They Live

"Like pourin' perfume on a pig!" John Carpenter's classic 80s action film They Live works as both a cheesy boisterous romp and a thoughtful political satire, but sometimes I feel as if maybe the B-movie quality of the film overtakes the potential the film had for genuine intellectual discourse. This has been one of my favourite films for a long time, but it's been years since I saw it. When I first watched it, I wasn't well versed on the idea of the B-movie, or a cult film. My understanding of the cult lexicon was completely non existent, and as a consequence, I didn't watch this film under the context of it being a cult classic or a B movie, I just watched it with the understanding that it was highly-regarded. I didn't understand why it was highly regarded - or that the film being revered was in context of the film being a B movie. So, I loved it. It was fantastic, and the cheesiness somewhat went over my head. For years afterwards, I'd show it to friends. We'd drink and have a swell time, but really, I was antsy to get to the scene in which Nada first finds the sunglasses. I'd sit anxiously awaiting that moment, and then I'd bask in the ambient and powerful glory of the scene as it played out to my audience. It was glorious. This time, however, it was different. In the years that intervene this watch and the previous watch, I've learnt a lot about cinema. I no longer approach cinema in a fast-consumption way - I contemplate it, I understand its context both culturally and historically and I spend time formulating my own thoughts and ideas. I was 16 when I first watched it, and I was in a hurry to watch as much as I could as quickly as I could. I was young, and I wanted to catch up with over a hundred years of cinema, who can blame me? So this time, with a few drinks in me again, I put it on with some friends. The b movie quality really shone to me this time - it's bright and colourful and soaked in neon. It's got a fantastic pulsing score that almost never lets up, and it's got some terrible acting. It's got basically pointless characters who do pointless things, and it's got some great characters who have great chemistry. With my knowledge of the cult film and the B movie well versed, and with so many slashers and horrors and cheesy action films now under my belt, I saw the language of this film and truly understood how much this fit in with the rest. Sure, it has a genuinely interesting and thought-provoking point, and sure, it really presents these points in a fascinating and intense way, but it still belongs to this little corner of cinema, a corner that many will disregard entirely, amazing sunglasses-discovery scene or not. I love B movies, so it's fine. The film gets away with it, and John Carpenter knows how to do it well, but I can't help but wonder what the film would be like if Carpenter did it differently. What if it was the same Carpenter who made The Thing or Assault on Precinct 13? What would They Live be like then? People will turn They Live away without giving it a second chance, purely because of its unabashed embrace of the B movie, and I feel like that might call the film a little bit short. There's a lot this film is saying: it's understanding and reasoning with everything in our society. It's accepting class issues and the widening gap between the rich and the poor by explaining it within its narrative. It's finding the concept of greed and narcissism and asking: what if these weren't traits of humans, but of aliens who look like humans? It's taking a culture of consumerism and capitalism and asking whether it's truly a human creation, but it's also understanding that even those who create the system of manipulation can't help but be sucked into it themselves. There's a lot here, and I love that it's a B movie and I love how cheesy it is, but I do think there might have been a slightly better way to do it. I don't want to bash this film. The scene in which Nada discovers the sunglasses is, without a doubt, one of the best scenes in film history. Carpenter perfectly controls every single element, timing everything so delicately and slowly, with nothing but the ambience of the city streets to score our journey with Rowdy Roddy Piper as he discovers the stark and terrifying reality. It's a beautiful, wonderful, terrifying, intense, petrifying scene, and every single element is so gloriously perfect. I can't harp on about this scene enough. Carpenter also employs fantastic photography - the film looks gorgeous throughout. Sometimes, he embraces the 80s aesthetic and covers everything in neon lights, and sometimes, he uses some great swooping cameras to glide through a scene with ease. For a B movie, the technical masterwork is definitely worthy of A movie status. Perhaps what I want is a remake. Yes, a remake. A good director on board, with Carpenter scoring again, wouldn't that be great? I wouldn't change a thing about the original: from the seven minute ridiculous fight scene to the defeat of the entire alien game with the shooting of one satellite, I wouldn't change any of it. It has its problems, and it knows it. It embraces the problems as part of its vocabulary and it gets away with it. It's an absolute pleasure to watch and I have a lot of fun with it. I guess I'm lucky I'm tuned in to this kind of film, and I feel sorry for those who aren't, because they're missing out on some wonderful cinema.