Alfonso Cuarón Examines The Language of Cinema & Television
See more: https://more-deals.info/story/big-interview-director-alfonso-cuaron-disclaimer-sci-fi/%3C/a%3E%3C/div%3E%3Cp class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AboutDate-iizOQc iUEiRd kQphon fCmonT">Released on 10/08/2024
Once that I finish a film, I never see it again.
Television is about killing time.
It's like you're doing a film, but it's just very long.
If I hold the shot, people watching the show
are going to check their messages.
Wired sat down with the Oscar winning director,
Alfonso Cuaron, to talk about the language of cinema and TV
Every time I've seen a movie of yours,
I've associated with this feeling
and whether it's a physical kind of claustrophobia,
like you moving the camera into Sandra Bullock's helmet
in Gravity, or if it's emotional kind of claustrophobia,
the world closing in around you, like in Disclaimer.
And I was wondering if that's a feeling you try to chase
First of all, I apologize for making you feel like that.
It is kind of a dramatic device that's very effective.
I'm glad, I guess, but, you know,
it's the first time I even think
I've been confronted with this, so.
Maybe it's a byproduct of what I do, or I did,
but it was not like a conscious decision.
Once that I finish a film, I never see it again,
so it's up to the audiences to make a meaning of it.
Is there something uniting all these projects that you.
but more than anything that's a limitation, I guess.
[Alfonso] Yeah, I would think so.
is that I have very eclectic taste in cinema.
I grew up loving Poseidon Adventure
or Planet of the Apes or Soylent Green.
I know, they're great, but, same time, I love Bergman,
and I love Tarkovsky, and I love Sokurov.
Most of these filmmakers, what they have in common is
this kind of one same kind of idea
And keep on developing film after film.
You can see everything that unifies Bergman or Fellini,
or even Kurosawa with how diverse his oeuvre is.
And I haven't been able to do that.
I feel, you know, once that I finish a film,
I just want to explore different realms.
That's really interesting that you say
you haven't been able to, because have you tried?
No, I've not even tried? [laughing]
[Samanth] Is it something you even seek?
Some films you do because you make conscious choices.
Others, they, like, come out and save your life.
I have to wait for films to come to me.
And anytime that I've been trying to seriously plan
to do a specific film I end up not doing that film
and end up doing something else.
And it's interesting that you mentioned Soylent Green
and Planet of the Apes on the one hand
and Tarkovsky and Bergman on the other, because I think,
this is one of my other theories about you,
is that there's something you do
where you kind of marry the cinematic aesthetic
but you do it with adaptations of material
that might be called mass market almost.
So like, Disclaimer is an interesting case.
It's like a summer beach read, you know,
Children of Men is a PD James book.
It was just a one page outline of what the book was about.
And I thought, wow, this is brilliant,
but I already have a film that I wanted to do in my head.
So, in that case, I made the conscious decision
Because I didn't want it to sidetrack
And then I've been tempted later on to read the book,
'cause people around me they tell me it's great.
They say it's quite different, but it's really great.
When I did Children of Men, I wanted to understand
the things that were going to form our 21st century.
I mean, everything in Children of Men
seems to be a little relevant these days.
Those things were happening then.
The thing is that we were living
in this kind of bubble before.
Wow, what happened in Children of Men now is happening.
Difference now is that it's coming closer to our backyard.
So you mentioned these interesting ways
in which these projects come into your life.
How did Disclaimer enter your life?
I think it's when Renee Knight published it.
I didn't know her, she sent me the manuscript.
but I didn't know how to make it happen as a film.
So time passed and she got in touch saying,
hey, you know, in case you're interested,
There was a moment that I've been very intrigued about
And Episodic TV gives you that opportunity.
And all the series that I enjoy have amazing writing,
But only a few have kind of a cinematic approach.
But what do you mean here by a cinematic approach?
series are shows that you can watch with your eyes closed.
And, by the way, you have a great time.
You can actually be doing things
while you're watching your show.
And that's the value and the amazing strength
that series have taken in terms of the narrative, you know?
And I have to say narratively,
they start doing way more interesting things
than most mainstream American films.
I wanted to because I have never done anything
Yeah, 'cause I've noticed that even in Gravity
or Children of Men there's no tendency to give
what they call exposition, you know?
To explain, for example, why the human race is infertile,
or what happens in zero gravity.
I mean, you just let, I guess, the emotion lead first.
Is that what you mean by sort of overtly narrative?
The principle of film is time.
How those images flow in time and what they convey
and all the emotions that they convey in time.
In order to do that, you have to surrender to that.
And certain films, when you spend time,
it's all about the experience itself of time
and the silence of it, you know,
In Hitchcock is the perfect example, is the suspense.
You know, you are so aware of time,
because of the ticking clock that is going on.
Hitchcock says, I don't care about the content.
You know, I really don't care.
I care about the form and the style.
That's Hitchcock's point of view, you know,
but I'm just saying that to exemplify
how the language in cinema has a greater value
in the end experience of a film.
Television, on the other hand, is about killing time.
And I'm not saying all of them,
but many series they need to keep on moving
just the narrative forward, you know, constantly.
But even doing this show, I learned,
there were moments in which I realized, wow,
if this was a film I probably couldn't get away with this.
But I just know that if I hold the shot here,
people watching this show are going to check their messages.
In many ways, conventional narrative,
Keep the flow, don't even be aware of time.
If it's a good story, good narrative sentence,
one hour pass and you didn't realize that.
I never done anything that this narrative.
You know, like a strong narrative impulse.
And I was very intrigued about doing it.
There was this moment in Y Tu Mama Tambien
when the camera moves out of the car,
where the three people are there,
and there's some kind of police and crime activity,
and you kind of pan to that and you come back into the car,
that there's a much richer world out there.
The important thing in most of the films that I do,
I'm very concerned about the relationship
between the character and the environment.
You know, it's always the clash between the two.
In Y Tu Mama Tambien it was a byproduct of that as well.
You know, it's like, well, these guys
are in their little stupid drama.
And they're cruising through a greater reality
that is around them that they're oblivious.
There are other filmmakers, they do that in an amazing way,
because the characters may leave
and the camera just stays there with the environment,
for you to experience that environment without any action.
You know, in Y Tu Mama Tambien that example,
And many times there's no action,
you just partake with the environment.
[Samanth] That's so Perfect Days.
Which is Wim Wenders, and that happens a lot.
drifts out of the scene a little bit, but the camera stays,
sometimes in an empty house, room.
And it's just like a couple of beats,
but it's just enough and it's very quiet,
is not fighting with narrative,
it's just another measurement of time.
In TV, you know, there are examples
that you can see that they have done it.
Bergman did it with Scenes from a Marriage
Fassbinder with Alexanderplatz.
David Lynch with his Twin Peaks.
Bruno Dumont with Le P'tit Quinquin
And, by the way, don't get me wrong, so many of the shows,
they have amazing cinematic moments.
But they are not consistent throughout the whole.
It's hard to have a strong, direct point of view
Part of the nature of most shows is that you have
different directors doing different episodes.
The great shows, they know how to do very well.
I think The Bear has amazing examples of that as well.
They establish a style and then different filmmakers come
And the thing is that when you're directing,
in the case of the irresponsible action that I took
to direct seven episodes, it's like you're doing a film,
And what happens is, when you're doing a film,
every decision, you're doing the first frame.
You start thinking about the repercussion
that it's going to have in these other moments.
You great showrunners do that,
because they're very conscientious
that you have to give a follow up.
Alfonso, it's been such a pleasure to speak to you.
And I can't wait to watch Disclaimer.
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