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SCIENCE FICTION CINEMA : FIRST CONTACT
(Lecture given in May 1997)I - DEFINITIONI DEFINITION
II TYPES OF SCIENCE FICTION : EXTRAPOLATION? ANALOGY & SPECULATION
III THE METAMORPHOSES OF SCIENCE FICTION
IV SOCIAL DYSTOPIAS
V CONCLUSION : THE X FILES PHENOMENON
SF, whether cinema or literature, is a difficult genre to define. There are many different definitions given by critics and writers. The general public only have a vague notion of what SF is.
This is understandable, as SF is related to other genres such as horror and fantasy, and the frontier is sometimes blurred. Is Alien an SF film, or a Horror film, or a bit of both ? Is Blade Runner SF or a futuristic "film noir"? In the same way, films like Outland, Westworld, Star Wars are hybrid forms which incorporate elements of other genres such as the western, the thriller or the fairy tale.
In fact, far from being a homogeneous genre, SF is widely diversified : the stories can take place in the near or distant future, in the present, or even in the past, in intergalactic space, on other planets, on the Earth, even inside the human body. Space operas, fantastic journeys, future worlds, time travel, aliens, spaceships, monsters and mutants, robots, androids, cyborgs and superheroes, apocalyptic visions, fabulous encounters, are as many themes and motifs which make up the language and conventions of the genre, but which are not sufficient in themselves for a satisfactory definition, as they are not found in all films in a uniform way. SF is really an umbrella term that seems to cover many different sub-genres, many different types of films.
And yet, as Vivian Sobchack has said, SF films are instantly recognized as such by the spectator because of their "unique look and feel". What, then, is the nature of this unique look and feel ?
The first common denominator resides in the introduction of an element which is a clear deviation from our norm of reality, from the empirical world as we know it, what Darko Suvin calls the "novum". The Unknown, the Unfamiliar, or the Unreal, are introduced. This corresponds to a distancing from reality, what we can call a "de-clutching" effect. The narrative interest of the book or film comes from the tension that arises between this new element and the empirical norm. The postulated innovation or event can be of different degrees of magnitude. At one end of the SF spectrum, which is in fact very close to the fantasy genre, we find a single scientific or technological discovery, or a new situation created as a result of a scientific experiment that has gone wrong, for instance. The hero can then turn into a mutant or monster (The Fly), become invisible (The Invisible Man), start shrinking (The Incredible Shrinking Man), or develop superhuman powers. On the other hand, the distancing from reality typical of SF can operate along a space axis (with space travel stories), a time axis (stories set in a more or less distant future, or past, or both), or a space-time axis, the latter allowing the optimum de-clutching effect, with representations of alien civilizations in distant galaxies in the far future (or the distant past, as in Star Wars). Naturally, for the story to work, spectators have to accept a sort of contract between the film and themselves : they have to "suspend their disbelief" and project themselves into the imaginary world.
Through this distancing from our immediate reality, visual representations of SF arouse in spectators a feeling of amazement, of wonder, an intense emotion which induces a sort of vertigo. This "sense of wonder" is the indefinable spark at the very heart of the genre. Visual representations of cities of the future in Metropolis ('26), Things to Come ('36) or Blade Runner ('82); the grandiose beauty of 2001 - A Space Odyssey ('68); the almost religious feeling of awe evoked by the aliens' spaceship in Close Encounters ('77); the diversity and realism of the alien worlds and species featured in the Star Wars trilogy; the apocalyptic visions of films like Terminator ('84 & '91) or Twelve Monkeys ('95); such images and visual representations invite us to broaden our imaginary horizons and see the world under a new angle.
But if the stories are to be meaningful to us, settings, situations and characters cannot be totally divorced from the empirical world : SF maintains a link with our reality - even if only through analogy - and familiar elements are incorporated into the stories. Thus SF remains anchored to the spectator's sense of reality and much of its interest comes from the visual and narrative tension between strange and familiar. At the same time, the underlying framework - necessary for Suvin's novum to be operative - is that of science and scientific method which validates the unfamiliar, whether the scientific possibilities are "real" or just "imagined" (the term "science" not only includes the "hard" sciences, i.e. the natural sciences, but also what we can call the "soft" human sciences such as history, sociology, ethnology, etc.). However fantastic the novum and its technological premises, their human and social consequences must be explored fully and rationally to their logical conclusion. In other words the novum must not be a mere prop, introduced to support a conventional adventure story, melodrama, romance, etc., and then quickly forgotten. Thus we can say that science - whether real or pseudo-science - is the encompassing horizon of SF, that it determines both its motivation and its dynamics.
