November 26: 2019 (XXXIX: 14) Alfonso Cuarón: ROMA (2018, 135m) The version of this Goldenrod Handout sent out in our Monday mailing, and the one online, has hot links. Spelling and Style—use of italics, quotation marks or nothing at all for titles, e.g.—follows the form of the sources.

DIRECTOR Alfonso Cuarón WRITING Alfonso Cuarón PRODUCERS Nicolás Celis, Alfonso Cuarón, and Gabriela Rodriguez CINEMATOGRAPHY Alfonso Cuarón EDITING Alfonso Cuarón and Adam Gough

In 2019, the film won Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year, Best Achievement in Directing and Best Achievement in Cinematography (Alfonso Cuarón), and it was nominated for Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (), Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (), Best Original Screenplay (Alfonso Cuarón), Best Achievement in Production Design, Best Achievement in Sound Editing, and Best Achievement in Sound Mixing. filmmaking at CUEC (Centro Universitario de Estudios CAST Cinematográficos), a school within the same university. Yalitza Aparicio...Cleodegaria "Cleo" Gutiérrez, one of the Speaking on the autobiographical nature of his latest, family's maids Oscar-winning film Roma (2018), Cuarón says: “[Jorge Marina de Tavira...Sofía, the mother of the family Luis] Borges talks about how memory is an opaque, Fernando Grediaga...Antonio, Sofía's absent husband shattered mirror, but I see it more as a crack in the wall. Jorge Antonio Guerrero...Fermín, Cleo's lover The crack is whatever pain happened in the past. We tend Marco Graf...Pepe to put several coats of paint over it, trying to cover that Daniela Demesa...Sofi crack. But it’s still there.” As a film director (17 credits), Diego Cortina Autrey...Toño Cuarón has managed to carve out a career as both a Carlos Peralta...Paco critically acclaimed auteur, often writing (17 credits), Nancy García...Adela, Cleo's friend, and one of the family's editing (10 credits), producing (11 credits), and doing maids cinematography (11 credits) for films he directs and as a Verónica García...Teresa, Sofía's mother skilled helmsman for ambitious, commercially successful José Manuel Guerrero Mendoza...Ramón, Adela's lover adaptations. As an auteur, he has directed, written, and Latin Lover...Professor Zovek edited films such as Y Tu Mamá También* (2001), for Allen Borrelli...the American Military Trainer which he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Children of Men (2006), for which he was nominated for ALFONSO CUARÓN (b. November 28, 1961 in Oscars for Best Writing and Best Achievement in Film City, Distrito Federal, Mexico) studied philosophy at the Editing, Gravity* (2013), for which he won Oscars for Best National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and Achievement in Directing (he was the Latin-American Cuarón—ROMA—2 filmmaker to win for directing) and Best Achievement in her other roles: Tentaciones (TV Series) (1998), Viajando Film Editing and for which he was nominated for Best sobre los durmientes (Short) (1999), Hijas de su madre: Motion Picture of the Year, and Roma* **(2018), a semi- Las Buenrostro (2005), Un mundo maravilloso (2006), autobiographical film he had begun working on in 2006 Efectos secundarios (2006), The Zone (2007), Love, Pain and for which he, again, won an Oscar for Best and Vice Versa (2008), Casi divas (2008), Nora's Will Achievement in Directing and for Best Achievement in (2008), Sexo y otros secretos (TV Series) (2007-8), Los Cinematography and was, once again, nominated for Best simuladores (TV Series) (2009), Desafío (2010), Motion Picture of the Year. He has also helmed several Capadocia (TV Series) (2010), Viento en contra (2011), large-scale projects adapting literary works, most notably Richness of Internal Space (2012), Ingobernable (TV the 2004 adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Series) (2017), Ana y Bruno (2017), How to Break Up with Azkaban, a film he was perhaps trusted with given his Your Douchebag (2017), Cómplices (2018), Roma (2018), calling card adaptations of A Little Princess (1995) and Niebla de Culpa (2018), This Is Not Berlin (2019), and Great Expectations (1998) combined with his recent Reminiscence (filming) (2020). success with Y Tu Mamá También, lending what was considered a safe, family franchise with a substantial edge. FERNANDO GREDIAGA made his film debut as Sr. These are some of the other films and TV series he has Antonio in Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma (2018). directed: Who's He Anyway*** (Short) (1983) and Hora Marcada (TV Series) (1989-1990). As a producer, he JORGE ANTONIO GUERRERO (b. 1993 (age 26 notably produced Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth years), Mexico) began his acting career the same year he (2006). These are some other films he produced: Camino appeared in Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma (2018), also acting in largo a Tijuana (1988), Sólo con Tu Pareja (1991), two television series: Luis Miguel: The Series and Narcos: Cronicas (2004), The Assassination of Richard Nixon Mexico. He has since appeared in several television series (2004), The Possibility of Hope (Video documentary short) in 2019: Crime Diaries: The Candidate, Sitiados: México, (2007), The Shock Doctrine (Documentary short) (2007), and Hernán. He will be appearing in Bonded, which is in Rudo y Cursi (2008), and Desierto (2015). He did post-production. cinematography for films such as: Recuerdo de Xochimilco (Short) (1981), Hora Marcada (TV Series) (1988-1990), and El motel de la muerte (TV Movie) (1990). He also wrote for films and television series, such as: Believe (TV Series) (2014). Finally, he also edited films such as: Vengeance Is Mine** (Short) (1983). *Producer **Cinematographer ***Editor

YALITZA APARICIO (b. December 11, 1993 in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, Mexico), in her first acting part, Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma (2018), she was nominated for an Oscar for Anthony Lane: “Alphonso Cuarón bears witness to Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. peril with ‘Roma’” (New Yorker) Aparicio is the first Indigenous American woman and the The last film made by Alfonso Cuarón, five years second Mexican woman to receive a Best Actress Oscar ago, was “Gravity,” in which Sandra Bullock floated nomination, following for her role in 2002's through space, evading debris caused by a Russian missile Frida. Her parents are of indigenous origin; her father is strike and hitching a ride on a Chinese reëntry capsule. By and her mother is Trique. She is not, however, contrast, Cuarón’s new film, “Roma,” is in black-and- fluent in the Mixtec language and had to learn it for her white, and the star, Yalitza Aparicio, has never acted role in Roma. Time magazine named her one of the 100 before. Most of the story is set in Roma, a pleasant suburb most influential people in the world in 2019, and, in of Mexico City, in 1970 and 1971, and the special effects October of the same year, she was named UNESCO are largely confined to dog mess. The earlier movie cost a Goodwill Ambassador for Indigenous Peoples. hundred million dollars; the new one, reportedly, a tenth of that sum. Let us hope that such dizzying career moves MARINA DE TAVIRA (b. 1974 in Mexico City, Mexico) become culturally commonplace, and that Metallica will began acting in film and television (33 credits) in the late soon reform as a piano quartet, with a series of lunchtime 1990s. She was nominated for an Oscar for her supporting concerts at the Frick. role in Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma (2018). These are some of Cuarón—ROMA—3

