Memory: The Origins of Alien

Forty years after its release, Ridley Scott’s masterpiece, Alien, remains relevant and continues to incite the imagination. Although it seems as if everything has already been said about the film, there are still some things left to discover. This documentary exposes Alien’s origins, which are deeply rooted in a long list of inspiring sources: from Greek and Egyptian mythologies, through underground comics, parasitology, the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, and Francis Bacon’s art. Skilled documentary filmmaker Alexander Philip (78/52) explores how the extraordinary minds that worked on the film (screenwriter Dan O’Bannon, artist Hans Rudy Giger, and Ridley Scott), tapped these sources, and collaborated symbiotically to effectively touch upon our collective memory.