Last month, we heard Paul Greengrass, director of "Captain Phillips," talk in detail about his choppy, handheld, visceral filming style. This month, we get to hear from Alfonso Cuarón, director of the massive hit "Gravity," whose style is about 180 degrees different.
Smooth, fluid, long takes and especially wide shots mark this director's aesthetic — glimpsed previously in films such as "Y Tu Mama Tambien" (2002) and "Children of Men" (2006) — but they're there for a reason.
"It involves giving the same weight to character and environment," Cuarón tells The Japan Times, "with the idea that they're part of each other, contradict each other or clash with each other. If you keep the shots wide, it's a completely different language than if you're going in close and forcing the audience to see certain things."