Gravity: Our Coverage of The Press Conference with Sandra Bullock, Alfonso and Jonás Cuarón Is it too high falutin’ to quote Shakespeare when writing about the new space drama Gravity? Perhaps. But the Bard’s famed quote from “Julius Caesar” is too appropriate for the incredibly artistry and emotional journey envisioned by acclaimed filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón. “The fault, dear Brutus,” the Bard wrote, “is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” Perhaps a stretch in context, but the pull of the stars is as great as it for those who scour the earth and seas for answers. Cuarón, who wrote the screenplay with son Jonás, has forged a career scouring the rocky terrain to be found in the human condition. With films like Y “Tu Mamá También,” “A Little Princess” and the powerful “Children of Men,” the Mexican director has earned acclaim for creating entertainment designed to challenge the audience and its sensibilities. With “Gravity,” Cuarón has reached a creative peak that is already earning the filmmaker his best reviews yet. A powerful two-character piece, “Gravity” makes use of its simple title to inform the viewer on the power of the forces of nature and the seriousness of the situation faced by two astronauts drifting in space after an accident. It is an expertly rendered tense viewing experience, as survival seems all but impossible for the survivors. Yet, with all the technical wizardry on display, and you will be impressed, the film’s success rests on Cuarón’s direction of Oscar-winning stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. In the meatiest roles of their stellar careers, the duo never lapses into melodrama. It is the poignant humanity executed by Bullock and Clooney that will take your breath away. It is a shame that Clooney could not take part in the recent press conference in Los Angeles, with los Cuarón, Bullock and producer David Heyman. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t a lively discussion, not in the least. Here’s a portion of the “Gravity” discussion, a collaborative film effort described as “holistic” by the director, as captured by Jorge Carreon for Desde Hollywood. Sandra, what was your initial reaction to the project once it was presented to you? Sandra Bullock: I had always had a longing to do emotionally and physically what my male counterparts always got to do. I just felt envious every time I saw a movie that I was in awe of and it was usually a male lead. Those kinds of roles weren’t available. They weren’t being written. Whether it was by us searching for something and trying to get to a female character or developing it yourself, you weren’t seeing it. But in the last couple of years, things have shifted. Jonás and Alfonso wrote this specifically as a woman, it wasn’t an afterthought. I don’t want to say revolutionary, but it’s revolutionary and the fact that a studio on blind faith would fund something as unknown as this is revolutionary. So, to be able to be the person to do it is beyond humbling. I have to step up and be the best version of myself. I’m so grateful. Early reviews reflect the awe that you spoke about earlier. Sandra, what was your reaction to the finished film? Bullock: The first time I saw it all put together was in Venice. When actors see themselves for the first time, you spend all your time just watching yourself and hating yourself and picking your performance apart and saying, “I look horrible.” There was no time to pick one’s performance because you were inundated with the extreme beauty and emotion that Alfonso created visually. I hate using the word “technologically” because it sounds like it’s an inanimate object. Technology is something that’s heady. It was turned into such an emotion and such a visceral physical experience in this movie. I don’t know how they did it with sound coming here, behind your head. All of a sudden you found yourself affected in ways that you were not planning on being affected. George and I had that same reaction. You can’t really speak after the film is over. I think I was lucky enough in my career to finally be able to view a movie I was in as it was supposed to be viewed as a newcomer. Jorge Carreon (DH): Sandra, much of the role is dependent on just the sound of your voice, which had to be quite a challenge. If you over did it, melodrama could overwhelm the nuance of the moment. Bullock: Alfonso and I talked a lot about the voice. It’s very specific. The voice and the breath and where in the register is her voice as someone who is that cut off. If I went a little higher pitched in my panic, it always reigned false unless it was absolutely perfect for that moment. We always went back going, “Next time, let’s do it in that other register and try and stay there.” Then the breath was always followed and the level of hyperventilation. Then, back in ADR again, we’d go back through with a fine-toothed comb and find any false tones in the voice and if any breaths that are not connected and are they too fast? Should we slow them down to match? It was a lot of time spent on that. I mean the meticulousness with which you were allowed to work on this movie is unheard of, so we were always able to go back and say, “I don’t know why, it just didn’t feel right. Can we go back and just try other levels of the voice.” We always wanted to give her a voice based on her experience in where she was in life. So, it was unapologetically cut off and monotone, much like my own, but very distinctively her. Alfonso Cuarón: But the detail in which Sandra took the whole thing? She was driving the boat of mapping out the breaks. A lot of that was about breathing and the tone of voices and then how we shot it and then kept on being very aware of what we’re shooting. When we put it together to see exactly where we needed to model it, we had disagreements. Sometimes I said, “Yes, but I think here there should be more panic.” She would then say, “I’m not a damsel in distress.” I would say, “It’s not about being damsel in distress. If I am doing that situation, I