Why Gravity is Grabbing So Much Attention

The Sandra Bullock 3-D space movie Gravity has opened to spectacular reviews and record-breaking October box office numbers.  And after going to see it last Tuesday in 3-D at my local theater, I have to say that the movie has earned its praise and box office.  Sandra Bullock and her co-star George Clooney make for great totally non-romantic interaction, but the movie is primarily a one-woman show by Bullock.

So before we get into any more analysis here, go see Gravity in 3-D at the best local theater you can find. (My mum-in-law, as a general rule, does not like 3-D or 3-D glasses.  She was enthralled by Gravity and thought the 3-D was absolutely central to the movie.)

So on to the questions of what makes Gravity such an interesting movie:

• It was conceived and shot as a 3-D movie from the very beginning.Director Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)  planned Gravity as a 3-D movie from the very start, back in 2010 when Avatar was busy showing the world what could be done with really great 3-D.(I know, I know, many of you absolutely hated the derivative story and rehashing of the human villains from Aliens in Avatar, but that doesn’t change the fact that it had extraordinary visual storytelling.)

  Every shot was planned around how it would look in 3-D. Cinema Blend has a spot-on analysis of why the 3-D in Gravity works so well. And Chris Park, who was the movie’s “stereoscopy supervisor,” has a great discussion over at Stereoscopy Newsof all the techniques he used to make sure that Cuaron’s vision made it to the screen.

  I also find it fascinating that for the most part neither director/co-screenwriter Cuaron nor co-star Clooney generally like 3-D, especially when it is tacked on just to generate higher ticket prices.  Cuaron is quoted at Complex.comas saying:

  “The problem now is that they make all these films that are not designed for 3D and then convert them as a commercially afterthought—and they are crap. They don’t follow the rules of 3D of what does and doesn’t work. There are a handful of films that have used 3D in a proper way so it can be an amazing tool.”

  Here’s a featurette that explains how Cuaron and company used 3-D almost as a characterin the film:

• The writer/director and studio were brave enough to produce a unique film with a strong voice.
  
  LA Times movie critic Kenneth Turan notes a number of things in his review that make Gravity special, including the fact that the first shot of the film runs 13 minutes without a single cut.  No rapid-fire edits here – just a really long establishing shot putting us into the context of the film.  (And, going back to the first point, rapid-fire edits don’t work well in 3-D.)  That willingness to engage in brave storytelling carries through the entire movie.I would also note that the movie also benefited from having a unified voice.  The screenplay was written by  Alfonso Cuaron and his son Jonas.  This means that the movie did not suffer from endless second-guessing from the studio about the script.  It also means, I strongly suspect, that the director and his son had a really good idea of what they were going to do from the very beginning. My own rule of thumb is that unless it is a major animated movie, and film with more than two screenwriters or screenwriting teams is suspect.  It isn’t a universal rule, but I always get nervous when I see a long list of writers on a project.