The behind-the-scenes details of the chestburster scene from Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi/horror classic, Alien, are widely known, at this point: the Nostromo’s crew (minus John Hurt’s Gilbert Kane) were only given the most basic outline of the scene, with Sigourney Weaver claiming that the script simply read “this thing emerges.” So, when Nick Allder, the special effects supervisor, sent that pearlescent infant xenomorph bursting out of Kane’s chest, the crewmates’ reactions would feel real.
Mr. Hurt, however, had to sit around for four hours with his head poking out of the table at the neck of an artificial chest, drinking glasses of wine and smoking his favourite Gauloises cigarettes (as he was apt to do), as the effects team prepared the prosthetics. And, while he couldn’t always see exactly what was going on around him, the smell of offal and the blood machines being loaded up with pig’s blood will have given him a pretty good idea. So, while the other crewmembers could rely on the genuine gut shock and fear triggered by seeing this bloodied creature for the first time to drive their performances, Hurt had the more challenging job of creating his.
In the 2003 commentary track for the Director’s Cut, Hurt notes how little time is afforded to actors when shooting a science fiction film. Instead, he says it’s all about the lighting and the effects, and actors always have to work around the director’s visual concerns. Which is exactly what Hurt does in the chestburster scene. Despite the prosthetic chest, Hurt was still able to lead his squirming performance. He was free to move his head and arms and then the technicians would move the chest in sync with his movements.
Contrary to the simplified behind-the-scenes story, they were unable to catch this sequence in one seamless take. The head didn’t burst through the T-shirt first time around, so they reset the hydraulic ram, weakened the fabric of the shirt and went again. But, then the blood splatter wasn’t quite right. Yet, Hurt stayed in character the whole time as Scott had the hydraulics operator continue bursting the alien head through Kane’s chest with more and more blood until Scott’s four cameras managed to capture enough footage to cut the scene together. Hurt had to deal with hours of set-up and yet still managed to deliver the surprise in those scarring few minutes.
It’s great direction and no other method could have elicited quite the same reactions of pure terror, but one slip up from Mr. Hurt and that whole scene would have been ruined. Scott just had to keep rolling – you can’t get a second take of that magic – and John Hurt was the one guy who could have messed it up. But, he didn’t: he nailed it.
The scene also stands as the culmination of Kane’s vital arc in the film. As Scott’s camera glides through the industrial corridors of the USCSS Nostromo before coming to rest at the hypersleep chamber, it’s Kane who first emerges from those crisp white pods at the beginning of the film. But, first to be born, first to die, as it is Kane who’s attacked and impregnated by the facehugger in the bowels of the derelict spaceship on LV-426.
The crew try desperately to save their executive officer, but death’s coiled tail grips tighter and tighter. When all hope seems lost, Kane undergoes a form of rebirth as the facehugger detaches from him. But, it isn’t long until his last supper, when the parasite finishes him off for good. This symbolic, and ultimately very real, cycle of life and death instills a sense of danger for everyone on that ship and reverberates throughout the rest of the film.
The design work is wonderful and Scott’s directorial choices are perfect, but the chestburster scene simply would not be the same without Hurt’s grounded performance and the parabolic journey of Kane. It is for these reasons that the chestburster has become iconic far beyond genre cinema, and stands as one of the most influential and indelible death scenes in cinema history.
Kane was the first to die on the Nostromo, but he was also the first to live. You will be missed, Mr. Hurt.