ALFONSO CUARÓN

A multihyphenate who often also writes, shoots and edits his own movies, Alfonso Cuarón is the full moviemaking package. As Gravity prepares for re-entry with a 10th anniversary re‐release, Total Film meets a director who’s always able to beguile audiences without leaving them feeling cheated.

‘A FILMMAKER NEEDS TO BE A LITTLE BIT OF A CON ARTIST’

INTERVIEW MATT MAYTUM

VITTORIO ZUNINO CELOTTO/GETTY IMAGES

There’s no boilerplate example of an Alfonso Cuarón movie. Certain themes recur frequently (parent-child bereavement being a key motif); the environments are crucial; they’re often based on books; and there’s rarely a shortage of technical excellence. But look across his filmography, and no two films are quite alike. From intimate black-and-white family drama to gritty, politically charged sci-fi, to a superlative franchise blockbuster entry, he’s demonstrated considerable range from humble beginnings.

Starting out as a crew member and an assistant director, he cut his teeth on TV and film in his native Mexico. ‘There’s no question’ that working his way up through various crew roles informed his approach as a director, he tells Total Film. In 1991 he made his directorial debut with Sólo con tu pareja, co-written with his brother Carlos. The attention that film attracted led to Hollywood interest, and he directed an episode of TV’s Fallen Angels before landing A Little Princess, the first of many literary adaptations that would define his career.

That charming family flick then led to Great Expectations (with Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow), and after that, 2001’s Y tu mamá también helped put Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal on the path to superstardom in 2001, came the film that really made cinephiles sit up and take notice: Y tu mamá también, which heralded new talent, in Cuarón, his cast, and the new generation of Mexican directors earning global recognition (Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo del Toro were affectionately dubbed ‘the three amigos’).

Given that Cuarón’s career has never stuck on a predictable trajectory, it perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise that Y tu mamá también was followed up by the third instalment in the Harry Potter franchise. Turning sharply left again, The Prisoner of Azkaban was followed up by Children of Men, a sci-fi whose relevance and stature grows with each passing year.

And 10 years ago, Cuarón delivered a blockbuster one-off that was one of the best films of the decade. Gravity told a simple survival story, in which astronaut Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is left adrift in space after debris crashes into the Hubble telescope during a routine service. To survive she must get to the International Space Station, before she can attempt to make her way back home. It was one of the defining films of 3D’s recent heyday, a breathlessly claustrophobic and scientifically rigorous thriller that was immersive and cinematic in the purest sense.

Nominated for 10 Academy Awards (and winning seven, including Best Director) the instant classic cemented his reputation, before he spun to the Roma, a deeply personal project that is, in most respects, the polar opposite of Gravity (and earned him another Best Director Oscar to boot). When we catch up with Cuarón in September ahead of Gravity’s re-release, he’s between post-production sessions in London (where he has lived for the past two decades) on upcoming Apple TV+ miniseries Disclaimer. TV is hogging his attention at the moment, as he’s also attached to shows Ascension and Fall of the God of Cars. Whichever medium he works in, we’ll always follow. His instincts have their own gravitational pull…

Gravity is turning 10 years old, and is back in cinemas. Do you see it as an essentially cinematic, big-screen experience?

Well, yes, because from the moment we were writing it, we were designing it for 3D. We were dreaming of this experience. It was going to be a cinematic experience in 3D. We were trying to take advantage of the depth of what we believed could be the potential of 3D. It was not fully exploited very often.

How do you feel about people watching it at home - or even watching it on planes or phones - in the intervening 10 years?

Well, that is inevitable. Actually, I think the experience on a plane is good. With a little turbulence, I’m sure that could complement the experience… And maybe thinking that you may fall [laughs].

Could you ever see yourself making a 3D film again?

Yes, probably. I think that the best application of 3D that is rarely used, is the potential for intimacy. I think that 3D, usually, has been used for big set-pieces, and I think that the great potential for 3D is more in just scenes about people – people talking, people being – just to give a sense of space and depth to the relationship between those people and the environment.

You co-wrote the Gravity screenplay with your son, Jonas. Do you remember where the first seed of the idea came from?

We had written a film, and had the budget, the locations, a cast – and then pretty much it fell apart… The short answer is that I needed to pay the rent. And that film was a smaller, kind of more arthouse film. [I said,] ‘I don’t have time to lick my wounds. Will you help me write another film right away? Something that I feel I can attract studios and big investors?’

We started talking about what it could be, and we started talking about films – the emotion of those mainstream films that we have seen throughout the years that deliver a certain experience: an emotional experience, and emotional impact.