Aparicio plays a maid named Cleo. She hails from small girl in shallow waters, saying, “Let’s see you float Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, but we never glimpse her like a corpse.” In neither case is there anything bleak or home, for she has taken root in another household, in the creepy in the words. Both women are simply slipping into capital, and gives no sign of wishing to leave. Alongside the kids’ imaginative games. her is her fellow-servant, Adela (Nancy García), with Cuarón is in fruitful territory here. After “A Little whom she shares a room; after the daily toil, they exercise Princess” (1995) and the best of the Hogwarts films, together before bed, laughing as they try to touch their toes. “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” (2004), he Although they speak Spanish to their employers, the two made “Children of Men” (2006), which shudders with women tend to converse in a Mixtec language, and the horror at the prospect of a childless world. No surprise, movie is a babel, ceaselessly attuned to both human and then, that “Roma” should reverberate not only with animal tongues: canine barks, the croon of a bedtime innocence but with the awful intuition of its collapse. lullaby, the moans of There’s a wonderful sequence mothers in labor in a in which Pepe’s older maternity wing. A knife- brothers, Paco (Carlos grinder passes down the Peralta) and Toño (Diego street, announcing his Cortina Autrey), scrap in the services with the toot of a hallway. Nothing new in that, bird whistle. until one of them hurls The family for something hard and heavy at whom Cleo works—and the other, who ducks. It who, we soon realize, would smashes the glass panel barely function without behind him, and both boys her—is headed by Antonio stop, rendered blank and mute (Fernando Grediaga), a by the nearness of genuine doctor. His first appearance is a daunting one. A Ford harm. And we know, as they also know but cannot yet Galaxy, shining and growling, inches into the garage digest, the cause of battle: their father has gone, and he will beside the house, with a shadowy figure at the wheel. not be coming back. They are now the men of the house, Waiting in anticipation are his wife, Sofia (Marina de and already they are trashing it in their distress. Tavira), two of their four young children, and Cleo. We The most significant child in “Roma” is the one expect a proud paterfamilias to step forth, instead of which that Cleo carries inside her. On a day off, she has an a bearded fusspot emerges: distracted, half attentive, assignation with a friend named Fermín (Jorge Antonio already preparing to leave on a business trip. At once we Guerrero), and gets pregnant. She tells him so at the know in our gut that this man will not stay the course, and cinema, with a comedy playing in the background; he goes that the drama will be played out, and upheld, by the other to the bathroom and never returns. (Another vanishing characters. As Sofia, a little the worse (and the more man.) She also tells Sofia, asking meekly, “Are you going confiding) for drink, says to Cleo later on, “No matter what to fire me?” The answer is no, and so it is, months later, they tell you—women, we are always alone.” with the baby almost due, that Cleo and Teresa (Verónica The movie is founded on Cuarón’s own childhood, García), Sofia’s elderly mother, visit a furniture store to and, as he goes in search of that time, any stray Proustians buy a crib. Suddenly, there is a commotion outside. The in the audience will be struck by two aspects of his quest. women turn to the window and find themselves gazing at a First, the more microscopic the memory the more readily full-blown riot, with student protesters being harried down we believe it. Second, the enfolding presences are female. the street by riot squads. One youth is pursued into the Consider the closeup of a boiled egg that Cleo taps and store and killed, whereupon Fermín, of all people, appears cracks for the youngest child, Pepe (Marco Graf), spooning with a revolver in his hand, and a wild stare. Just as we’re the warm, gelatinous contents into a china cup. (Proust’s wondering what else this benighted day will inflict on poor narrator likewise recalls the flat plates, adorned with Cleo, her water breaks. pictures, on which his aunt liked her “creamed eggs” to be Not everyone will be seduced by “Roma,” and served.) On the rooftop, Cleo does the family’s washing those who resist it will point to this crucial scene. Is it not and hangs it up to dry; sunlight gleams through the white too pat, fusing the personal crisis with a public upheaval lace and cotton in a beatific haze. Pepe is idling there one and wringing meaning out of mere coincidence? Indeed, is day, and the two of them, the maid and the boy, lie down the entire movie not stacked with fancy visual rhymes: the with eyes closed, pretending to be lifeless. “I like being airplane high in the sky, for instance, that is mirrored in a dead,” Cleo remarks, and fans of Cuarón’s “Y Tu Mamá flood of soapy water at the start and repeated in the final También” (2001) will remember the heroine who cradles a shot, or the two boys dressed as astronauts—the rich one, Cuarón—ROMA—4 in his silvery costume, tramping through the woods, and agony or dread. It is the clarity of Cuarón’s eye, and the the poor one, with a plastic bucket for a helmet, parading sea-like sway of his remembrance, that compel you to trust through a slum? And, if the echo implies that all children, the tale he tells. whatever their social origins, are as one in their dreaming, is that not proof of the film’s political complacency? Though the mayhem outside the furniture store refers to a real event (the Corpus Christi Massacre of June, 1971, in which scores of demonstrators died), Cuarón makes no attempt to explain it, and nothing is more telling than the sight of Cleo glassed off from the scenes of revolt, as if they were beyond her comprehension. How can she, an indigenous member of the rural working class, find succor and satisfaction—even love—in fulfilling the needs of the upper bourgeoisie? Why must she kiss their kids good night? All