INT: Alfonso Cuaron

I
was first introduced to Alfonso
Cuarón when I saw the brilliant and thought provoking “Y tu mamá
también” a film which garnered him major attention here in the
states. Although he had
previously won critical praise for A LITTLE PRINCESS, which was a
children’s story, a far cry from the sexually frank and ambitious
TAMBIEN. Soon after dealing
with two teenagers looking for sex, he continued his critical
success with HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN which also
earned him a solid box office winner.
He now returns with the thought provoking and intelligent
science fiction gem CHILDREN
OF MEN.

I got a chance to talk shop with Alfonso and found it very
hard to not show my respect. His
work is always challenging, always interesting and utterly unique.
There are a number of great directors coming out of

Mexico

, such as Alfonso and Guillermo del Toro who directed PAN’S
LABYRINTH which Cuarón produced. He
spoke openly about what inspires him, and what involves him.
His work has always been laced with politic and he continues
this trend with CHILDREN OF MEN. He
has style and an ability to transcend a genre and make it his own.

Alfonso
Cuaron

Alfonso,
in all your films there is a certain amount of political influence.
When you’re writing, is that something that you try to do
or does it just come out for you naturally?

I
think it’s a combination of the two things.
In this film [CHILDREN OF MEN], it was a bit more specific
because we were consciously trying to explore the state of things.
And so we did quite a [bit] of research around the state of
things and you come to quick conclusions because it’s a… it’s
kind of very clear, and the state of things, on top of this list you
could have the environment and immigration issue. So
the thing is that when you are going to deal with any of this you
need to have a point of view about it.
So I think it becomes almost automatic; if you’re not
trying to become political, it’s there.

Yeah,
it becomes a part of his character. With
Clive Owen‘s
character, he seems to be how a lot of people are today.
They are almost losing hope a little bit, giving up… was
that part of the character.

Oh,
yeah, we were trying to… with Clive’s character we were trying
to create a metaphor of the immobility of the social and emotional
immobility of contemporary humanity in which reality is so
overwhelming that there’s a fear about engaging.
And then it becomes like almost a society of automats that
they are looking [for] immediate pleasure by consummating.
And the thing for Clive it’s such a different role to play
because in a conventional movie hero, the heroes always making
decisions and solving the situations.
And here, with this character actually it’s the opposite;
he’s trying not to make any decisions, he’s trying to avoid any
responsibility. And so
in one hand he had to project that sense of immobility and in the
other hand he had to be another vessel because [he’s] the audience
emotional connection with the film.

There
was one scene in particular that I really thought was brilliant
where you have him in a room and the action is really going on
across the room and him just kind of listening as the audience is,
and where the action is kind of blurred.
Was that basically saying that this is his story?

Well,
I think it’s very clear that every single frame [is] of Clive Owen’s
character, but we did not want to go into his point of view, we
didn’t want to go into his perception.
We wanted to follow him from a distance.
In other words we didn’t want to go into his inner world.
We wanted to go through his circumstance and through his
journey into a sociopolitical environment and landscape and in that
scene in a way is one of the only windows that you have into the
anecdotic elements that created this character.
And actually it’s one of the only moments that you have a
close up in the film because the film is really avoiding close ups
all the way through.

Yeah,
you don’t do the kind of stereotypical sci-fi look of most films
which I liked because it didn’t feel like science fiction to me at
all.

Well,
I never tried to make a science fiction film; I was trying to avoid
a science fiction element. Again
I wanted to speak about the present, I wanted to explore the present
so we had to embrace some futuristic concepts just because of the
contrivance of the story of eighteen years of infertility.
But we tried to address those without alienating the sense of
present. What I’m
saying, for instance with cars we tried to give enough clues so if
you decide to be a purist, those cars [don’t] exist right now, a
little bit more futuristic than our cars.
But at the same token, cars shouldn’t distract you from the
sense that you’re watching something that is taking place in the
present.

Yeah.
No, I also I liked the idea of having the computer screens
with these television. Even
though it was sci-fi, it still felt real.

Because
they look old and funky and f*cked up, there’s a sense of…
here’s the thing, what I find sometimes in some science fiction
films is that there’s not a sense of history.
You know, they create an amazing imaginary land and then the
technology… everything looks new.
You know, without any sense of history inside the premise.
And here, what we were trying to do is according to our
timeline, technology stopping in 2012 so from then on its fifteen
years of really old stuff. It’s
new from our standard but very old from the standard of 2027.

