsters. The most significance part is that Alien is brought as a sex film based on non-consensual reproduction where rape led to conceptions of men. The sexual imagery is seen as an intentional as well as aversion as noted by O’Bannon, “one thing that people are all disturbed about is sex… I said ‘That’s how I’m going to attack the audience; I ‘m going to attack them sexuality. And I’m not going to go after women in the audience; I’m going to attack the men. I am going to put in every image I can think of to make the men in the audience cross their legs. Homosexual-oral rape, birth, the thing lays its eggs down your throat, the whole number.” From here we can say that Kuhn ideology and cultural production instrumentality is used to analyze as we see O’Bannon generating ideas to attack men in the audience to reflect the real outside world happening in this cinematic Alien film. Imitations According to Roger Ebert, a film critic, he sees Alien film as cerebral as compared to sequel as the characters and audience are incorporated with curiosity driving each other to grasp whatever is to be told based on the life form he describes as weirdest, as the film is based on thrill rather than thinking. Alien is impactful on both long and short run horrific genres and science. Intextuality can be used to analyze the film based on the allusion and plagiarism of the film as we realize that at its inception, Jack Hammer sued Dan O’Bannon on plagiarizing his initial work, Black Space. After the suite case was won by Dan, the film became very attractive and many authors imitated most of its attributes ranging from using its tittle such as the Alien Dead of 1979. The ideology can be used here to help analyze the film as various authors were associating their works to the benefits from the already famous name of Alien to attract more audience already loyal to Alien film. Antecedents Cross-checking for ideology similarities between Alien and other Science Fiction art works have revealed many sharing attributes in terms of themes. Alien is associated to initial films such as, The Thing from another World release in 1951 as well as Terror from Beyond Space of 1958. It is also traced to have found its routes from horrific films such as the 1978 Halloween and 1975 Jaws films (Kuhn, 1998). Parasite eggs implantation in the film crew colleagues in the film, Discord in Scarlet by an alien which ultimately hutches disrupting the crews is also attached to Alien. According to Rick Sanchez, there exists close similarities of Alien to planet of the vampire of 1965 (Hanson, 2005). This is where long dead giant remains are found by crew in a ruin with skeletal as its contents as they are celebrating.. Film analyst, David Mclntee draws several linkages of Alien to Doctor Who episode. In his attempt to analyze the Alien in relation to other science fiction films specifically using The Ark in Space, the act of larvae laid in human by the queen alien and later disrupts the crew and driven by wasp’s life cycle which is very ichneumons. The first part of the Alien also revealed several linkages to At the Mountains of Madness authored by H.P Lovecraft (Hanson, 2005). Basing his argument on the lines, ‘not in the story line but in dread-building misery ‘ in which he attaches this to have similar tone to Alien film and further calls the end film, “ the best Lovecrftian movie ever made, without being a Lovecraft adaptation.” Dan reacted in 2009 ceding to this similarities and argued that, “ strongly influenced, tone-wise, by Lovecraft, and one of the things it proved is that you can’t adapt Lovecraft effectively without an extreme strong visual style…what you need is a cinematic equivalent of Lovecraft’s prose”. H.R. Giger also notes a greater linkage of Alien based on original Alien story line to his greatest inspirational, Lovecraft’s. Best instrumentality in Alien film analysis Cultural production instrumentality remains the most significant as criticism based on the reflectionist proponents about the preexistence of the real world and control and determines representations. The unmediated fashion employed by the representation thus forms the basis upon which reflection is pinned down. Representation thus leads to ideology which encompasses society self-representations and the manner individuals live out and generate representations. Ideology is seen as heterogeneous in a decentralized society and it is the source of power, authority and influence attaching meaning to power (Hanson, 2005). Ideological film analysis tends to employ structuralist and not empiricist in analyzing genres and film text to reveal their ideological work (Kuhn, 1998). Instrumentality of the cultural production views representation as having self-impacts and therefore attacks the realm of social.. Reference Hanson, M. (2005). The science behind the fiction: Building sci-fi moviescapes. Burlington, Mass: Focal Press. Kuhn, A. (1998). Cultural theory and contemporary science fiction cinema. London [u.a.: Verso]. Read More