those charges are valid. Nothing will be fomented by the film. The bridling wrath of the underclass that we find in Italian neorealism—“I curse the day I was born,” is the hero’s cry in “Bicycle Thieves” (1948)—is wholly absent, and there’s not a whisper of the anarchistic mischief practiced by Buñuel in “Diary of a Chambermaid” Simon Hattenstone: “Alfonso Cuarón on Roma: ‘We (1964), in which the aging patriarch kneels down to cast for almost a year …I couldn’t find the right unfasten the boots of a bored underling. Yet here’s the person” (The Guardian) thing: “Roma” is persuasive in its beauty. It wins you over. Congratulations, Alfonso, Roma is our No 1 The face of Aparicio, in the leading role, is not placidly film of the year. How does that make you feel? resigned but serene in its stoicism, and if she is less a Oh, fantastic! That’s so great! From the Guardian – that’s participant than a bystander during the major convulsions huge! That makes me feel so happy. of the era, well, few of us can claim to be much more. How would you describe Roma? Cuarón himself is the director of photography on the It’s a year in the life of a family and a country … For me, movie, which glories in its tranquil surveys of domestic this film has always been difficult to describe. It was a space, with the camera panning round the living room, and process of following the character of Cleo [the maid to a in the tracking shots that usher us through the action—left middle-class family, based on his own] and through her to right, right to left, to and fro, along furrowed fields and exploring wounds that were personal – family wounds. crowded avenues, as if the filmmaker were trying to keep Then I realised these were wounds that I shared with many pace with his thoughts while they carry him into the past. people in Mexico. And then I came to the conclusion that Some of them trespass on the surreal, as when, on New they are wounds shared by humanity. Year’s Eve, we come across revellers, in evening dress, Roma is a love letter to your family’s maid, helping to extinguish a forest fire. All roads lead to Libo. What does she think of it? “Roma.” She has seen it two or three times. She likes it a lot. She And so to the climax. The fatherless family is on a cries a lot. The beautiful thing is that when she cries it’s beach vacation, and two of the kids get into trouble, sucked not because of what is happening to her, it’s because she’s in and swamped by the breakers. Cleo, who can’t swim, concerned about the children. She’s not focusing on her goes in to save them, and the camera follows—not own pain. plunging in with her, in a salty rush of panic, but staying to Your mother and father are significant figures one side, at a distance, to observe her efforts. That might in Roma. Have they seen it? sound clinical, yet something miraculous happens: the No. My dad passed three years ago and my mum passed scene becomes more emotionally draining, not less, early this year. I showed her a cut of the film. It was clear because of the bright sunshine that gilds the crests of the that her end was coming, so I organised a screening of the menacing waves, and because of the Cleo-like calmness work in process for her, Libo and my three siblings. When with which Cuarón bears witness to peril. After the final your parents are gone, you start to see things differently. credits, the words “Shantih shantih shantih” appear, as they You can start romanticising it, or you go to the other way. do at the end of “The Waste Land,” yet the film—smooth, For me, it’s more the latter. unchoppy, self-contained—could hardly be further The way you capture the wonder of childhood from Eliot’s poem. Do not look to “Roma” for the bristle of reminds me of directors such as Víctor Erice and Cuarón—ROMA—5

Steven Spielberg. Were you influenced by them? without any sense of influence, and the first film [in which] They are in my DNA. Film-makers who have this childlike I consciously tried not to pay homage or do anything sense of wonder. Spielberg has been a big influence on my derivative. So much so that if I found myself doing a shot generation. I love him. Erice’s Spirit of the Beehive is a that reminded me of another film, I would change it. The masterpiece – one of those great films about childhood. production designer, Eugenio Caballero, more than once, Guillermo del Toro is also asked: “Why are you changing passionate about this film. the shot? That was beautiful,” A scene in Roma and I’d say: “Yes, it’s where the father parks his beautiful because it’s not car in the garage and the mine.” Then, when I took the children watch with awe new shot, he’d say: “But this is reminds me of the UFO boring,” and I’d say: “Yes, it’s landing in Close boring, but it’s mine.” In the Encounters. Was that end, it’s impossible to escape deliberate? who you are. And who I am is Hahahhaha! That is so a person who as a film-maker funny. I never thought of is infused with the DNA of that, but I can see it. other film-makers. Probably, Actually, that scene is inspired by the arrival on the moon I’m too much of a cinephile to be an auteur. of the spaceship in 2001: A Space Odyssey. One of the boys in Roma thinks he has lived Is it true you despaired of finding the right before. Is that you? Cleo? No, that’s my younger brother. He used to say, all the time: Yes, we cast for almost a year, and I couldn’t the right “When I was old …” I’m the boy who receives the slap person. Sometimes, I’d meet women who looked like Libo, from the mother [for eavesdropping]. but they wouldn’t feel like her. Or sometimes I’d meet Does it upset you that has allowed it people who felt like Libo, but they didn’t look like her. I such a limited release in cinemas, or are there big was so lucky when I met Yalitza Aparicio. It was such an advantages of going with them? immediate impression. With Yalitza, there was this I definitely wish it was in way more theatres. By the same amazing sense of familiarity; this mix of intelligence and token, I have more theatres playing Roma with Netflix than warmth. Then I was anxious because Yalitza said she was I would have got. Everybody else was going through the not interested, so there were another couple of weeks of filter of black-and-white, Mexican and Spanish, sweating until she said yes. and Netflix didn’t see it like that. I’m happy that it has sold How important was it that Cleo was not played out virtually every theatre showing it. It proves that the by a professional actor? cinema experience and streaming are not incompatible. But I didn’t mind if she was professional or not professional. I I do believe the best place to watch a film, particularly a just wanted them to look alike and be alike. But there was film like Roma, is the cinema. In Italy and Poland, we are something studied – jaded, even – about the professional playing in about 60 theatres. I’m just sad that in the UK, actors I interviewed for Cleo. Yalitza didn’t have any of it’s not playing in that many. that. Has Roma made you think differently about None of the actors were shown the script. Did your childhood? you feel bad about not telling Yalitza in advance about Not only my childhood; it has made me reassess many the scene in which she gives birth to a stillborn baby? things, including my own complicity in certain situations – Yes. She was sobbing and sobbing. I could not bear it any such as hierarchical society and the relationship between more. I rushed and embraced her and was, like: “Cut, cut, class and race that is prevalent not only in my country, but cut. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” And she was just throughout the world. crying and saying: “I thought you were going to bring a What scenes do you find most personally live baby.” I asked her later if she thought we went too far, painful in Roma? and she said: “I understood why you did it, but it was very There are many scenes. But what gave me the biggest pains shocking.” Yalitza was sharing with us a real reaction to were the scenes about the bubble of this middle-class the circumstance. She was extraordinary. family. This movie is set in 1971, and the social problems Were you influenced by Ken Loach in have actually got worse since then. That is really painful. withholding the script? Yesterday, we received good news about domestic Look, you talk about Spielberg, Loach, Erice. All those workers, who have been campaigning for social security guys are in my DNA. This is the first film I tried to do and to be legally protected. The judges declared it was Cuarón—ROMA—6 discriminatory not to grant them those rights. What is so frequently reverts to a rural Mixtec dialect) and racial: Cleo scary, though, is the amount of racist commentary about is dark-skinned, while the family she serves could hardly this on Twitter. And when Yalitza was on the cover of be whiter if they had emigrated from Sweden. Vogue, you have no idea of the amount of racist comments Said family consists of a mother (Marina de about it. So, 1971 or 2018? The problems are even more Tavira), a father (Fernando Grediaga), four young children, acute today. a dog, a cook (Nancy García), and a grandmother (Verónica García). But it is through Cleo’s eyes that the film is principally told, and she is that most perfect of cinematic interlocutors: central, intimate to everything that transpires within the household, even more than the parents themselves. Yet she is still, on a fundamental level, an outsider, with all the perspective that entails. Early in the film, Cleo becomes pregnant. Her impregnator is an awful man, and he is initially presented to viewers in the most explicit sense possible: full frontal nudity, for a prolonged bout of kung fu moves utilizing a shower rod. It does not seem accidental that he is—in moral terms, plot function, and physical substantiation alike—a “dick.” Complicating matters further, the family’s father, another awful man, abandons the household for a mistress, requiring the mother to offer ever more Christopher Orr: “Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma is a extravagant lies to her children about his never-ending Masterpiece of Cinematic Technique” (Atlantic “business trip.” Cleo is caught in a perpetual twilight zone Monthly) of semi-awareness, overhearing snatches of the family’s Alfonso Cuarón is among the most unusual of dissolution, but never being brought into its full world-class directors. He is not closely associated with any confidence. particular genre, and while there are cinematic elements I’ll forgo describing the rest of the plot in any that recur in his films—the long panning shots come to detail, in part because it is unnecessary: In Cuarón’s hands, mind—he does not have what most filmgoers would a scene that features young brothers playing shootout with consider a signature style. He has made, among others, the toy pistols on a roof and then segues into an inspection of raunchy, idiosyncratic coming-of-age story Y Tu Mamá laundry drying on the line is a greater pleasure than many También; the best of the Harry Potter films, Harry Potter of the year’s most clever cinematic and the Prisoner of Azkaban; the extraordinary dystopian subplots. Roma captures, as well as any film I have seen, fable Children of Men; and the fascinating exercise in the spirit of “magical realism,” without ever hinting at the spatial—literally spatial—geometry, Gravity. Cuarón’s supernatural. Its magic is pure, stunning cinematic trademark, to a remarkable degree, is simply excellence in technique. whatever project he chooses to undertake. Roma is amusing without being a comedy. Roma, his newest work and his most personal—an (Certainly, no other quality film has ever leaned as hard as ode to his upbringing in Mexico City in the early 1970s—is this one into the idea of dog shit as a principal narrative a marvel: frame by frame, scene by scene. It is quite metaphor.) And, until its final act, it is moving without possibly both the best film of Cuarón’s career to date and indulging in melodrama. I should caution prospective the best film of the year. moviegoers that, in its final third, Roma has not one but The genius of Roma is that it is simultaneously two scenes that threaten to shatter your heart to a degree narrow in focus and vast in scope. It opens with a shot that that few films will ever dare. I did not see these moments looks down from above on paving stones that, after a coming. But by its conclusion, Cuarón’s film proves itself moment, are covered with water. A reference to the first both wonderful and fearsome. See it. You will never forget shot of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg? I tend to believe so. it. But in this case, the water pours not from the sky but from a bucket. This is not a public street but a private courtyard, Anne Thompson: “Curón Tellss Lubezki How He one being mopped by Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), the maid Filmed ‘Roma’—Even One Quiet Shot Needed 45 and nanny of a well-off Mexico City family. The contrast Camera Positions” (IndieWire) between employers and employee is quickly made explicit Alfonso Cuarón’s impressive black-and-white in terms both cultural (while most of the film unfolds in memoir of 1971 Mexico City, “Roma,” recognized as one subtitled Spanish, Cleo, who is of indigenous descent, of the year’s best by multiple critics groups, finally arrived Cuarón—ROMA—7 on Netflix December 14. Last Sunday on a packed brought a different unapologetic quality to the film. It’s not soundstage at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, the writer- a vintage black and white. It’s a contemporary black and director-cinematographer was grilled by his old film school white. Black and white was part of the DNA of the film. buddy Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki, who