The imaginary worlds of SF must also have internal coherence, or verisimilitude. They must be credible for the magic of SF to operate, and this is a crucial point, which distinguishes good SF from bad SF. The world or universe represented must be entirely believable, both on the visual and narrative level, and the spectator actively participates to this act of creation. He/she has to re-construct, re-create the imaginary world represented on screen from all the different elements and clues provided in the film. Thus, a film like Blade Runner - which has become a milestone of the genre - is characterized by the "realism", or rather "future-realism" of its representations.
Finally, most SF films, while appealing to our imagination, throw into question the world in which we live and are more or less directly concerned with the future of mankind, with man's power to control his environment, the universe, and ultimately his destiny. Bruce Kawin writes :
"By appealing to the (...) spirit of adventure (...) and to the creative use of intelligent curiosity, SF allows us to explore our evolution and to begin the creation of the future, something it accomplishes both in cautionary tales of the dangers of technology and in adventurous celebrations of human capacity and resourcefulness. It opens the fields of inquiry, the range of possible subjects, and leaves us open." ("Children of the Light", Film Genre Reader II, ed. B. Grant, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1995, p. 321).
II - TYPES OF SCIENCE FICTION : SPECULATION, ANALOGY & EXTRAPOLATION
As the above quotation suggests, SF is based on the spirit of hypothetical investigation, characterized by a formula like "as if" or "what if" (i.e., what would, or will happen if the following premise, or axiom, was/is true ?) 2 main trends may be isolated : broadly speaking, they are the analogical-speculative model and the extrapolative one, although it must be stressed first that these are not set, fixed categories, and there are many cases where these theoretical distinctions overlap, and when films containing some of both elements are particularly difficult to classify as belonging to one or the other.
A) SPECULATION AND ANALOGYIn films belonging to the analogical-speculative trend, we are "transported beyond the confines of the known world" (V. Sobchack, Screening Space - The American Science Fiction Film, New York, Ungar, 1987, pp. 89-90). The films show representations of technologies, worlds and creatures which "have no counterparts in the world outside the theater" (Sobchack, p.91). They are either scientifically impossible, because they defy the laws of physics (for instance, time travel stories, or faster-than-light spaceships), or they only exist as distant possibilities. It is in these films that the gap, or distance, between the filmic representations and our everyday reality is the greatest. The space operas - Star Wars, Star Trek, etc - belong to this category. |
 The Alien spaceship in Stargate |
Or else, the worlds represented do exist in reality, but they are simply not within the reach of current human knowledge and experience, because of the limits of human technology. For instance, in films like Total Recall or Outland, Man has established mining colonies on Mars and on Io, a satellite of Jupiter. This type of film seems in fact to be half-way between the speculative and extrapolative modes, since it is not at all scientifically impossible that Man may one day establish space colonies in the solar system.
 The Enterprise in orbit |
The grandiose beauty of the worlds represented easily evokes the sense of wonder mentioned earlier. For example, Forbidden Planet "begins with a sequence showing a flying saucer from Earth hurtling through space and entering an alien solar system. Here, the eclipse of an enormous red sun is seen with the saucer silhouetted by the solar corona - a breathtaking panorama which is comparable to the astronomical simulations in the 1968 classic : 2001 (John Brosnan, quoted in Sobchack, p. 101). Through those visual representations which can span whole solar systems or even galaxies, through those flights of fancy that stretch our imaginative horizons, we are given the possibility of transcending immediate human experience. We are given "the visual scope of a god" (Sobchack, 101-2). |
Thus SF films based on analogy or speculation tend to move away from the reality principle and to appeal to the pleasure principle. If some speculative films can be serious, even pessimistic interrogations on human nature and human society (for instance Brazil), others - particularly the space operas - are generally optimistic, escapist fantasies of the future or of faraway worlds.
B) EXTRAPOLATION
Extrapolative films are generally closer to the reality principle than the pleasure principle, and they are also more somber, more pessimistic than analogical ones. They are often concerned with more serious issues such as the - often destructive - potential of technology, with human identity and human destiny, with the human/non-human opposition, and with the future of society.
Unlike speculative or analogical films, these maintain a chronological link with our world. Indeed, they extrapolate into the future some of the trends which are already perceptible in the contemporary world. By taking contemporary reality as a starting point, they build a bridge between present and future, which reduces the distancing effect already mentioned. This temporal bridge not only increases the credibility of the future world by establishing causal-historical links that enable us to project ourselves into the filmic future, it also allows us to go back in time from the future to the present, and thus to see our world under a different perspective. Extrapolation, which therefore acts as a kind of mirror reflecting contemporary hopes and fears, turns the cinematic future into a hyperbolic representation of the present. Blade Runner, Johnny Mnemonic, Strange Days, are representative examples of this category, as well as some of the space stories discussed earlier, such as Total Recall or Outland.