Yeah,
exactly; I loved the way you shot it too, you used a lot of handheld
in this.

Everything.
Everything is handheld in the film.

Yeah.
It was brilliant because it really felt like a war movie to
me. It felt like you were
experiencing this war going on.

Well,
we tried to absorb also the language of war journalism.
And particularly in the war scenes we tried to absorb the
language that actually in war journalism has changed quite a lot
because, one model for this film was the Battle of Algiers, in which
the amazing thing is how… photojournalism, the film journalism,
the word journalism [had] recreated an event that had happened two
years before that you would think you were watching stock footage.
Now, we tried to do the same except technology has changed.
In that time we were talking about very heavy 35mm cameras
and now when you see war journalism you’re talking about very
light digital cameras. So
the dynamic of the camera has changed and we tried to emulate to
that new technology.

Did
you shoot any of it Digital?

Oh,
no, it’s 35.

One
of the things that I dig about every one of your movies is the
choice of music. This film in
particular you used music so well but when there’s no music you
use natural sounds like a cat purring or the machine guns going
off…

That
is Richard Beggs, the sound designer.
He is absolutely fantastic. You
know, he worked with Sofia Coppola. He
has done a couple of films with [Francis Ford] Coppola himself.
He started with Coppola, RUMBLEFISH and stuff.
And he’s done most of my movies as well.

Did
you go in saying, ‘This is what I want’ or did he add a lot?

With
Richard, the amazing thing is that you come with ‘This is what I
want’ and he proves you wrong.

That’s
fantastic.

Yeah,
he proves you wrong. He’s
amazing.

Now
with your cast you chose some pretty solid actors; with Clive Owen,
was he your first choice?

Totally!
Totally, actually, he was [there] before he was
“bankable”. When we
were writing the script Tim [J. Sexton] and I, my writing partner
Tim and I, we saw CROUPIER. And
we’d take about, you see how, this aloofness of the character, our
character is much [more] sad but at the same time its different
choices of the character in CROUPIER.
And the happy thing is that because we wrote right after Y TU
MAMA TAMBIEN and then it didn’t happen.
And I went to do for two years HARRY POTTER.
And when I finished HARRY POTTER I reconnected with CHILDREN
OF MEN so Clive was already a name so it was fantastic that the
studio wanted to work with him.

That’s
good timing right there.

It
was fantastic timing. If
I had to thank one single element that made this movie the way it is
its Clive Owen. I cannot
overstate how much if this film works it is because of Clive Owen.

I
think you work very well with actors, you have a very natural sense
of that which I’ve seen other actors comment on that.
Do you consider yourself
an ‘actor’s director’ as they call them?

Man,
I have to say, I’ve been very lucky to work with great actors.
They have amazing instincts and they are very generous
people. I trust them
fully; I’ll tell you my actors in this film, in particular Clive,
they were co-writers of this script.

So
you are okay with improv?

Totally!

Now,
with Julianne Moore, how did that come about?

It
was one of those things that she was like a dream to play this role.
And the thing is that she connected with what we were trying
to tell with this film. She
understood it immediately that we were not trying to try and do this
silly action movie, that we were trying to explore something and she
wanted to be part of it.

It
was a nice role for her because… well,
I read from her that she liked the fact that [the character] was a
take charge kind of woman leading this rebellion…

And
the thing is that if you can have an actor who has the moral weight
to do that, the authority and at the same time, the womanhood about
it because something we tried to throw throughout the film is the
strong women, women are the nurturing force in the film.

You
write a lot of great
women’s roles, Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN was a fantastic role.
And Maribel Verdú, the
actress you chose there was brilliant also.

You
can see her in Guillermo’s [Del Toro] movie PAN’S LABYRINTH.

Really?

Did
you see PAN’S LABYRINTH?

No,
I haven’t seen it yet.

You
will see Maribel
in the film and she’s fantastic.

Are you excited about that film getting released
here, there is a lot of hype about it.

Well, I’m just so excited about the film.
It’s probably my favorite film this year.
For me, one of my most beautiful moments that’s in my film
life had been in Cannes in the opening night of PAN’S LABYRINTH
and witnessing the longest standing ovation, ever since 1968.
Guillermo was just swimming in those applauses and getting
lost in the applauses. It
was such an amazing experience.

Cool. I’m
so looking forward to that film.

