Alexandre O. Philippe’s documentary Memory – The Origins of Alien comes to UK cinemas on August 30, and is released on DVD and on demand by Dogwoof on September 2. With access to never previously released material from the archives, it delves into the roots of the film in ways that may well surprise even the most devoted of Alien fans. While crossing the globe promoting the movie, Philippe settled long enough to chat with Paul Simpson…

 

Thank you for a fantastic documentary that gives new context to Alien. What comes across is the fascination that those who were involved with the creation of the film still have with it forty years later – but what’s your own connection to it? What does it mean to you?

Alien is one of a handful of movies that I associate with my early years as a movie buff, first as a kid, being entranced by the poster and dreading the idea of watching it but also really wanting to watch it. It’s one of the few movies that once I’d watched it – which was on VHS for the first time – I’d watch it over and over again. It’s part of the mythology of my childhood in a way.

What were your parameters for the ‘talking heads’ for the documentary – as opposed to those who were directly involved with the production?

It stems from the story you’re trying to tell. Once I’d started on this idea of it being a mythological film about an alien, once you embrace that idea, you go there.

It was a long process and a difficult process to find voices that are not too scholarly, that are going to be accessible and entertaining, and that general audiences would be able to comprehend. There’s a lot of big, very heavy ideas in this film but I don’t make films for the elite few, I make films for people, and I try to communicate my love of cinema and my passion for those films to people who are willing to sit down and watch my films. That’s always a challenge to find these voices, but we were very lucky and got the right combination. There a lot of people that I feel were great but were a little too heavy and just didn’t make the cut.

Is there the potential for an extended cut of this [he laughs] or is this very much what you want to do?

I’m pretty happy with it. I don’t know that I want to go much deeper into this. As fascinating as those ideas really are, I think they’re better left for bonus features or somebody to write a book on at some point. Maybe it’ll be me in my 70s. Right now, I’m happy to move on – I’m finishing a film on The Exorcist right now with William Friedkin so that’s a whole other thing.

The contributions from Ridley Scott are from the archives rather than new – we almost get reflections of Scott in the film. Was that a conscious decision, or was he not available?

Both. We certainly reached out and tried to get him, but in retrospect I’m kind of glad it didn’t work out, because when you’re making a film about essentially the symbiotic relationship between Dan O’Bannon, HR Giger and Ridley Scott and two of them are gone, I think to have one weigh in would skew the balance. It’s valid this way, to be honest – Scott Free gave us their blessing, they like the movie a lot so that’s good enough for me.

Is there a lot of new behind the scenes material in the film?

Yes, mainly from the O’Bannon archives. Diane had kept a lot of that stuff, she didn’t want to release it, and so this is really the first film where she gave full access to the archives. There’s quite a bit of new stuff also from the Giger archives – both Diane O’Bannon and Carmen Giger are executive producers on the film and that’s really where most of the new stuff comes from.

When you started looking at this material, what surprised you most to discover?

The fact that you can trace O’Bannon’s story back to 1971 and the fact he had been obsessively working on it. I can’t tell you how many alternate endings there are and how many different versions of the script and drawings of what the alien might look like. He had been really working for close to a decade before it became a reality.

There are various comments that ‘Memory’ is pretty much ‘the first act of Alien’ – it felt a little like hyperbole: is it as clear cut as that? Character names may be different but is it basically the same?

Sure, character names are different, and they were all male, first of all. There’s a slightly different vibe to it. It’s called ‘Memory’ because once they get on the planetoid they start forgetting things, having a little bit of amnesia. There’s a real strange tone to it; it’s really cool. It feels like an early draft but you can see the foundation of it, no question.

One of the interesting discussions is how different Alien would have been had there been different creative forces working with O’Bannon. Do you think this film is one of those happenstances where a synthesis of all these people’s visions came together perfectly?

Absolutely. As Roger Christian says in the film, if O’Bannon had directed it, it would have been a different kind of film. He brought his very specific sensibility to it and he sensed Giger was going to be the right designer for it and clearly they clicked with Ridley, and Ridley was able to execute it and bring his own stuff to it. Absolutely it’s a perfect combination of the three.

The period while Giger was off the movie, before Scott got involved – are there different designs for the film that could have been had it gone the Walter Hill route?

That’s a great question; I don’t think there were. I’ve certainly never heard of any. I don’t think Giger was fired for a very long time because Ridley was able to put his foot down very quickly. I don’t think there was time to create anything else and it doesn’t sound like Walter Hill really had a vision for it either. Scott and Giger were clearly the right ones for it.

You focus a lot on the chestburster scene, but most Alien material tends to be Ripley-centric. What was it about that scene that made you want to make it the focal point?

I think the argument I make is that in spite of everything, in spite of the extraordinary set of circumstances and serendipity that led to this great moment, had the execution of the chestburster failed, I think the whole movie would have failed. Everything ultimately hinged on that and that’s why I build [my] whole movie to that point where it’s a make or break moment for Scott. That’s the reason we spend a lot of time talking about Scott’s execution as a director; his techniques and his approach to it. At that point it was up to him to make it work.

I had noted Ian Holm’s reactions as Ash but not necessarily put the pieces together in the way the documentary does. Does the script make it clear early on that Ash has this very different look to him, or is it something Ridley brought in in the way he shot it?

I think that was something that was there all the time. Ash was not an android in the beginning – that’s something that evolved over time, and it’s one of the contributions from Walter Hill and David Giler in the rewrites.

But it’s clear that he’s in a totally different mode to everyone else? There’s a lot of nuance in the way the scene is shot. How much of that was O’Bannon in the scripting, and how much Ridley in the editing?

Very much Ridley in the editing. The version of the scene that is read in voiceover in the film is actually the original version from Dan O’Bannon as written, so that scene hasn’t changed that much in the script, but there’s a lot that’s added from the directing, no question about it.

What do you think that Scott brought away from Alien as a director that he used elsewhere?

That’s a huge question. I still can’t get over the fact that he made Alien and Blade Runner back to back, two of the most unbelievable movies.

There is such a tactile quality to his films where, more than any other director I can think of in Hollywood, it makes you feel like you can reach through the screen and you’re there. He’s a very textural director. Also the way that he shoots a lot – he shot about 80% of Alien himself, a lot of that handheld. Those were pretty heavy cameras to control this way. That style of inserting himself within the film and his own participation in the filming of it that gives you that sense of being in that world, and that’s something that carries forward

I’m maybe not seeing it so much now, I have to say, in his more recent films, but in his earlier films you can. Even going back to The Duellists, it’s a very atmospheric, very tactile kind of film.

The opening sequence with the Furies was not at all what I was expecting – which I assume is partly the point! – but did you have that image in mind before you started doing the research?

Yes. Once I had a sense of the story that I wanted to tell and wanted to build that connection to the Furies, it was pretty clear. It came to me pretty quickly. Those things, historically in my work, the style and the approach, that’s almost the first thing that comes to mind and that’s what gives me the confidence that this is a film I want to make if I can see it rightaway. That sequence I wrote very quickly and it didn’t change. It became a huge challenge to shoot because we had to go to Delphi, the Temple of Apollo, Italy and the spaceship set – it was pretty involved.

Was that your way in to the project?

My way in was when I became really obsessed with the story of Ridley Scott showing the Triptych by Francis Bacon to Giger. That’s what opened the floodgates for me.

 

Memory: The Origins of Alien is in cinemas 30 August and DVD & On Demand 2 September

Thanks to Debbie Murray for her help in arranging this interview; pictures courtesy of the O’Bannon estate and used with permission