The beauty of Alien is that everything came together in a perfect mix. Acting, directing, set design, creature design, special FX, lighting, etc, etc.

About the acting and Scott's contribution: I agree with you, and I cite two additional anecdotes.

1. Veronica Cartwright when showing up on set fully expected to play Ripley. There was a gaffe / miscommunication with her agent, who prepped her for the role of Ripley. Scott had to verbally "fight" with Cartwright to accept that she is not playing Ripley, but she's playing Lambert. That caused some tension and frustration right out of the gate.

2. Sigourney Weaver was a stage actor, this is her first role in a major motion picture. The other members of the cast were a bit skeptical about her qualities and skills to be the main character of the film, so she was constantly challenged. The major opponent was Yaphet Kotto, who was also disappointed that Parker will not survive, so he was constantly in a heightened mood, lashing out from time to time against cast members, Scott, etc. Scott has handled the situation perfectly by getting the most out if it: he inspired Kotto to use this frustration against Weaver to challenge her as many times as he can. And he did - the most famous example of this is an exchange taking place after the death of Dallas. This event leaves Ripley in charge, and there is a direct confrontation between Parker and Ripley on the latter's authority. Here, Kotto deliberately challenged Weaver many times in different takes of the scene, until Weaver lashed out as shown in the final film. And it worked - this was exactly the kind of response that was working for Kotto (and for Parker) in that situation, so he conceded and from that point on, followed Weaver's lead.

Details like this show how directing a movie takes more than an eye for pretty pictures, framing, lighting, etc. It's people management as well, all the way through.

Yeah well. Most important thing Scott did was make nauseating Stanton even half-tolerable in film. Stanton was lousy in everything else he was in right down to a bad small part on 'Petticoat Junction'.

@sati_84 said:

The beauty of Alien is that everything came together in a perfect mix. Acting, directing, set design, creature design, special FX, lighting, etc, etc.

About the acting and Scott's contribution: I agree with you, and I cite two additional anecdotes.

1. Veronica Cartwright when showing up on set fully expected to play Ripley. There was a gaffe / miscommunication with her agent, who prepped her for the role of Ripley. Scott had to verbally "fight" with Cartwright to accept that she is not playing Ripley, but she's playing Lambert. That caused some tension and frustration right out of the gate.

2. Sigourney Weaver was a stage actor, this is her first role in a major motion picture. The other members of the cast were a bit skeptical about her qualities and skills to be the main character of the film, so she was constantly challenged. The major opponent was Yaphet Kotto, who was also disappointed that Parker will not survive, so he was constantly in a heightened mood, lashing out from time to time against cast members, Scott, etc. Scott has handled the situation perfectly by getting the most out if it: he inspired Kotto to use this frustration against Weaver to challenge her as many times as he can. And he did - the most famous example of this is an exchange taking place after the death of Dallas. This event leaves Ripley in charge, and there is a direct confrontation between Parker and Ripley on the latter's authority. Here, Kotto deliberately challenged Weaver many times in different takes of the scene, until Weaver lashed out as shown in the final film. And it worked - this was exactly the kind of response that was working for Kotto (and for Parker) in that situation, so he conceded and from that point on, followed Weaver's lead.

Details like this show how directing a movie takes more than an eye for pretty pictures, framing, lighting, etc. It's people management as well, all the way through.

Really interesting. I like Kotto in other things and had him pegged for a laid backed kind of guy. Ridley Scott did great with this outstanding film, but any cast with Weaver, Kotto, Hurt, Holm, Skerrit and Stanton isn't exactly weak, regardless of experience levels. I don't think a suspense filled horror film really had the actors pushing the boundaries of their abilities (although they all gave solid performances). The set design and deftly limited exposure of the titular fiend were bigger factors in my enjoyment of the film.

Please take it about Stanton, Fergoose. He was so hard on the eyes to watch!And utterly nauseating.

@Fergoose said:

Really interesting. I like Kotto in other things and had him pegged for a laid backed kind of guy. Ridley Scott did great with this outstanding film, but any cast with Weaver, Kotto, Hurt, Holm, Skerrit and Stanton isn't exactly weak, regardless of experience levels. I don't think a suspense filled horror film really had the actors pushing the boundaries of their abilities (although they all gave solid performances). The set design and deftly limited exposure of the titular fiend were bigger factors in my enjoyment of the film.

I don't know about Kotto in other films, come to think of it I might not seen anything with him besides Alien... And normally he might be a laid back fella, but as I mentioned, he was really upset about Parker not making it, and constantly fought Scott over scene and plot details pertaining to his character. I suppose during the shooting of other films, he wasn't like that. But here he was and Ridley Scott made splendid use of this dynamic, especially with Weaver - a touch of genius.

But you know... everything is a touch of genius in this film. This movie is where everything comes together in a perfect blend. The set design, the lighting, the carefully designed and laser-focused plot, the character-interactions, the environments, the acting, the creature design, the cosmic horror aspect... everything.

And speaking of set design and environments, I want to direct your attention towards this article which is analyzing the amazing attention to detail put into props, fonts and logos:

https://typesetinthefuture.com/2014/12/01/alien/

I never freeze-framed it, but always wondered what are the buttons for on the keyboard of the self-destruction panel. Well, this article covers that - and many more! Truly astonishing work, as Ron Cobb created a whole "semiotic standard" for the Nostromo interiors, which consisted mainly of custom pictograms you can see above the doors of the various rooms.