It’s a really beautiful and very complex film.

Isn’t it kind of a fairy tale but not necessarily
for the kiddies?

Well, it’s a fairy tale but also it’s a film that speaks
about such a metaphorical thing, again about the state of things and
humanity.

Now speaking of fairy tales, you’ve done films
like THE LITTLE PRINCESS, HARRY POTTER… do you like working with
kids more than adults or is it about the same or possibly harder?

I love working with kids.
I love working with kids… you know, they say to never work
with kids, animals or… I don’t remember what the other thing…
was… ah, with animals I agree; it is a pain in the ass.
Kids are the most fantastic thing.

Well, I really liked what you did with HARRY
POTTER. How did you feel about
the finished project, what went through your mind when the fans were
either ‘yeah or nay’ with it?

I was relieved when J.K. Rowling gave the blessing to the
film.

Absolutely.

And
for me it was like, what I was terrified was to contradict her
universe. I wanted to honor
her universe and when she was pleased with the film, then I was
pleased.

If
ever the opportunity came about would you do another one?

In
a second.

Now,
I heard a rumor regarding “México
’68” that you’ll be working with Gael Garcia
Bernal again is that true?

Not
that I know.

Is
it just in talks or…

No,
actually I don’t think I’m going to do “México ’68” next.

Oh,
no, I’m looking forward to that one.

Yeah,
you know we needed to do so much research around that film and also
I just finished a small film that deals with massacres and I need to
clean out my mind from massacres for awhile.

Are
you looking to do maybe another children’s film?

You
know, I would love to but the next thing I’m going to do is a
tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny thing in Mexico.

Which
one?

It’s
something that I’m just starting to kind of put in my mind.

Okay…
is it something kind of along the lines of Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN?

It
would be a little different I guess.

Looking
at your IMDB page, you look to be quite busy at the moment.

You
know the thing is so deceiving this thing because people tell me
about all these projects and it says I’m going to direct them and
a lot of these projects they announce are projects that my company
is developing that we might produce. And
they announce as if I’m going to direct, you know.
At this point I’ve been busy around CHILDREN OF MEN.
And the studio [has been] amazing, fantastic, allowing me to
do the movie that I have in my head.

Did
they try and make any changes at all?

They
were amazing. They were
so amazing around it but at the same time I feel the strong
responsibility of pushing for the film.

It’s
been released in the UK…

The
UK and a lot of Europe…

How’s
it being received there?

Very
well.

Are
you nervous about the American release?

Not
really, you know it’s one of those things that I did the film I
wanted to do. And the
film that came out is exactly the movie I intended to do for good or
for evil. And I think
that everybody around from the studio doing an amazing job marketing
the film and promoting the film.
So I think everybody’s been doing an amazing job so now
it’s not in our hands.

Yeah.
Now it’s basically up to the audience.

It’s
up to the audience and to the stars and the Gods and whatever.
[Laughing] You get nervous when you’re not certain you did your
hundred percent.

One
of the things that struck me with the films of yours that I’ve
seen, they are very character driven.
When you write a script, where do you start?

You
know what, even more than character driven is to get thematically
driven. And for me…
obviously character is part of the theme and I think point of
departure is the theme and then visuals come together with that
theme.

Well,
CHILDREN OF MEN was based on a novel right?

Yeah…
yeah, but very loosely.

What
made you want to do this film?

It
was the premise…about infertility… that infertility and humanity
could be taken as a metaphor for the fading sense of hope.
And that would be a point of departure for and exploration
about the state of things. So
that is what triggered the whole thing.
Now, because of that we departed from the book, we took the
premise but we followed our own story.

Now
the film is frighteningly real at times, do you feel that we are
heading in that direction?

I
think we are there. I think we
are there and seeing things in other ways to fool ourselves.
I have a very bleak view of the present but I have a very
hopeful view of the future.

Is
that kind of a hard thing when you are making a film is that where a
lot of the politics come in…

Well,
because you’re trying to make an observation about today.
And I didn’t want to make a judgment; I was trying to make
an observation. But to
make an observation it almost had to come out like an analytic
approach to the whole thing.

What
do you want people to take from the film?

Well
for me it’s about the audiences going into this ride of what I
consider to be the state of things and for people to come up with
their own conclusions if there’s a possibility of hope in their
reality that we live.

Let
me know what you think. Send
questions and comments to [email protected].