In the next part, I would like to concentrate on films of either a speculative or extrapolative nature which, while appealing to our imagination and sense of wonder, also provide warnings and fundamental interrogations about the future of mankind. Indeed, pessimistic films constitute the majority, though they are not those with the strongest commercial impact.
Because these films provide a useful yardstick to the psycho-social climate of any given period, generic transformations can also be seen as a reflection of social changes, and I therefore intend to briefly cover the history of the genre and its transformations in the XXth century. Thus, I will not only draw a parallel between historical and social change on the one hand and the evolution of SF cinema on the other; I will also try to show how the genre actively participates to a philosophical and ideological debate on core social values and I will explore the socio-cultural meanings and functions of the genre.
III - THE METAMORPHOSES OF SCIENCE FICTIONIn the early 20th century, SF films and TV serials (Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, etc..) openly stated their faith in technological progress and the future, and the conquest of space was a privileged theme. Space was seen as the new frontier and its infinite horizons as the ideal stage for the highest dreams and achievements of mankind. Visual representations of cities and spaceships of the future celebrated the undisputed triumph of technology. However, this sterilized imagery of gleaming chrome surfaces and aerodynamic machines soon became less and less credible, and some films started developing darker themes. As early as 1926, Fritz Lang's Metropolis presented a bleak vision of mankind enslaved by technology under the control of capitalism.
And, when in the 1950s the genre finally emerged from its long incubation, filmic representations were generally pessimistic, even paranoid. In post-Hiroshima and post-cold war America, the social-psychological climate provided a fertile ground for the proliferation of apocalyptic visions of the future : catastrophes, invasions of monstrous creatures or aliens then reflected the general dread of a nuclear holocaust, as well as the collective hysteria caused by the fear of a communist invasion from within American society itself. Thus, SF films of that period echoed American people's deepest and most irrational fears.
In the 1960s a tidal wave of social protest swept through American society. The counter-culture movement that developed within West Coast universities and then spread to many parts of American society challenged traditional values. Generally speaking, the 1960s saw the revolt of the individual against social conformity and conservatism. Although far fewer films were produced than in the 1950s, the genre enjoyed renewed popularity from 1968, with the release of films like Barbarella, Planet of the Apes, and above all 2001 - a Space odyssey, which revolutionized special effect technology and heralded a new age for the genre. SF cinema started undergoing transformations which also reflected the new social, economic and political issues : through the late 1960s and the 1970s, alien invasions virtually disappeared from cinema screens, and new themes started becoming prominent : ecological disasters, overpopulation, social injustice, totalitarianism, the destructive potential of technology and the dehumanisation of human relationships came to the forefront of film directors' interests. Apocalyptic visions were gradually replaced by social dystopias or anti-utopias. Since the 1970s, new themes reflecting contemporary psycho-social concerns have also appeared : cloning, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, etc., are some of these new themes around which contemporary anxieties are being articulated. Moreover, filmmakers' apocalyptic imagination, increasingly influenced by the devastating effects of new threats like the AIDS virus, has integrated themes such as contamination by uncontrollable killer viruses (e.g. 12 Monkeys).
1977 was a turning point in the genre's history, its "big bang" if you want. From that year onwards, SF cinema enjoyed a veritable renaissance, both aesthetically and commercially. Indeed, 1977 was the year when Close Encounters and Star Wars were released, to be followed in 1978 by Superman, Alien, Mad Max and Star Trek. As you know, all of those films were to have unprecedented commercial success and to become cult movies, leading to many sequels and exploitation flicks that reproduced the same basic formulae. SF cinema became an integral part of Hollywood's new commercial strategy, consisting in the production of mega-budget blockbusters being released on worldwide markets with a massive bombardment of advertising. While 1977 marked the beginning of global commercial exploitation, it was also the beginning of a period of increasingly sophisticated special effect and production technologies, particularly computer-generated animation and graphics. Although the Hollywood blockbusters are generally optimistic, many smaller-budget films have also been produced, and those have tended to be predominantly pessimistic in their interrogations concerning man's nature and destiny, and their representations of future society.
IV - SOCIAL DYSTOPIAS
Future societies represented in contemporary SF film are seldom democracies, being as they are under the yoke of totalitarian governments or capitalistic monopolies. The social universe of many films is a prison-like environment where individuals are hopelessly alienated from a dehumanised society. To name but a few : THX 1138 ('70), Alien ('79), Brazil ('85), Escape from Los Angeles ('96), 12 Monkeys ('96), and above all Blade Runner ('82).