First, he had written a screenplay that I had just read for a film that he later directed called Desierto. I said, ‘Yeah, something like that.’ In the sense that the whole grammar and the whole thematic elements were led by the action.

[We were] talking about films that we love… The two models that I think we took were Duel by Spielberg, and A Man Escaped by Robert Bresson – in the sense that we wanted to do something that was cinematic, in terms of the language of cinema conveying the real thematic elements. That in the action, it’ll contain some other kind of attempt to explore things about human nature. I think that that was the point of departure.

Is it a leap of faith when you make a film like that, hoping that the technology will be able to live up to your vision?

Well, I think there’s a part of a filmmaker that needs to be a little bit of a con artist [laughs]. You have people around you that have the answers and solutions. In reality, it’s your responsibility, but you have no idea what the heck you are doing.

When I first told Chivo – Emmanuel Lubezki [cinematographer and frequent collaborator] – that we had a draft, I said, ‘This is something that I want to do in three weeks. I want to do it in a very contained studio. It’s only one character. Two characters tops. And I think we can do it against a black background, with a couple of blue screens. And we can do it very quickly and contained.’

‘GRAVITY WAS LITERALLY LIKE DOING AN ANIMATED FILM’

When he read the script, he said, ‘Are you sure?’ And he was making fun of me.

And, yeah, we did some tests. The way that I thought it could be done was not the way. From then on, it was a whole journey of five years to try to figure out how to do it. I got advice and comments off people like James Cameron and [David] Fincher. And both said the technology is not ready yet. And they were right. Actually, they were so accurate, because it took us nearly five years, and what they said is: ‘I don’t think the technology is there yet. Maybe in five years.’ And pretty much it was the time it took us to develop the whole thing.

Is there a trick to great CGI? So many films don’t manage it, but the VFX in Gravity hold up really well.

Well, one thing is Tim Webber, the visual effects supervisor. He’s a genius in his field, and a true artist, also. He’s not only a technician, he’s an artist. Usually, my biggest collaboration is Chivo. In this case, it was the three of us, working all the time, taking every single decision together.

Something that is fundamental for visual effects, and something that we were very specific about, Chivo and I, is that in order to create integration, you need first to have light integration. There cannot be a discrepancy between the light that you’re creating practically and the light that your effect is going to have.

It’s not only about the direction of light; it’s the quality of light. That’s something that was very challenging on Gravity, because you have a single light source – the sun. When you’re spinning, it’s in constant motion. And, also, you have surfaces like the spacesuit bouncing the light into the face of our character, played by Sandra Bullock.

So was it, in a sense, a bit like making an animated film?

Not in a sense. It was literally like doing an animated film. I guess that 80% of the film is animated. I think the most important thing with visual effects is not only the technical element of it. That is very important, but inevitably technology is going to be dated. It’s going to age. And you have comparisons with the latest technology, and then, also, your stuff starts to look old. But what prevails is the cinematic concept. That’s why so many films in the silent era, you can see that the effects are maybe not the most technically advanced, but nevertheless you care about it. In the end, I believe that the language goes above the technique.

It’s hard to imagine anyone else other than Sandra Bullock in the lead role now. Was it a long process to settle on her?

Well, it was, just because of the time that it took for us to be ready. I have to say, I couldn’t imagine any other person performing and doing this film than Sandra. It is incredible how she holds the whole film together. And also her amazing emotional intelligence. Once she got involved, then we were four main collaborators. It was Chivo, Tim, Sandra, and me. She started challenging some decisions, and she was absolutely right. So it was about trying to figure out how to make those decisions work.

And, also, in order to be able to programme the computers and the robots that were going to be performing the technical aspect on set, we did those animations with pre-recorded timing, so any adjustment was very difficult. Some days, Sandra said, ‘Don’t worry, I will make this happen.’ And it was incredible, how her discipline was that of a dancer, with very precise choreography in, physically, very challenging situations.

Was it intentional that after Gravity, the next film you directed was Roma, which was a much more ground-level, familyspecific scale?

Well, I don’t know if it was ‘intentional’ in the sense that… Sometimes I think I have never taken much decision in the film that I’m making. They just happen. But in that one, yes, I guess that after Gravity, I just needed to keep my feet on the ground. After all the technical aspects, and also how it needs to be so preconceived – I wanted to do something that I was discovering, and that I didn’t know what it was going to be. Well, in many ways, we didn’t know if Gravity was going to work until a few weeks before we completed the film. We thought that it was a gamble. But with Roma, it was a completely different gamble. It was a gamble more from the standpoint of a creative approach to the piece.

