Silent witness
Re-watching some Ridley Scott movies on DVD recently, I noticed a recurring motif: pivotal death scenes featuring a passive, non-human observer:
- Alien: Jones the cat looks on as the xenomorph claims its first post-natal victim in Harry Dean Stanton.
- Bladerunner: A genetically engineered owl—
of course it’s not real
—pays scant attention to the brutal killing of Dr. Eldon Tyrell at the hands of another of his creations, Roy Batty. - Gladiator: During the combined patricide and regicide of Marcus Aurelius by his son Commodus, the camera comes to rest on a bust of the emperor within sight of the murder.
…or it could just be a series of coincidences.
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