Another privileged theme common to these films and many others is the generalized mistrust of all-powerful multinational capitalism which reduces human beings to mere pawns on the chessboard of profit. In films belonging to the Cyberpunk sub-genre, industrial corporations control the world through global computer networks. In these future worlds, social Darwinism has entered its final stage, and an ever-widening gap divides the different strata of society. At the heart of the richest conurbations in the era of virtual reality and state-of-the-art technology, the lowest classes, a heterogeneous population made up of have-nots, punks, down-and-outs etc, have been abandoned to their fate by an indifferent society, and run-down urban districts have been taken over by anarchy, chaos and entropy. This is of course a hyperbolic metaphor of the widespread ghetto phenomenon within contemporary American, and increasingly, European cities. Representative films are Johnny Mnemonic ('95), Lawnmower Man and Strange Days ('96).
Yet, it is often in stories set in outer space, and particularly on the mining colonies, the outposts of Mankind among the stars, that the darkest representations of post-industrial capitalism are to be found, and that our contemporary society's fears and anxieties concerning the inhumane nature of modern capitalism find their loudest echoes. In such films as Outland ('81), the Alien films, Total Recall ('81), Screamers, '96, the mining colony reflects a powerful image of social and individual alienation and provides a counterpoint to the myth of the new frontier as it had been depicted by John Kennedy. Far from allowing Man to fulfill his highest and most noble dreams, the space colony actually embodies the worst aspects of post-industrial society. For more on this issue, you should refer to Bruce Franklin's "Visions of the Future in SF Films from 1970 to 1982", published in Alien Zone : Cultural Theory and contemporary Science Fiction Cinema, ed. Annette Kuhn, London & New York, Verso, 1990.
Predictably, among the contemporary anxieties that find a resonance in SF films, the fear of technology is one of the most prominent. Many films are characterized by the almost paranoid fear of unbridled technology hell-bent on the destruction of mankind, and the figure of the antechrist frequently appears, notably in Terminator (I & II, 1984 & 1991) and Hardware (1990), in the shape of evil robots or cyborgs whose electronic eyes radiate a hellish red glare. Through their iconography, SF films thus combine social dystopias with apocalyptic visions where darkness and the use of red are recurring visual elements. In Blade Runner, Los Angeles is perpetually plunged in a gloomy, oppressive twilight caused by uncontrolled air pollution. The sun, barely visible through this man-made fog, radiates a dull, hazy light, while fire and smoke erupting from hundreds of factories in the unremitting dusk fill the sky with a reddish glow evocative of Dante's inferno or the tormented paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. This nignmarish aesthetics is to be found in many films and is frequently associated with the destructive forces of technology.
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 The Terminator |
V - MEANINGS AND FUNCTIONS OF SF CINEMA : PLEASURE VS. SOCIAL CRITICISM
We saw earlier that SF films based on analogy or speculation appeal to the pleasure principle and that, if some speculative films can be serious interrogations on human nature and human society, others are generally optimistic, escapist fantasies. Most of the Hollywood "blockbusters" belong to the latter category, and their function seems to be to offer spectators - through the use of music, colour, design and spectacular pyrotechnic special effects - a veritable "theme park of attractions". They provide the audience with sensations of sublime euphoria as exhilarating as a rollercoaster ride.
Sadly, the commercial imperatives of profit mean that box office successes usually lead to the production of stereotyped SF films which merely reproduce the formulas of the original, while neglecting plot and narrativity. A common criticism is that Hollywood SF blockbusters are a pretext for an extravaganza of special effects which go beyond narrative requirements. Thus, the domination of special effects is at the expense of the critical functions of SF and of thematic and narrative innovation, since contemporary SF films are only cliché reformulations of established conventions, so that the genre is in danger of becoming fossilized. Some critics are even more pessimistic : the orgy of special effects means the death of narrative cinema. For Hans Gerhold, SF cinema "seems to have arrived at a kind of terminal phase" (quoted by Manfred Nagl in "The SF Film in Historical Perspective", Science Fiction Studies, vol. 10, 1983, pp. 272-273).
I agree to a certain extent with some of these views, and I think that those of you who have seen Species 2, or even some recent Hollywood blockbusters, will also agree. Such films have the same narrative depth as the pages of "Mickey magazine". Special effects are a means to an end, and they certainly should not become an end in themselves. However, the fact that there are bad SF films does not mean that all SF films are bad, or that special effects should be condemned. Indeed I believe that they play an essential part in SF cinema because, when they are used to support the narrative, they allow filmmakers to reproduce some of the most evocative and original visions of SF literature, and to create highly credible filmic representations. Thus modern special effect technology makes it easier for the spectator to suspend his disbelief, and plays a vital role in the creation of the SF sense of wonder. They contribute to giving a rich texture to the narrative canvas, to giving a film its visual style. Does one criticize a good book for being well-written ?
