I like his stuff too, but they seem to be handing the ol' knighthood round quite often nowadays. I always thought it was a very special and rarely offered acknowledgement of supreme service to the crown and kingdom. Sort of : saved the empire? "check." Defended the crown? "check" Didn't get caught bonking any members of the royal family of the same sex? "check" and there you were. Now it seems to be: Been to England? "check" Relatively popular? "Okay, close enough, there you go. Thanks for the good work, can't have enough knights nancing about Hollywood, you know. Cheers!" I guess as long as we don't end up with a Sir Renny Harlin (not that he's a brit) or a Sir Robbie Williams I'll be okay, but really, didn't it used to be a bit more sacred?
I've been a Scott fan ever since the Duellists, which is a very underrated film, IMNSHO. Interesting thing about Scott is the fact that he's always had strong women in his films (I for one was not surprised by Thelma and Louise, which seemed finally to be a film focusing on this aspect of his take on things). Some examples: In the duellists, Keith Carradine's lover confronts Harvey Keitell's character, who is obsessed with challenging Carradine to duels until one of them is dead. He's rolling around in his tent with a bunch of friends and women and points a gun at her, telling her to keep her distance because he "once knew a man who was stabbed to death by a women--surprised him very much let me tell you" (or something like that). Her response: "I once knew a woman who was beaten to death by a man. I don't suppose it surprised her at all." I remember watching a film society showing of Blade Runner (in Ann ARbor, I think) while sitting behind a lesbian couple. They watched the film until Joanna Cassidy's death scene (when Decker has to shoot her 2-3 times while she's desperately (and semi-nudely) trying to escape--it's the film's defining scene because it highlights how much more alive the androids are than the people). Anyway, once that scene was over, one of them said "cool" and they got up and walked out. Ripley in the Alien series is an icon, of course, and Scott's entry in that series is what really established her as a hardass. Anyway, yeah they do seem to be tossing the knighthoods around (although I understand there are gradations of these things and maybe the celebs get the minor ones), but I don't begrudge Scott his.
I met Scott at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC when he was filming Hannibal. He had just wrapped a scene with Gary Oldman, and was kind enough to meet me. He was extremely personable. As we were talking, he looked out over the forest surrounding the house and noted how beautifully the haze had settled on the tops of the trees, then called for someone to grab a camera and get the shot. When no one heard him, he didn't throw a tantrum or anything, he just grabbed a rig and got the shot himself. Pretty cool, I thought.
Noticed something today: SciFi ran "Alien" and "Blade Runner" back to back, and in both films, when a ship took off, there was a red flashing "purge" on the control screen. Completely meaningless. I think. But interesting.