collaborated on When the idea manifested, it was about the character Cleo six films with Cuarón, including “Y Tu Mama Tambien,” [Yalitza Aparicio], the tune was memory, and it was black “Children of Men” and “Gravity,” the movie that won them and white. From there you can change things. both Oscars. EL: You tend not to follow the rules. With this one Three-time Oscar-winner Lubezki started to prep you are working with non-actors, using complex blocking. the film but when the “Roma” shooting schedule ballooned You are dealing with dancers who haven’t danced. Was to over 108 shooting days, he was no longer able to commit this style developed during the writing, or found in situ? to the schedule and Cuarón, who trained as a AC: It was decided on the page, the script was cinematographer, took on the task himself. Lubezki asked densely described, including sounds. It has to do with stuff his long-time collaborator to explain the many rules he we’ve been doing together since “Y Tu Mama Tambien,” broke while making a film that could earn him his which changed my approach on foreground vs. first cinematography nomination, among other things. background, character vs. social environment, and on Here’s an edited version of the highlights. “Children of Men,” we elaborated on that. On this one, I Emmanuel Lubezki: Alfonsito, I have a lot of decided, “OK, I am going to trust that I already built that questions. After we finished “Gravity,” Alfonso whispered muscle and I’m not going to worry about it. I’m just going that he had an idea for another movie. Then he goes away to make it happen.” When I would first describe to the and sends a script and we started to work on it. He is a little crew the shot, they would think I was joking! like a reptile. When he changes his skin, every time he EL: Something that was unlike “Children” and “Y finishes a movie, his next will be completely different from Tu Mama” was the tempo. The camera is moving at a the previous one. This movie was very different and I was different tempo than the actors. It’s almost a complex jazz excited to work on it. He number. Are you describing disappeared again, went to it to the crew and they are Cannes, and then said “I doing it? What is the don’t want to do the movie.” procedure? Then he called me: “Would AC: First is to find the you come to Mexico?” And space, when I start lensing, to it’s what became “Roma.” go through the whole thing. What happened? Timing was the most difficult Alfonso Cuarón: I thing. People ask always was prepping, sending about the beach scene. What photos, location scouting in was more complicated was South Africa and the desert. simple things like doing a Then this thing “Roma” happened. It originated after round movement, a 380 inside the house. When Cleo is “Children of Men,” we talked about that in that period. I turning off the lights we have 45 different camera was afraid of doing it — and then I had to do it now, positions, the camera can’t be in one place and panning. It because of age. It’s this thing: “OK, I’m growing old. I was a floor with lines everywhere. Even before bringing in want to understand who I am in terms of who I was.” It the actors it was about sorting out the timings. But the was also the connection of the economic success of actors had to have the flexibility to improvise. Something I “Gravity.” We always have the same complaint when learned from you was communicating with the dolly or the shooting a movie: “It’s not equipment — it’s time, I want operator. to do a film the way I’d love to do it.” EL: You’re telling them to slow down as you are The time you prepped this film informed me so watching, I see. It does produce a feeling — hard to much. I wanted to do the Academy format; you convinced describe — the camera becomes almost like a me to go 65 and wide. That started to inform the whole consciousness revisiting the story. The camera knows thing. We started talking about lighting. something the actors do not. It’s very powerful. The other EL: Why black and white? thing you do different from all the other movies we did AC: I didn’t want a film that looks vintage, that together is the blocking of the scene is perpendicular to the looks old. I wanted to do a modern film that looks into the lens. When you track, the actors are moving parallel to the past. And you kept questioning me about black and white: lens. Usually, if I was there: “Alfonso that is very flat, we “Maybe color is better, otherwise you’re going to look should compose in the c axis not the x axis.” Why did you back.” That was your argument about the 65, because it do it? Cuarón—ROMA—8

AC: It needed to be objective. We would not have AC: That was fundamental. We’re going to be in dollies in and out, and embrace the flatness, but the dining room. I knew roughly the shot. From the night compensate for that flatness with background. before we start doing pre-lights, having extra crew working EL: This is a very extra hours to start doing a objective film. In “Gravity” pre-rig, then I would finish. It we explored the idea of was a process. Embracing elasticity, we’d be objective being a cinematographer and then got into her helmet forced me to be on the set all and it becomes subjective. day long. When we work This movie is really together, we work, I go away. objective 100 percent, like Somehow I had to be there, “Y Tu Mama.” that was triggering more AC: It’s a ghost of details of the memory of the the present visiting the past, moment, it was very useful. I objectively without getting was there lighting, and involved, just observing, composing. For me, it was: not trying to make a “What would Chivo do?” judgment or a commentary, EL: Inside the movie that everything there would theater with interactive light, be just the commentary itself. you shoot naturalistically with a lot of depth. That EL: It becomes even more complex, because it’s combination is not simple. It requires that you have a deep mysterious and very emotional, I don’t know why. It feels stop and that means you need a lot of light. In this like the camera and the cinematography are not there to particular scene you can see what’s being projected, see the illustrate; they are the film itself. lighting on [the characters], there’s a fill light, so you can Another contradiction from the book of see who they are. Then there’s a big change of light. This filmmaking: you rehearse these complicated movements scene, even for a very old tested cinematographer, is a but some of the actors don’t know what’s coming. They nightmare. How did you do it? didn’t read the script? They know the mechanics, but don’t AC: I don’t want movie lights. I want the scene to know where the emotional turns are coming? be lighting everything in sync with the projection. AC: They know some of the mechanics but not all Projecting 35 mil is not enough light, 65 we can’t afford, of them. It was all