Director Ridley Scott now seems to be mired in the
past. The overwhelming success of Gladiator (2000) led Scott into the Crusades with Kingdom of Heaven, which is now in
theaters. He is also attached to the upcoming projects Captain Kidd, Tripoli, and Gladiator 2. That is quite a turn of
events for a filmmaker who was initially branded a science-fiction
director. It also distracts an artist who often works best with more
contemporary subjects. He debuted with the little-seen period drama The Duellists (1977), a
repetitive but intriguing study of two obsessive French hussars in the
Napoleonic Army who fight a continual duel for 30 years. Scott burst upon
the film world with his second feature, Alien (1979), and followed it with
Blade Runner (1982). Blade Runner bombed, but it
quickly soared into the cult stratosphere, after which Scott had difficulty
shaking the science-fiction label. After these two classics, Scott never
returned to the genre.
He experimented with other genres with mixed results
before stunning everyone with what is often negatively referred to as a
chick flick, but Thelma & Louise (1991) is much more than that. Scott was able to put a
human face on the plight of women in a male-dominated society and
encapsulate it in a road comedy. The result is Scott’s most brilliant
film, which forces the viewer to re-examine the human elements that lurk
beneath the veneer of action and special effects. The crew of average
people in Alien
sets it apart from the one-dimensional macho posturing in James
Cameron’s sequel, Aliens (1986).
Scott made his first attempt at a period epic the next
year with 1492: Conquest of Paradise. Perhaps everyone was so caught up in the 500th anniversary
of Columbus’ first voyage that they failed to notice that the story
isn’t that interesting. Consider this Scott’s only clunker. White Squall (1996) may be the
biggest surprise in Scott’s filmography. Jeff Bridges stars in this
true story of a sailing adventure that ends in tragedy. We’ve all
seen this same story before, but it’s never been more brilliantly
realized on film. Here, as in Thelma &
Louise, Scott is able to connect on a human
level like few others. There is a moment of heartbreak in this film that
would reduce Attila the Hun to tears. You can see the despair on the faces
of the characters in both films. This might seem like a contradiction to my
statement a few weeks back about Scott’s sadistic streak, but both
aspects are clearly a part of his film persona.
Contradictions are the sign of a deeply complex
artist.
DVDs scheduled for release Tuesday (May 24): The Aviator, Are We There Yet?, and Pooh’s Heffalump Movie.
This article appears in May 19-25, 2005.
