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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 (Yalitza Aparicio), Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Marina de Tavira), 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 Mexico 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 Salma Hayek 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 Mixtec 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.

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