Alfonso Cuaron, 51,
is one of the Three Amigos of Cinema along with friends (and Mexican directors)
Guillermo del Toro
and Alejandro
Gonzalez Inarritu. Cuaron is known for his ability to incorporate
spellbinding and seemingly impossible technical feats into his films (usually
in the form of long-take shots), often with the help of frequent collaborator
and childhood friend Emmanuel
Lubezki (who has shot six of Cuaron’s seven feature films). This month
Cuaron has a new film in theaters – the utterly brilliant sci-fi thriller Gravity.
The film stars Sandra
Bullock and George
Clooney, and is about two astronauts who find themselves stranded in Space
after a catastrophic accident destroys their shuttle. Check out the trailer here. It is a
remarkable cinematic experience.
Early Career:
Cuaron studied Philosophy at the
National Autonomous University of Mexico before pursuing film at the University’s
Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematograficos. There, he made the short
film Vengeance
Is Mine with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki beginning a very fruitful,
lasting partnership. The film was controversial, leading to Cuaron dropping out
of school. Not only did he produce it in English but he also commercialized it
without permission. Cuaron quickly moved into Mexican television, starting as a
technician before moving into the director’s chair. He worked on the series Hora Marcada.
Breakthrough in
Mexico:
After building up some acclaim
for his television work, Cuaron landed a deal to make his first feature film in
1991. Love in
the Time of Hysteria (Solo con tu pareja) played to both critical and commercial
success in Mexico. Cuaron wrote, directed, produced, and co-edited the film. It
is a wonderful dramedy about a womanizer who is tricked into thinking he has
AIDS by a jilted former lover (who is a nurse). Confronted with this news, the
man first attempts suicide but then he meets a beautiful woman, also attempting
suicide, who changes everything. The film is marvelously shot by Lubezki. While
it was never released in the States, director Sydney Pollack
saw the film and loved it. He hired Cuaron, bring him to America, to direct an
episode of his Showtime neo-noir series Fallen Angels.
Coming to Hollywood:
Sticking in Hollywood, Cuaron
next directed his first American film A Little
Princess. The film was universally praised by critics, but went mostly
unnoticed by filmgoers. It is a forgotten gem of a family film though, for
those looking for some really good to watch with their kids.
Next, Cuaron tackled a modern
adaptation of Charles Dickens’s Great
Expectations, starring Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow
(both at the height of their popularity within Hollywood circles), and
featuring Anne Bancroft
and Robert De Niro
in support. The film does have a few strong moments, but overall it is by far
Cuaron’s weakest. It just feels like his creativity and storytelling ability
was brutally stymied by outside Hollywood-type creative impulses coming from
those with more power and creative control (after all, Cuaron was still new to
Hollywood and his name did not command the respect that it does now). Namely,
the film feels like the product of Hawke to me.
Alfonso Cuaron –
Auteur Filmmaker:
Maybe a little jaded by his Hollywood
experience, Cuaron returned to Mexico for his next feature film in 2001.
Starring Gael
Garcia Bernal, Diego
Luna, and Maribel
Verdu, Cuaron made the wonderful coming-of-age road dramedy Y Tu Mama Tambien,
this time returning to writing, directing and producing his own work. The film
took off internationally, becoming one of 2001’s most critically revered releases.
Cuaron even garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for the
film. It was also a hit in Mexico setting the country’s Box Office record for
biggest opening for a Mexican film.
In a way, Cuaron then decided to
return to Hollywood filmmaking (feeding of the success of Y Tu Mama Tambien) by
agreeing to direct the third film in the Harry Potter series – Harry Potter
and the Prisoner of Azkaban – in England. However, Cuaron did not want to
make just another watered-down children’s fantasy film. He wanted to make it
vital, dark, and steeped in emotional realism (even if it is only a fantasy
film). To do this, he wanted to change many aspects, most notably completely
revamping the aesthetic look of the series (in a way undoing everything Chris Columbus had
done with the first two films). While many fans were initially shocked by the
changes, the series’ producer David Heyman (who
has gone on to produce Gravity with Cuaron) liked Cuaron’s vision and stuck by
him. The film is magnificent, completely obliterating the low standard that
such films had achieved previously. This was not just a Hollywood film for
kids, but a piece of art that also happened to be highly entertaining. It
altered the course of the series from a quality and aesthetic standpoint (for
the good) and raised the bar for all Summer/Holiday blockbusters (along with The
Lord of the Rings Trilogy and Spider-Man
2) leading to great franchise films such as Christopher
Nolan’s Dark
Knight Trilogy and David Yates’s
Potter films (especially The
Deathly Hallows Part I and Part
II). The film, like all in the series, was a box office success, but also
achieved high critical praise.
Cuaron next took a slight break
from features directing the segment Parc Monceau of the ensemble film Paris, je t’aime.
Staying in Britain, Cuaron began
developing his next project – his most ambitious (before Gravity) – an adaptation
of PD James’s novel Children
of Men about a dystopian future with no children, starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore,
and Michael Caine.
The film never really found an audience at the box office, but critics showered
it was acclaim. Cuaron again was nominated for a screenwriting Oscar as well as
one for editing. The film is not only highly compelling dramatically but also
aesthetically and technically stunning. Both Harry Potter and the Prisoner of
Azkaban and Children of Men are among my
personal favorite films of the past decade.
Cuaron also started his own
production company called Esperanto Filmoj during the time he was making films
in England. The company first made the comedy Duck Season and
then the critically loved international hit Pan’s Labyrinth,
directed by friend Guillermo
del Toro. The film won three Oscars. Gravity is the seventh feature film
produced by the company.
Future Projects:
Working with executive producer J.J.
Abrams and writer Mark Friedman, Cuaron
is creating a new fantasy drama for NBC called Believe. He is also writing and
directing the pilot. It stars Jake
McLaughlin and Johnny
Sequoyah and is about a gifted young girl who is being pursued by evil
elements that want to harness her power. However, an unlikely man, a convict on
the run having just escaped from prison, might be her best chance to stay safe.
The series will premiere on NBC after the end of the NFL season. Here is the trailer.
Career Highlights:
*Editor’s picks
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