Despite that difference in scope, Roma still has a lot of really technical aspects to it as well. Are those technical challenges part of the fun for you?

I don’t see those for the sake of: ‘I want to do a visual effect.’ You have something in mind, even in an environment that is absolutely naturalistic like in Roma, and you want to achieve something. And it becomes second nature. You say: ‘OK, I’m going to do it like this.’ And it’s a combination of the different tools that cinema offers. I mean, visual effects is nothing but a tool. I don’t have anything against visual effects. The funny thing is, when people talk about visual effects, and great directors about visual effects – I think that everybody talks about big, bombastic Hollywood films. For me, the best director of visual effects is Nuri Ceylan, the Turkish filmmaker. His films are filled with visual effects. It’s just the way that he integrates the visual effects into his story.

The extended takes in Children of Men are viewed as some of your biggest technical achievements. How did you think about those sequences when you were putting them together?

Well, the intention is never technical. The technical is the pain in the ass you have to make to achieve what you have in your head. That has to do more [with] concepts that you impose on yourself, together with your collaborators.

There’s a lot about Children of Men being prophetic. But it also feels very British. Were you thinking about Britain specifically while making it, or did you see it as something more global?

No. ‘V EF The source material - I mean, I have to confess I never read [the P.D. James book it’s based on], but I read the one-page cover of it. And I found that there was something very smart. And, also, because P.D. James is obviously a British writer. But by setting it in Britain, it was something that was very specific that really attracted me. The obvious geographical reason is that it’s an island. It can keep itself insulated, as our politicians are trying to prove to us. And, secondly, it is a nation that refuses to give up. [But] what I’m trying to say is that it’s not exclusively about Britain. We were trying to explore the things that were shaping the 21st century. But, of course, the UK gave us the perfect geographical landscape.

Was conquering Hollywood something you had in your sights from the very beginning of your career?

No. Again, unfortunately, I don’t think like that. I mean, I’m not that smart about my career. It’s been more of a process. The idea, when I was starting my career, of doing visual effects – it was completely out of the question. I always enjoy… not the technical aspects, but the whole thing of how cinema will find the tools that it needs for the creative requirements. If you see cinema from the old days, and if you see, for instance with Murnau. What people forget about Murnau is that Murnau was an amazing innovator. It’s not because he’s considered a technical filmmaker. It’s a vision of what he wants to achieve in cinema. And sometimes he didn’t find the tools around him to make that happen, so he needed to create those new tools.

‘VISUAL EFFECTS IS NOTHING BUT A TOOL’

You broke through around the same time as Alejandro Iñárritu and Guillermo del Toro. How impactful was that friendship with those guys on your career?

I think my friendship with Guillermo goes from way, way, way before. We started when we were assistants, and we were blue collars of film. We were working with the crew on different things – Guillermo mostly with special effects and make-up. I travelled from being the boom operator to camera to production assistant. And then I settled on being an assistant director – a first AD – for a long, long time in Mexico.

So that’s how we met, on that stuff. And then we started at the same time, making our films. It was almost the same year – one year apart – our first features. And then we ended up kind of getting into the eyes of Hollywood. It was not so much my plan. But then we started our journey there…

I mean, because you say ‘breakthrough’ – I don’t think the first 10 years of our career represent our breakthrough, because we were struggling like crazy. On that journey, we met Alejandro, and we became very close. When Alejandro broke – he was probably the first one that broke [with 2000’s Amores Perros], a year before Guillermo and I – we were already very close. It’s not that we became close after we broke through.

Did that help keep you grounded, having friends who were in a similar place?

Yes, of course. But, you know, if you have friends that do the same trade as you… They are very honest. I mean, we are brutally honest with each other. But it comes from a place of love and generosity. We know that. But that is not about film, it’s about life.

Over the years, you’ve adapted several books and, early on, you did A Little Princess and Great Expectations. Does that process fascinate you, or were you drawn to those projects for different reasons?

A Little Princess – I have to confess that I had probably seen the Shirley Temple film, and it was kind of blurred in my memory. But I read the screenplay by Richard LaGravenese that was really beautiful. It spoke to me.

And Great Expectations was one of those things that, I guess, after looking for a project for a while, it was something that came into my hands, and I felt like I needed to make a film, because time was passing. But it was a period that I consider my lost period – my lost decade. When I got attention from Hollywood, I forgot something that is fundamental, because it’s part of what they tell you – they say, ‘Don’t say that you’re a writer, because then they won’t attach you to projects.’ So I was in danger of becoming a reader, or reacting to what projects would fall in my hands. And unless you’re in a very powerful position, you tend to receive a project where another 15 directors have passed on it.

