WEBVTT

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Here's another shot I
can't stop looking at.

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So I watched this 146 times.

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One was just frame by frame.

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And so I'm showing you some
of the shots for those of you

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who have not had the
pleasure of seeing

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the best movie of all time.

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You should go check it out.

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It's a really amazing movie.

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And it's an art movie.

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People think of it
as an action movie.

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But it's a sneaky art movie
that means to satirize

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the tropes of action movies.

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And the more I
started watching it,

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the more I started
drinking my own Kool-Aid.

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"So here's another shot
I can't stop looking at.

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The creature, having been lured
into the trap laid by Dutch--

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who's Arnold
Schwarzenegger's character--

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moves slowly along the
length of a giant tree that

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is broken in half and
parallel to the ground.

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The crew had to build this tree.

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There was nothing like it in the
jungle where they were filming.

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It was, quote, 'made by a
team of about 50 over two

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weeks,' unquote, John
McTiernan, the director,

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tells us in the
commentary track.

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We see the creature in relief
against the fires Dutch

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has set in the background.

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Going frame to frame,
there's one moment, this one,

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as the fires flicker, in which
the slope of the creature's

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head and neck, seen through
its cool camouflage effect,

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is mirrored almost exactly by
the path of flame at the right.

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It's perfect.

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I love to show you it.

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It's at 1:28:23 if you're
going frame by frame at home.

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But what I want to know is
how accidentally this shot was

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made, like, how much
can you shape the pyro?

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Probably a lot.

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We tame fire as it suits
our needs, I think.

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And did someone plan it this
way, probably not, but maybe,

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in order to reveal a poetry,
which this shot does.

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The eye seeks
similarity, slow motion.

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Watching the film this way,
shot by shot and frame by frame,

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all the accidents
seem inevitable.

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This is, I guess, the effect
of art or my willingness

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to believe and find
myself in film.

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I believe that if I look hard
enough, the screen will fade

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and I will see myself and
then the culture that made me

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and the men that made me
to the degree they did.

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In fact, a bit right
from center, just

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under the flame's
tentacular curl, reaching up

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from the left, I stare at
it and seem to find a face.

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Even the background vines
echo the creature's curls

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and curves.

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Our phones and digital cameras
are trained to find the face

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and focus on it.

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It's what the
machines believe we

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want because we said we
did, to see ourselves

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in flame, in anything really.

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Surveillance algorithms
track us like this.

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For the first
third of the movie,

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the creature surveys the
team from its silent post,

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invisible.

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I think it's watching Dutch.

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But as we're also watching
Dutch, it also turns to us.

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It's watching us watching it.

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That's the subtext of the film
as seen these years later.

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Through the
Predator's eye, we are

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revealed for what we are,
animal and cruel, no better

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for our sonneteering
and our musicals

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and our occasionally advanced
consciousness of race.

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Good sci-fi works like this.

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Through it, we see
ourselves anew."

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