would be screaming.” And she says, “Yes, but you’re a woman.” End of conversation. Talking about Sandra’s performance, what I really think is remarkable is how much of it is done through her eyes. For a huge portion of the movie, what you’re seeing is this. [Places hands to frame his eyes.] It’s not a body or a gesture that can reflect sadness or whatever it may be. You don’t have the physicality with which to express these things. It’s her eyes and those eyes are behind a visor and yet, she tells the whole story. That’s amazing. Bullock:Was it always a conscious decision to never show the audience the people on the ground trying to help? Alfonso Cuarón: The almost existential experience that you get with the character is that you can see the stillness as just a big metaphor. This is a film about a woman. Forget about space. It’s a film about a woman that is drifting into the void. It’s a woman that is a victim of her inertia. It’s a woman who lives in her own bubble, who confronts this adversity. All this adversity is just bringing her farther and farther away from human connection, from a sense of life and living. All these other elements are voices that are part of her own psyche. They represent all that search of life that even as she’s despairing. There is that part of your brain that can be telling you and giving up and there is something that is what makes the species keep on going. That is this search of life. In many ways you could see it as a metaphor as an internal journey for a woman. But instead of having is take place in a city, in an apartment with all other adversities, it’s just in space. Still, Sandra, much of what we see of your role as Dr. Ryan Stone in “Gravity” is presented as a solitary journey. Bullock: I never thought about I’m the only person on screen. I thought, you had the story, the elements that Jonás and Alfonso wrote. The technology was a constant character around you. I always went back to what was in their heads that I need to honor and help execute. I never once thought I’m the only person because there’s George who’s a vital part of this film, who represents life and this outlook on living. If you don’t have that, this film could not exist. So I never thought of it until I started doing press and everyone’s freaking me out going, “How do you feel? That this rests on you.” I’m like, “How is it now my problem? I didn’t write this or produce it or come up with the cockamamie idea to make a space movie!” [Laughs] But I still don’t think about because I feel like I’m third or fourth on the list of characters before the story, the emotional visuals, the sound, the experience of what they’ve created. Jorge Carreon (DH): Jonás, brevity plays a key role in why “Gravity” has such a visceral punch. Not a frame or line of dialogue is wasted. Why tell the story in such an economical way? Jonás Cuarón: The main idea that we had since the beginning was to do this kind of stripped down narrative where there would be a nonstop pace. With that pace we would manage to engage the audience on that emotional and thematic level. The idea behind it is that when you engage the audience in such a kind of instinctive, almost adrenaline-fueled journey, you’re connecting directly with them. It becomes a cathartic experience where the adversities that the character of Ryan (Bullock) is going through, which the audience hasn’t experienced, but they can project their own experiences into that journey. Alfonso Cuarón: He was always saying it was visceral and primal to keep everything just like that. Every time that I tried to expand and stuff, he pretty much accused me of being old. [LAUGHS] That begs the question as to what it was like working together as father and son? Jonás Cuarón: I learned a lot from my dad and also a lot from George and Sandra because that’s when I really figured out how a character can come to life. It’s a movie that it was a huge gamble. I’m glad Sandra didn’t know this, but it was a huge gamble because the whole movie was on this character’s shoulders and it was really impressive to see how both on paper in the collaboration and then also on screen how she manages to really engage the audience for ninety minutes. Alfonso Cuarón: And the rest of the experience was just to writers working together. Bullock: And if I could just also say, Jonás, there’s complimentary piece, a film piece that he did. In the film there’s a moment where I’m speaking to Earth and the character’s name is Aningaaq and he’s an Inuit. Jonás went there and shot this absolutely beautiful complimentary piece of loneliness and emptiness on Earth where this man is calling from and it’s so beautiful I get goose bumps thinking about it. You know, [Turns to Both Alfonso and Jonás] Apple and tree. Just the talent is overwhelming. [The short will be featured in the home entertainment release of “Gravity” in 2014.] Alfonso, given the themes present in “Gravity,” do you view this as linked to “Children of Men?” Alfonso Cuarón: Well, it’s hard to tell. Both are growth movies. One’s in space and on is on Earth. Life is your actions and your experiences start to shape your moments and your decisions. I wanted to do this before “Children of Men” because the process of “Children of Men” also took me into a journey of personal adversities. I was in the midst of one of those periods in your life where everything is an adversity. When I started working with Jonás and we decided to do this film about space, we talked about the themes of adversities and the possibility of a rebirth. Maybe I was clinging to the film with the hope that it was going to be the end of those adversities and a rebirth. And, a rebirth meant new knowledge. So, in that sense, I think it would have been impossible just because of experience I had on other films. GRAVITY is now playing citywide. “Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone–tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth…and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left. But the only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space.”