Moreover, far from witnessing the death of the genre, the 1990s have seen a new SF wave sweeping over the planet. Many films have been produced in this decade, not just optimistic blockbusters like Waterworld, Stargate or Independence Day, but also much darker visions of the future of clear aesthetic and narrative quality, whether big or small budget, like Strange Days, 12 Monkeys, Total Recall, Terminator II, Screamers, The Truman Show, Dark City, etc. So, not only is the genre far from having entered its terminal phase, but the current enthusiasm for "feel good" films has actually prompted the production of a large number of more serious ones, whether speculative or extrapolative, which offer social criticism and warnings about the future.
I think that there are several types of audience for SF cinema. On the one hand, the general audience, for whom indeed SF films are no more than "popcorn" movies, to be enjoyed with the whole family, just like a visit to a theme park of attractions. For this public, pleasure, the excitement and exhilarating sensations produced by special effects, are indeed the main attraction and the main function of SF cinema. But there is also another audience, made up of connoisseurs of the genre familiar with its narrative and iconographic conventions, and for whom watching an SF film means more than just a rollercoaster ride. These fans and aficionados are more demanding, more critical, and for them scientific verisimilitude, narrative consistency and thematic richness are important criteria. Of course they may also enjoy the escapist fantasies produced by Hollywood, as well as the excitement provided by such TV space operas as Star Wars, Babylon 5, Voyager, etc. - why not ? I do too, tremendously so - but I strongly suspect that they are particularly sensitive to the more pessimistic speculations or extrapolations of "serious" SF, which cannot but find a significant echo with this public. The next step is now to carry out a survey of SF film audiences, which will either confirm or invalidate this hypothesis.
CONCLUSION : THE "X FILES" PHENOMENONTo conclude, I would like to mention the "X Files" phenomenon which has taken the world by storm since 1993, and which is probably responsible for the massive return of E.T.s in Hollywood in recent years. This TV serial which has won millions of fans - if not addicts - all over the planet, not merely among SF's traditional fandom, but also among the general public. The series' phenomenal success has prompted the creation of "Sci-Fi Channel", an all-SF cable-TV channel, to which even Bill Clinton is a subscriber. The themes and motifs found in "X Files" belong to both the Fantasy and the SF genres : paranormal activity, the supernatural, the unexplained, superpowers like ESP (extra-sensory perception), and of course aliens and UFOs. The main theme is that of a plot by the American government, intended to cover up the existence of extraterrestrial visitors. Thus the series has reinforced both the mistrust felt by American people towards their political institutions and their tendency to believe in mystical or unexplained happenings.
According to a survey published in "Newsweek", 48% of Americans believe that UFOs are real and that the government is trying to hide this from them. They believe that "the truth is out there", a sentence which appears on the screen at the beginning of each X Files episode. The number of people reporting UFO sightings, and even kidnappings by aliens, has risen astronomically, so much so that State Route 375 in Nevada has been officially renamed "Extraterrestrial Highway". In the same "Newsweek" survey, 40% of respondents admit that they believe in paranormal and supernatural activity. This is a general phenomenon, which concerns all social classes, including the Establishment. After Nancy Reagan's well-known belief in astrology, Hilary Clinton has been imagining "real" conversations with Eleanor Roosevelt. Three men were recently arrested for plotting the murder of local politicians whom they suspected of covering up a UFO landing.
Why have this mysticism, this credulous neo-spiritualism, become so widespread in the past few years, together with the New Age movement's renaissance, and the proliferation of sects ? I am strongly tempted to link this phenomenon to the failure of traditional social and moral values, and of the ideal of technological progress. Magic and the unexplained seem to function as substitute religions for people who have nothing to believe in any more, but who need desperately to believe in something at the dawn of the third millenium. "I want to believe", seems to be the movement's mantra. This sentence is actually printed on a poster behind agent Mulder's desk in X Files.
All this I think shows that interactions between cultural representations and the collective unconscious are extremely fluid, and one may wonder to what extent these modern myths and beliefs are - indirectly - the products of Hollywood's imagination, and to what extent SF cinema creates a sort of snowball effect which amplifies them. At any rate, SF cinema is clearly symptomatic of general psycho-social anxieties and, because its main area of investigation is the future of mankind, I believe it is also having a major impact on socio-cultural representations in the last days of the 20th century.
