CHILDREN OF MEN: "The deportation of illegal immigrants will continue. Good morning, our lead story"
Inarritu, del Toro and Cuaron are the three major Mexican directors currently working in Hollywood
"The three amigos" came out of a new wave of
Mexican cinema in the 90s right after what is arguably the worst decade of Mexican cinema.
Quote:
"Films were badly edited
and the camerawork was terrible.
The films were shot in three weeks and earned millions of dollars because they depicted nude women and
emphasized profanity and bad jokes."
It was tough going for young Mexican filmmakers who had to be creative to find a way into the film business
Del Toro: "I did a
three-year stint in a TV series that
was called 'La Hora Marcada.'"
Cuaron: "That it was some sort of 'Twilight Zone,' we used to call it the toilet sound because of the budget.
Chivo, Emmanuel Lubezki, did a bunch of them."
Alfonso Cuaron and the great Emmanuel Lubezki joined forces to break away from tradition with their first feature.
With 'Love in Times of Hysteria,' the two started a filmmaking journey in stark opposition
to quote: "a couple of decades of Mexican cinema in which
the sense of style was almost lost. I really wanted to get into the nuts and bolts of
filming, in the sense of going all the way not to use reality for your film
but to transform reality and transform everything through the camera and through montage."
With the film collaboration that started in 1991, Cuaron and Lubezki
developed an almost symbiotic relationship. Looking at this partnership in light of
One question came to my mind: how can this director/DP combo use the medium of film to create a new understanding
of the disenfranchised?
One answer is in the title, "the long take."
By keeping the camera rolling without edits a director is creating an unbroken relationship with the different spaces on screen
uniting them in some way.
The long take creates the illusion of a journey that is broken the moment this happens
If their third collaboration the two worked on a movie about a
disenfranchised character — one of Dickens many orphans.
By Cuaron's account the experience wasn't the best: "That is a film that I should have not done
I mean, it's as simple as that.
David O. Russell: "No, in fact because I love David Lean's 'Great Expectations'
Cuaron: "Well, that's part of the problem."
The movie does fall short of David Lean's masterpiece, by a far mile or two.
But it still manages to be original in at least one respect
Lean placed the camera on different vantage points, so in a shot like this, instead of identifying with the protagonist
we are looking at the scene from a starless perspective
Cuaron and Lubezki,
however, found a way to flush out the main character by choosing to tell the story of Finn, from Finn's point of view.
Because he is passive for the majority of the movie,
it made sense that when he sees with each shot placement and with every camera move,
we as spectators see with him and become linked with his point of view.
The scene we'll look at happens at a narrative crossroads
Finn finally takes action and at that point the camera is let loose in one of the most sumptuous long takes ever committed to film.
But before that analysis here's some important context. Finn is poor.
He recently found financial and professional success and is now having his first exhibit.
The man who raised him shows up for a visit, but he obviously doesn't belong here.
The thing about growing up poor is that even when you're doing well, a relationship with money and status
will always remain a big part of who you are.
The different locations in the film are tied with different economic strata, so when Joe leaves the art gallery and goes to the street
he's effectively trading the place of the rage, for the home of the poor.
Now back to that long take, the camera starts rolling in the streets, goes to a fancy party,
returns to the streets, goes to a fancy restaurant and back to the streets again.
Every time the camera moves from one set to the next it crosses a border.
When it enters the party it starts showing that Finn's dreams of riches are now turning the sort of nightmarish decadence
The way the camera works is similar to one of the first shots of
Peter Greenaway's 'The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover,'
a traveling sequence that goes from the bottom of the social ladder
to its very top.
When the camera and the protagonists return to the darkness of the streets, we accompany his emotional turmoil.
He's torn between worlds, between transforming to fit in this new culture or accepting his roots.
He chooses to run towards Estella, his childhood love and the camera runs alongside with some disguised edits.
He finally steps into the restaurant, another place he never dreamed of entering until just a few months ago.
When he gets near the table and asks Stella for a dance
now it's in his own terms.
In the past he was made to dance with her for the entertainment of an old rich lady.
Starting when he was a child until he was well into his teens.
Now in this scene, he breaks free from the grasp that the rich have over him and crosses one last border
when he brings Estella to the streets with him.
At this point, he's finally beginning to reckon with his roots
finally beginning to reconcile with being poor in a rich people's world.