the time changing; I was throwing them we don’t have a big F stop. Shoot 35 open as much as curveballs. The problem was editing, all the takes were so possible, with the F stop you lose the depth the field. So different. I’d choose something that was so great in context you need power. The solution of how do it was informed and the next moment find something that did not work. It by “Gravity” LEDs. We changed the screen for LED lights was a domino effect. You had to go back to the first take that would be projecting, and then replaced later in post- and everything changed, the sense of timing and even production for 35 mm projection. To reach our characters, information. Part of the challenge was a lot of the camera on top of the screen there was a smaller LED with lesser was static and characters moved around. It was more intensity that was in sync. And also I rounded a bit on the challenging when the camera was moving. sides. The challenge was the change of light when the EL: Moving in different rhythm. lights come up. AC: It was also luck. For the beach scene, we had EL: Amazing. What about the music, or lack of it? to build a jetty, and put a techno-crane to keep the same We did it in “Y Tu Mama Tambien” but not to this extent. height. And the day before we shot, tropical storms AC: In “Y Tu Mama” we chased the source, weakened the jetty. Every time we tried to shoot the scene bringing it more to the foreground. Here the source the cameras would derail. I wanted to have six takes before depends on the distance and sometimes you barely hear it. the sweet spot of the light. We couldn’t get anything, it was The music was the sound of the places. That was part of derailing 45 seconds after saying action; we would get the the design from the get-go. It’s described in the screenplay beginning. Luck. When the sweet spot came the camera and one of those things that you follow through. didn’t derail and we have the only good complete shot. I EL: You are never satisfied–“we fucked this up, didn’t want to keep on going. I was afraid of safety and this is a mistake, we should not have filmed this.” This to also because the light was not worth it. Do a lot of prep so me seems like your most successful film. Sorry, if I’m you can be bit luckier! talking like a critic. But it’s a combination of everything EL: You were setting up the camera, talking to the that you’ve learned, what you’ve been doing for so many actors. When did you have time to do the lighting? years. Are you satisfied with the movie? Cuarón—ROMA—9

AC: I am very pleased because it’s what I set out When asked in an earlier interview with ITV News to do. I had the luxury that I had the time to do it. In other whether streaming is a threat to cinema, Spielberg provided films there are more conventional narratives. Here I this answer: decided what I set out to do. I don’t know if it’s successful. It is a challenge to cinema, the same way television I set out to bring it out unfiltered. And I am satisfied, yes. in the 1950s pulled people away from movie theaters and That I would watch it again, no! everybody stayed at home cause it was more fun to stay at EL: Congratulations, I adore the movie. I think it’s home and watch, you know, a comedy on television in the one of my favorite movies. 1950s than it was to go out to see a movie. So Hollywood's used to that. We are accustomed to being highly competitive with television. The difference today is that a lot of studios would rather just make a branded, tentpole—you know, guaranteed box office hits from their inventory of branded, you know, successful movies than take chances on smaller films. And those smaller films the studios used to make routinely are now going to Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix. And that's where—and by the way, the television is greater today than it has ever been in the history of television. There's better writing, better directing, better performances, better stories are being told. Television is really thriving Samuel Axon: “After Roma swept the Oscars, Steven with quality and art, but it poses a clear and present danger Spielberg seeks to block streaming films” (asrs to filmgoers. technica) Further in the conversation, he explained his A spokesperson for Amblin, the production reasoning for why films released primarily on Netflix or company run by director Steven Spielberg, has told the like should not be candidates for the Oscars: IndieWire that Spielberg plans to support an effort to Fewer and fewer filmmakers are going to struggle change the rules of the Oscars to bar some films primarily to raise money or to go over to compete in Sundance and distributed via streaming platforms like Netflix from possibly get one of the specialty labels to release their films nomination for . theatrically, publicly. And more of them are going to let the "Steven feels strongly about the difference SVOD businesses finance their films, maybe with the between the streaming and theatrical situation," the promise of a slight, one-week theatrical window to qualify spokesperson told the publication. "He'll be happy if the them for awards as a movie. others will join [his campaign] when that comes up [at the But in fact, once you commit to a television Academy Board of Governors meeting]." format, you're a TV movie. You certainly—if it's a good The conversation in Hollywood about the show—deserve an Emmy. But not an Oscar... I don't legitimacy of films made for streaming has been fierce believe that films that are just given token qualifications in since critical darling Roma—a Netflix-backed film from Y a couple of theaters for less than a week should qualify for Tu Mamá También, Children of Men, and Gravity director the Academy Award nomination. Alfonso Cuarón—took home Best Director, Best Foreign Historically, TV movies have not attracted the kind Language Film, and Best Cinematography in an of filmmaking talent and production values that films on unprecedented sweep for a streaming film. Netflix or Amazon do now, and this has created a point of However, Roma lost Best Picture to controversial contention in the industry when it comes to classification. film Green Book, which Spielberg backed. Later, Spielberg reiterated the point while accepting an Some industry figures have proposed a award from the Cinema Audio Society: requirement that films run in theaters for at least four I hope all of us really continue to believe that the weeks before they can be considered for Oscars. Others greatest contributions we can make as filmmakers is to have said they believe the amount of money Netflix spent give audiences the motion picture theatrical experience. I'm lobbying for Roma (estimates range from $25 to 50 a firm believer that movie theaters need to be around million—much more than is common, IndieWire reports) forever... The sound is better in homes more than it ever was unfair. But there is not yet any consensus on which has been in history, but there's nothing like going to a big specific changes to the rules will be proposed or potentially dark theatre with people you've never met before and ratified. having the experience wash over you. That's something we all truly believe in. Cuarón—ROMA—10