Oh, well, I'm rambling again. But I could go on and on and on about this masterpiece.

@Benton12 said:

Please take it about Stanton, Fergoose. He was so hard on the eyes to watch!And utterly nauseating.

Interesting, Benton, your assessment of Stanton's performance in Alien seems to go down from post to post.

In your first post, he was "tolerable" - let's consider this as 100%

In your second post, he was "half-tolerable" - an 50% drop for seemingly no reason

In your third (and latest) post (quoted above) he was "hard on the eyes to watch and utterly nauseating". I consider this a 100% drop in his perceived performance.

So which is it then? Why the drop from 100% to 0%? I'm utterly confused now.

In 'Alien' Stanton tolerable thanks solely to Scott's direction. In all other work Stanton is in (down to 'Petticoat Junction') he is intolerable and nauseating!_

Half-tolerable always means tolerable.Analogy! A person says they are a certain nationality does not mean that person is saying that they are just that nationality and nothing else.

@Benton12 said:

Half-tolerable always means tolerable.Analogy! A person says they are a certain nationality does not mean that person is saying that they are just that nationality and nothing else.

No worries, I was half-joking there.

@Benton12 said:

In 'Alien' Stanton tolerable thanks solely to Scott's direction. In all other work Stanton is in (down to 'Petticoat Junction') he is intolerable and nauseating!_

I suspected this to be the case, but you never made the distinction in the mentioned posts.

Clear now.

Excellent!

@Benton12 said:

Look, Ridley Scott, though not quite the finest director in all cinema history, is certainly way above average. He managed to get a very good performance out of everyone in Alien. Tom Skerritt is a very good to great actor always so no surprise here. Even with a lesser director he most likely would have scored. But Harry Dean Stanton was, honestly, a sort of cheap, kinda sleazy and even rather disturbing actor in many roles and even he comes out tolerable here.

He might have the most distinguished filmography out of the whole cast.

@Fergoose said:

@sati_84 said:

The beauty of Alien is that everything came together in a perfect mix. Acting, directing, set design, creature design, special FX, lighting, etc, etc.

About the acting and Scott's contribution: I agree with you, and I cite two additional anecdotes.

1. Veronica Cartwright when showing up on set fully expected to play Ripley. There was a gaffe / miscommunication with her agent, who prepped her for the role of Ripley. Scott had to verbally "fight" with Cartwright to accept that she is not playing Ripley, but she's playing Lambert. That caused some tension and frustration right out of the gate.

2. Sigourney Weaver was a stage actor, this is her first role in a major motion picture. The other members of the cast were a bit skeptical about her qualities and skills to be the main character of the film, so she was constantly challenged. The major opponent was Yaphet Kotto, who was also disappointed that Parker will not survive, so he was constantly in a heightened mood, lashing out from time to time against cast members, Scott, etc. Scott has handled the situation perfectly by getting the most out if it: he inspired Kotto to use this frustration against Weaver to challenge her as many times as he can. And he did - the most famous example of this is an exchange taking place after the death of Dallas. This event leaves Ripley in charge, and there is a direct confrontation between Parker and Ripley on the latter's authority. Here, Kotto deliberately challenged Weaver many times in different takes of the scene, until Weaver lashed out as shown in the final film. And it worked - this was exactly the kind of response that was working for Kotto (and for Parker) in that situation, so he conceded and from that point on, followed Weaver's lead.

Details like this show how directing a movie takes more than an eye for pretty pictures, framing, lighting, etc. It's people management as well, all the way through.

Really interesting. I like Kotto in other things and had him pegged for a laid backed kind of guy. Ridley Scott did great with this outstanding film, but any cast with Weaver, Kotto, Hurt, Holm, Skerrit and Stanton isn't exactly weak, regardless of experience levels. I don't think a suspense filled horror film really had the actors pushing the boundaries of their abilities (although they all gave solid performances). The set design and deftly limited exposure of the titular fiend were bigger factors in my enjoyment of the film.

This is an idea that deserves exploration, as far as horror films go. Take the IMDB "Top 250" list or whatever it's called now: For a list of 250 of the supposedly greatest films, I seem to remember there being very few horror movies on it. Also, cineastes or whatever don't talk about great acting in horror films often. But there's the acting in this or, say, The Exorcist - very good stuff in my opinion. So is it that horror fans don't expect that much from their genre - not holding the movies up to the same criteria as films in other genres? Or do horror movies just generally fall shorter in these criteria?

Sometimes, the lead gives very competent acting in a horror film, but it's just not enough to save the film, in my humble opinion, like with for example, The Possession of Hannah Grace. But anyway, this is a good discussion to have.

I'm a fan of Ridley Scott and I think he did an amazing job on Alien which probably doesn't come as any groundbreaking revelation. Scott brought out some wonderful performances from Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner too, so doing the same for Stanton might be par for the course for RIdley. Sometimes it just takes the right director to bring out the best in an actor. For example, I'm not sure if anyone would ever accuse John Wayne of being a great actor, but in True Grit, he managed to win an Oscar for Best Actor. I'm convinced the director Henry Hathaway, did a great job in coaxing a truly great performance from Mr. Wayne.

In Stanton's case it was like a miracle. Those other performers you mentioned, Dark, had better potential.