Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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telling stories visually, can communicate the narrative, then you have to strip
away quite a lot of the narrative, otherwise you do it twice. 920
This was a challenging negotiation for Ward. At best, it could succeed in strengthening
the storytelling (his perennial problem), but at worst, it could have the effect of
shackling his visual imagination.
In order to visualise the script, Ward did a series of sketches of nearly every shot and
gave them to a range of artists to realise in more detail, for the reason that: “It’s very
important that you have a very clear idea of what you want”. 921 It was in the area of the
look of the film that he insisted on retaining absolute control over the material: “I
always come up with the images […]. People contributed in different ways. But I
normally come up with the main thing of what it’s to look like. I’m very insistent about
that”. 922 He drew many of the scenes of Hell himself - for example, the sea of faces, the
upside-down cathedral (which is something he wanted to use in Alien 3), and the ships’
graveyard, which he felt was “strongly appropriate”. 923 Ward notes that there was “a
very specific range of images” that he associated with Hell. “We changed the
screenplay so that it had these scenes which gave it the feel of a heroic myth […]. Our
depiction of Hell is a bit in the vein of Gustav Doré, because I wanted to make it feel
more like an ancient fable rather than purely a psychological journey – though that was
a feeling I also wanted”. 924
Here was an opportunity for Ward to tap many of his old visual interests. Some of the
scenes in Hell, particularly the scene where Chris and his companions were in the boat,
surrounded by naked swimmers in the sea around them, were reminiscent of
Expressionist art. Visually, of all of Ward’s films, it drew on his art-school training to
the greatest degree. It also represented a return to his earlier interest in German
Romanticism. In addition, Van Gogh influenced the trees and skies in Paradise and
Monet, the water. Nineteenth century painters, particularly German Romantic painters
such as Casper David Friedrich and the pre-Raphaelites, were important because “that
was a time when artists still had a way of envisaging paradise”. The nineteenth century
920
Sam Gaoa, unpublished interview with Ward, 17 October 1998.
921
Ward, "After Life," D3.
922
Lynette Read, interview with Vincent Ward, 16 October 1998.
923
Kim Newman, "Never Say Die," Sight and Sound 8.12 (1998): 20.
924
Ron Magrid, "Dream Weavers," American Cinematographer 79.11 (1998): 49.