Alfonso Cuarón, a film director, screenwriter, producer and editor, is famously known to be the first Mexican director to win an Academy Award for Best Directing. Born on November 28th, 1961, his passion for the industry had been integrated from a very young age. Growing up in Mexico City, Cuarón was exposed to numerous mediums of film wether it was watching movies, television or going to cinema theatres. Like many children growing up in the 1960s, directors such as Vittorio De Sica, John Ford and Filipe Cazals served as a prominent source of Latin-American culture and portrayed the many reflections of society within that time frame[5]. After graduating from high school, Alfonso entered the Centro Universitari de Estudios Cinematograficos to
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Cuarón envisioned his own way of creating a simultaneous and entranced cinematic style that would bring out a fantastic production. Cuarón plays with this fundamental motif of contrasting foreground and background. In the opening sequence we get a lengthy shot of an audience, introducing the chaos of the society through the media. Like everyone else the media prioritises information based on its values, so much attention is paid to the foreground that all the underlying information goes unnoticed. The narrative behind Children of Men is the story of fear in a future world nearing its end because women have lost the ability to have children. Theo, played by Clive Owen, an apathetic government bureaucrat returns to his roots as a political activist after he see’s there is still hope left for humanity. The film plays as an exciting action thriller as Theo helps the pregnant Kee, played by Clare-Hope Ashitey, get to safety with the human project. There are some stunning mis-en-scene elements each time the existence of the baby is exposed, especially in the shot where Theo and Kee are in a barn surrounded by a herd of cows. Alfonso also carefully arranges Kee to be trapped within the frame to raise the attention of her struggles in similarity to the other illegal immigrants. As the movie progressed I became aware that as the plot …show more content…
The result was a lengthy 5 year odyssey compiled of research, animation, and CGI like nothing Cuarón had executed before[1]. During the films release in 2013, all hype was justified by the intimately detailed visuals but more cleverly due to the visuals service to the story. Cuarón aimed to give an ambitious and a simple definition of life. The word life is apposed to our environment in which humans learn to adapt in order to ensure survival, however, in the opening sequence Cuarón declares life is as delicate and fragile. Demonstrations of loud noises and silence, costume and props indicate the fragility of individuals. The cinematography lines the subtext of the film with symbolic references such as spheres, overt metaphors of the womb and umbilical cords, even using debris and space to communicate thematic issues. But to deliver this compelling definition of life, Cuarón adds nuance and uses a small individual story to convey the expression of rebirth. To appropriately portray life, Cuarón uses a mother figure - Doctor Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, who is introduced as apprehensive and lacking self-confidence. This is even more accurate as Matt Kowalski, played by George Clooney, is presented as calm and relaxed creating a strong juxtaposition between the two characters. Visuals show Ryan making mistakes expressing her need to evolve
Cuarón envisioned his own way of creating a simultaneous and entranced cinematic style that would bring out a fantastic production. Cuarón plays with this fundamental motif of contrasting foreground and background. In the opening sequence we get a lengthy shot of an audience, introducing the chaos of the society through the media. Like everyone else the media prioritises information based on its values, so much attention is paid to the foreground that all the underlying information goes unnoticed. The narrative behind Children of Men is the story of fear in a future world nearing its end because women have lost the ability to have children. Theo, played by Clive Owen, an apathetic government bureaucrat returns to his roots as a political activist after he see’s there is still hope left for humanity. The film plays as an exciting action thriller as Theo helps the pregnant Kee, played by Clare-Hope Ashitey, get to safety with the human project. There are some stunning mis-en-scene elements each time the existence of the baby is exposed, especially in the shot where Theo and Kee are in a barn surrounded by a herd of cows. Alfonso also carefully arranges Kee to be trapped within the frame to raise the attention of her struggles in similarity to the other illegal immigrants. As the movie progressed I became aware that as the plot …show more content…
The result was a lengthy 5 year odyssey compiled of research, animation, and CGI like nothing Cuarón had executed before[1]. During the films release in 2013, all hype was justified by the intimately detailed visuals but more cleverly due to the visuals service to the story. Cuarón aimed to give an ambitious and a simple definition of life. The word life is apposed to our environment in which humans learn to adapt in order to ensure survival, however, in the opening sequence Cuarón declares life is as delicate and fragile. Demonstrations of loud noises and silence, costume and props indicate the fragility of individuals. The cinematography lines the subtext of the film with symbolic references such as spheres, overt metaphors of the womb and umbilical cords, even using debris and space to communicate thematic issues. But to deliver this compelling definition of life, Cuarón adds nuance and uses a small individual story to convey the expression of rebirth. To appropriately portray life, Cuarón uses a mother figure - Doctor Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, who is introduced as apprehensive and lacking self-confidence. This is even more accurate as Matt Kowalski, played by George Clooney, is presented as calm and relaxed creating a strong juxtaposition between the two characters. Visuals show Ryan making mistakes expressing her need to evolve