So there was a danger that I was just that. And it was just after Great Expectations that I said, ‘Enough of this. The reason I like cinema is because of films that I love. I love the process, and I love writing.’ I decided to go back to Mexico, and do Y tu mamá también. That rekindled my passion for writing.

Did it surprise you that Y tu mamá también broke out in the way it did?

Yeah, definitely. It was like anything – any time one of your films connects, it’s a surprise, particularly if you’ve had the other experience. If you’ve had the other experience, you’re like, ‘Ah, OK.’ I just stop second-guessing the reason why it connects. I don’t think you can make a film, thinking it’s going to connect or not connect. You just do what you believe is truthful to yourself… I tend not to know what the result is going to be, and then I’m intrigued. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t.

Did you feel a lot of pressure when it came to directing Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban? The books were so beloved, and the first two films had been such big hits at the box office.

Not really. Again, part of filmmaking is this part of being completely responsible. You have to be a little bit of a conman, and do make-believe that you have everything under control, even if you never know what the heck you are doing.

One of our writers argued that Prisoner of Azkaban is a horror film [TF 334]. What do you think about that take on the film?

Well, definitely. When I read the book, there were two elements that I liked. There was the horror film element, but also the noir aspect of it. In a way, when I was doing it, the model was more of the German cinema at the end of the silent era, and the transition into the talkies, like Fritz Lang to Murnau. You can see that some of Fritz Lang’s films are kind of noir, but, at the same time, they have kind of horror elements to them. And, more importantly, particularly with Fritz Lang, through the genre, he was trying to convey – or just to project – the anxieties of his time. I think that what J.K. Rowling did with Potter, it was a reference of our times, of human behaviour.

The Harry Potter series is being turned into a TV show. Could you ever be tempted to return to that world, or is it one and done for you?

Well, when I did my first one, I was very kindly offered to do the next one. And I said no, because I felt that I would be overstaying my welcome. For me, Harry Potter was an amazing experience. It was amazing, and I found that I was learning every day. It was a great school for visual effects. I’m very grateful for other things with Harry Potter, because, after that, this whole thing with visual effects became second nature. When I went to do Children of Men - before Harry Potter, I would have been daunted about doing it. It gave me the confidence for that. And then I felt like I had learned so much. It was such a journey of discovery. But then I feared that if I stayed for longer, I would maybe get comfortable. I like films that keep me on my toes – in other words, [films] that I don’t know how to do. There’s a mystery that I don’t understand and that I cannot resolve.

You have a TV miniseries, Disclaimer, coming up, which is also adapted from a novel. What can you say about that?

Well, not much, right now. I’m still working on it. That was another thing for me. Part of the challenge was to explore the form in a longer format [of TV]. I mean, I cannot talk much about it, but I hope that you get to see it, the kind of structural thing that we play with.

‘ANY TIME ONE OF YOUR FILMS CONNECTS, IT’S A SURPRISE’

We would ask if it’s been intentional that you’ve ended up working on a few TV shows recently, but you’ve already said you don’t have a career masterplan…

Well, no. It’s like everything. I wrote Children of Men before Harry Potter but nobody wanted to do it then. Then, after Harry Potter, I got the opportunity to do it. And I think that that’s what happens with most filmmakers. The films come when they come. You can see with Scorsese that he’s managing to do films that he couldn’t do before. And obviously your experience as a filmmaker in life is going to inform the result of that other thing that maybe he conceived in his youth.

Do you think some stories are better suited to the small screen or big screen? To bring it back to Gravity, does it require something with that kind of spectacular scale and visuals to get people into a cinema?

I think that what the big screen requires is an emotional experience. You can make the argument that some of the best writing nowadays is in television. But generally speaking, I mean, with exceptions, television is strictly a writer’s medium. You can see so much of it in series where directors come and go. It’s more the narrative that is leading the story. I believe that for cinema, the requirement is for cinema to be driving the piece. I mean that cinema includes – among many other things – narrative. In narrative cinema, obviously narrative is very important. I’m not saying that it’s one format or the other. If you think of Twin Peaks, that is an amazing cinematic experience. Or if you think of Scenes from a Marriage, that is another one. And those were originally shot for television. I think it’s more about the creative approach of the filmmaker. And the creative intent.

And finally, you’ve won two Best Director Oscars, among many other accolades. Do those awards mean a lot to you?

It’s always very pleasing, the recognition, particularly from your peers. And, also, obviously, they have an impact on making it easier to put together your next project. But, you know, awards are something that are [of] a specific moment. The only thing that tells the truth about cinema is time. Time is the only judge.