Currently, films do not need to run exclusively in The film’s texture is full of subtle signs which indicate that theaters to qualify for Oscars, but they must play for one the image of Cleo’s goodness is itself a trap, the object of week in New York and Los Angeles and receive reviews in implicit critique which denounces her dedication as the print newspapers—qualifications Roma met. (In result of her ideological blindness. I don’t have in mind fact, Roma played for as long as three weeks in some here just the obvious dissonances in how the family theaters, and it ran in theaters outside of New York and LA members treat Cleo: immediately after professing their as well.) love for her and talking with her ‘like equals’, they The Academy holds a post-Oscars meeting every abruptly ask her to do some house job or to serve them year. Spielberg reportedly will seek to promote the changes something. What struck me was, for example, the display at that meeting. The Academy gave a comment of Sofia’s indifferent brutality in her drunken attempt to acknowledging that it would discuss the issue of streaming: park the family Ford Galaxie in the narrow garage area: "Awards rules discussions are ongoing with the branches. how she repeatedly scratches the wall with chunks of And the Board will likely consider the topic at the April plaster falling down. Although this brutality can be meeting." justified by her subjective despair (being abandoned by her husband), the lesson is that, due to her dominant position, she can afford to act like that (the servants will repair the wall), while Cleo, who finds herself in a much more dire situation, simply cannot afford such ‘authentic’ outbursts – even when her whole world is falling apart, the work has to go on… Cleo’s true predicament first emerges in all its brutality in the hospital, after she delivers a stillborn baby girl; multiple attempts to resuscitate the infant fail, and the doctors give the body to Cleo for a few moments before taking it away. Many critics who saw in this scene the most Slavoj Žižek: “Roma is being celebrated for all the traumatic moment of the film, missed its ambiguity: as we wrong reasons, writes Slavoj Žižek” (The Spectator) learn later in the film (but can suspect now already), what My first viewing of Roma left me with a bitter truly traumatizes her is that she doesn’t want a child, so a taste: yes, the majority of critics are right in celebrating it dead body in her hands is good news. as an instant classic, but I couldn’t get rid of the idea that At the film’s end, Sofia takes her family to the this predominant perception is sustained by a terrifying, beach to help Cleo deal with her heartache (in reality, they almost obscene, misreading, and that the movie is want to use her there as a servant, although she just went celebrated for all the wrong reasons. through a painful stillbirth). Two of the children almost Roma is read as a tribute to Cleo, a maid from the drown in the currents but Cleo wades in to rescue them Colonia Roma neighbourhood of Mexico City working in even though she herself can’t swim. The event leads to the middle-class household of Sofia, her husband Antonio, Sofia and the children declaring their devotion to Cleo for their four young children, Sofia’s mother Teresa, and such selflessness and Cleo breaking down, admitting she another maid, Adela. It take place in 1970, the time of large never wanted the baby in the first place. Back home, as she student protests and social unrest. As already in Y Tu returns to the drudgery and prepares another wash, Cleo Mama Tambien, Cuaron maintains distance between the says to Adela she has much to tell her, as a plane flies two levels, the family troubles (Antonio leaving his family overhead. for a younger mistress, Cleo getting pregnant by a After Cleo saves the two boys, they all (Sofia, Cleo boyfriend who immediately abandons her), and this focus and the boys) tightly embrace on the beach – a moment of on intimate family topic makes the oppressive presence of false solidarity if there ever was one, a moment which social struggles all the more palpable as the diffuse but simply confirms that Cleo is caught into the trap that omnipresent background. As Fred Jameson would have put enslaves her… Am I dreaming here? Is my reading not too it, History as Real cannot be depicted directly but only as crazy? I think Cuaron provides a subtle hint in this the elusive background that leaves its mark on depicted direction at the level of the form. The entire scene of Cleo events. saving the children is shot in one long take, with the So does Roma really just celebrate Cleo’s simple camera moving transversally, always focused on Cleo. goodness and selfless dedication to the family? Can she When one watches this scene, one cannot avoid the feeling really be reduced to the ultimate love object of a spoiled of a strange dissonance between form and content: while upper-middle class family, accepted (almost) as part of the the content is a pathetic gesture from Cleo who, soon after family to be better exploited, physically and emotionally? the traumatic stillbirth, risks her life for the children, the Cuarón—ROMA—11 form totally ignores this dramatic context. There is no repeats that concept of the personal story against a exchange of shots between Cleo entering the water and the backdrop of a larger one—the face in the crowd, the human children, no dramatic tension between the danger the story in the context of a societal one. Cuaron has made his children are in and her effort to save them, no point-of- most personal film to date, and the blend of the humane view shot depicting what she sees. This strange inertia of and the artistic within nearly every scene is breathtaking. the camera, its refusal to get involved in the drama, renders It’s a masterful achievement in filmmaking as an empathy in a palpable way Cleo’s disentanglement from the pathetic machine, a way for us to spend time in a place, in an era, role of a faithful servant ready to sacrifice herself. and with characters we never would otherwise. There is a further hint of emancipation to come in The woman cleaning that driveway is Cleo the very final moments of the film when Cleo says to (Yalitza Aparicio), a servant for a wealthy family in Adela: ‘I have much to tell you.’ Maybe, this means that Mexico City in the ‘70s. Cleo is no mere maid, often Cleo is finally getting ready to step out of the trap of her feeling like she is a part of the family she serves more than ‘goodness’, becoming aware that her selfless dedication to an employee—although she is often reminded of the latter her family is the very form of her servitude. In other words, fact as well. She may go on trips with them and truly love Cleo’s total withdrawal from political concerns, her the children, but she also gets admonished for leaving her dedication to selfless service, is the very form of her light on too late at night as it wastes electricity. Cleo is a ideological identity, it is how she ‘lives’ ideology. Maybe quiet young woman, eager to do a good job, and able to explaining her predicament to Adela is the beginning of stay out of the way when controversy arrives within the Cleo’s ‘class consciousness’, the first step that will lead her family, especially with the distant, often-absent patriarch. to join the protesters on the street. A new figure of Cleo Everything changes for Cleo after an affair with a will arise in this way, a much more cold and ruthless – a cousin of her friend’s boyfriend results in a pregnancy. figure of Cleo delivered from ideological chains. Cleo’s employers offer to help their favorite servant with But maybe it will not. It is very difficult to get rid the pregnancy, taking her to the doctor and supporting her of the chains in which we not only feel good but feel that with whatever she needs, but the child’s father disappears, we are doing something good. As T.S. Eliot put it in and Cleo looks worried about what her future holds. his Murder in the Cathedral, the greatest sin is to do the “Roma” spends roughly a year in the life of Cleo as she right thing for the wrong reason. plans for motherhood, tries to support a family that is coming apart, and simply moves through a loud, changing world. Cuaron, who shot the film in gorgeous black-and- white himself (and clearly learned a thing or two from regular collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki), adopts a fascinating visual style for “Roma” in that he rarely uses close-ups, keeping us at a distance from Cleo and his other characters, and allowing the details of the world around them to come to life. Without over-using the trick, which would have resulted in a cluttered film, Cuaron often places Cleo in a tableau that could be called chaotic, whether it’s a market teeming with people behind her or even just the home in which she spends so much of her time, full of noisy children, relatives, and servants. Cleo’s existence is a crowded one, and it almost feels like it gets Brian Tallerica: “Roma” (rogerebert.com) more so as the film goes along, mirroring her increasing Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” opens with a close- concern at the impending birth of her child. With some of up shot of a stone-paved driveway. We see soapy water the most striking imagery of the year, "Roma" often cascade over the rock, as someone off-camera is cleaning blends the surreal and the relatable into one memorable it. In the reflection of the water, we can see the sky, image. although even that reflection undulates and changes as the Throughout “Roma,” Cuaron uses his mastery of water moves. A plane then moves across the field of view visual language to convey mood and character in ways his within the reflection. It sounds so simple but there is so mostly-silent protagonist cannot. There is no score, and yet much in this sequence of images that is reflected in the film “Roma” feels aurally alive, largely because of the veracity to follow: a natural flow of life—water, stone, air—while of Cuaron’s attention to detail. There’s a tendency for also presenting us with the concept of the micro within the filmmakers who attempt to make something that could be macro, like a plane against the sky. So much of “Roma” called “poetic” to get loose with detail. The idea is that Cuarón—ROMA—12 poetic cinema can’t be realistic cinema. What’s so stunning work that ultimately registers as personal to us, too. And about “Roma” is how much Cuaron finds the poetry in the you walk out transformed, feeling like you just experienced detail (this is also true of Barry Jenkins' "If Beale Street something more than merely watching a film. That kind of Could Talk," one of the other great movies of 2018). The movie is incredibly rare—we’re lucky if get one a year. film is remarkably episodic—so much so that its lack of “Roma” is that special. driving narrative may disappoint people when they watch it I don’t often get as personal as some critics do in on Netflix—but it’s designed to immerse you, to transport reviews, but how strongly I feel about this film seems to you, and those who go with it will find themselves warrant one more closing thought. By virtue of being rewarded. Cuaron’s film climaxes in a couple of emotional blessed to work here, I’m often asked what I think Roger scenes that will shake to the core those who care about Ebert would have thought about some of the films that these characters. have been released since he passed. It’s emotionally Cuaron has said that this film is a tribute to the overwhelming to consider what he might have written women in his life and “the elements that forged me.” With about “Moonlight” or “Selma” and so I try not to go down that obviously personal angle driving the production, that mental rabbit hole, but I felt that absence perhaps most “Roma” often plays out like a memory, but not in a gauzy, greatly while watching “Roma.” When it ended, I thought dreamlike way we so often see from bad filmmaking. more than ever about how he would have written about it. I Every choice has been carefully considered—that wide- think that’s because it so completely embodies what he angle approach allows for so much background detail—and considered the role of great cinema as an empathy yet “Roma” is never sterile or overly precious with its machine. We should be thankful there are films like choices. It’s that balance of truth and art that is so “Roma” keeping that machine humming. breathtaking, making Cuaron’s personal story a piece of

JUST ONE MORE IN THE FALL 2019 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS (SERIES 39)

Dec 3 Baz Luhrmann Moulin Rouge 2001

BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS SPRING 2020, SERIES 40

Jan 28 Chaplin City Lights 1931 Feb 4 Lloyd Bacon 42nd Street 1933 Feb 11 Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp 1943 Feb 18 Billy Wilder Sunset Boulevard 1950 Feb 25 Henri-Georges Clouzot Wages of Fear 1953 Mar 3 Lucino Visconti, The Leopard 1963 Mar 10 Maskaki Kobayashi Kwaidan 1965 Mar 24 John Schlesinger Midnight Cowboy 1969 Mar 31 Alan Pakula Klute 1971 Apr 7 Robert Altman McCabe and Mrs Miller 1971 Apr 14 Martin Scorsese King of Comedy 1983 Apr 21 Wim Wenders Land of Plenty 2004 Apr 28 Wes Anderson Isle of Dogs 2018 May 5 Pedro Almodóvar Pain and Glory 2019

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The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Dipson Amherst Theatre, with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News.