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THE RETURN OF “PURE” SCI-FI: Following a string of sci-fi/fantasy films, Alfonso Cuarón proved that “hard” or pure science fiction remained a viable option even though fantasy films involving action and romance had long dominated the box office. Sandra Bullock is the novice space traveler attempting to survive a space shuttle’s destruction in this day-after-tomorrow ultra-realistic adventure. Courtesy: EsperantoFilmoj/Heyday/Warner Bros.
CREDITS
Warner Bros./Heyday Films/DC Entertainment; Alfonso Cuarón, dir.; Cuarón, Jonás Cuarón, scr.; Alfonso Cuarón, David Heyman, pro.; Steven Price, mus.; Emmanuel Lubezki, cin.; Alfonso Cuarón, Mark Sanger, ed.; Andy Nicholson, prod. design; Mark Scruton, art dir.; Jany Temime, costumes; Ann Fenton, makeup effects; Julian Caldow, Chris Baker, concept artist; Jim Barr, Pierre Bohanna, modellers; Daniel May, Jamie Martin, 3-D design; Niv Adiri, Ben Barker, Glenn Freemantle, Danny Freemantle, sound design; Vince Abbott, Neil Courbould, Ian Courbould, F/X; Eric Bates/Rising Sun, Benoit Bargeton/Framestore, animation; Chris Watts, Timothy Webber, Richard McBride, visual effects; 91 min.; Color; 2.35:1.
Sandra Bullock (Ryan Stone); George Clooney (Matt Kowalski); Ed Harris (Mission Control, voice); Orto Ignatiussen (Aningaaq, voice); Phaldut Sharma (Shariff, voice); Amy Warren (Explorer Captain, voice); Basher Savage (Russian Station Captain, voice).
MOST MEMORABLE LINE
I hate space!
DR. RYAN STONE
BACKGROUND
Despite the long list of intriguing experiments that changed the international moviemaking paradigm during the early twenty-first century, some observers required further proof that the once decisive line between off-beat indie productions and high-profile studio product had gradually disappeared. Gravity can be considered the work that they were waiting for—nowhere was the emergence of a mass-market movie containing arthouse elements so obvious as in the once-maligned, now all-important science-fiction genre. Despite attractive A-list stars, director Alfonso Cuarón made no compromises to enhance this as a product. What once might have been considered essential—at least a hint of romance between the two leads, for example—is not present. Instead, Gravity subtly portrays a growing respect and a meaningful relationship between two people.
Cuarón’s collaborator was his son Jonás. Their unique plan was to create something never before seen: a sparse chamber drama of the type that ordinarily takes place on a bare theatrical stage, but now set against a vast cosmic scope, enhanced by 3-D and, in many situations, IMAX presentation. Had the result not worked, this bizarre juxtaposition of the most intimate of human stories with a gargantuan sense of the galaxy, enhanced by advanced F/X, might have played as a case of style and substance at odds. Instead, the audience is swept up by a striking implied irony: two small people, whose personalities come to seem gigantic, dwarfing the enormity of space with their courage, intelligence, and spirit.
THE PLOT
On what begins as a normal day in space, barely different from what jet pilots experience in our own skies when everything remains calm, Ryan Stone proves that, despite her inexperience as an astronaut, she’s a dependable member of the small team aboard a U.S. space shuttle. Suited up for a spacewalk, Stone uses her technical expertise to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, accompanied by the more experienced Matt Kowalski, a glib jokester who expects nothing untoward from this routine mission. Then, without warning, the voice of Mission Control from Houston segues from calm to concerned, informing them that space junk from a Russian missile strike is heading their way, expanding in momentum and size, and they must at once abort. Then, silence—at least from home—even as the heavens explode around them. As Kowalski rescues Stone from floating off into deep space, their companions are killed in the explosions. Once aboard the Explorer, the two realize that only the fastest thinking and employment of each person’s expertise will allow for even a slight chance to survive.
THE FILM
Like many current motion pictures, Gravity references the classics, if in an entirely different way than the films of Spielberg, Lucas, or their followers. Their homages deconstruct the movie we are watching by self-consciously conjuring up precise moments from influential past projects. In this film, the references are so subtle that they might easily slip by without notice. Though the line “I have a bad feeling about this!” recalls Star Wars, Cuarón directed George Clooney, then Sandra Bullock, to say similar words in ways that refresh what had long since become stale. Taking as its template the Western classic High Noon (Fred Zinnemann, 1952), Gravity focuses on a singular person facing an immediate threat, momentarily growing panicky, regaining composure, and then, in a race against time, overcoming what seems a certain fate. Again, cowboys in space. A novice dealing with an overwhelming reality by calling upon memories of a more experienced mentor draws on the relationship between Henry Fonda and Thomas Mitchell in The Immortal Sergeant (John M. Stahl, 1943). Sequences in which editing is not employed so as to create an ongoing continuity and a sense of real (rather than cinematic) time—all emotional impact deriving from constant if functional camera movements—recalls Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948).
The notion of a single person lost in space while in the process of discovering who he/she actually is describes the essence of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the film that essentially initiated the post-modernist sci-fi genre. That the person who survives is a woman can’t help but remind us of Alien, Bullock at one point stripping down to her underwear just as Sigourney Weaver did in the earlier film.
Gravity opened the Venice Film Festival in August 2013 and, shortly thereafter, had its original American screening not at some Hollywood black-tie premiere but rather at the Telluride Film Festival. Its opening weekend in early October of that year topped box-office records, earning more than half of the film’s $100 million budget. This justified Warner’s ongoing faith in high-quality sci-fi films that appeal to a contemporary audience that appreciates and accepts surface entertainment combined with intellectual content.
THEME
The movie is about survival, analyzing the extremes that a person will go to in order to achieve victory over what may appear to be impossible odds. Despite the near-future setting of space, a viewer may be barely aware of genre, in part because the character of Dr. Stone is so well established, then further developed in a realistic sense. Devoid of elements of either imaginative fantasy or space opera, Gravity is a docudrama, or “hard” sci-fi, that recalls those early George Pal classics, Destination Moon (1950) and Conquest of Space (1955). It is also pure sci-fi in that it tells the history of the future by dealing with the most everyday sort of accident—rather than fabricated gargantuan events—that will, in time, menace astronauts.
Still, this is a highly personal film. One brief religious image reveals the importance of faith, while the oppressively dark surroundings give way, at long last and after much struggle, to an optimism born of brightness, precisely as was the case with Children of Men (2006).
TRIVIA
During the film’s planning stage, Robert Downey Jr. was slated for the Kowalski role. Likewise, Angelina Jolie hoped to play Stone, but her superstar asking price of $20 million did not match Warner’s plans to spend most of the allotted budget on the film’s mesmerizing “look.” Natalie Portman, Marion Cotillard, and Scarlett Johansson were all at one point or another considered for the lead.