In the opening shot of "Gravity" - an opening shot that has already begun the process of being immortalized for its use of an unbroken, 13-minute-long tracking sequence - we are given a few items as text on the screen to remind us that space is as dangerous as it is mysterious and awe-inspiring and beautiful. The closing line in that sequence of text, which reminds us of things we no doubt learned once in school, (such as the lack of oxygen and the inability for sound to travel), is this: "Life in space is impossible."
Indeed it is. And perhaps a large chunk of what makes "Gravity" such a masterful film is its subtext, which suggests that life back on Earth can be pretty impossible as well.
As a movie-going experience, "Gravity" is as big as movies get. After all, it stars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, two of the most well-liked and dependable stars in Hollywood today. And its director, Alfonso Cuaron, has assembled a team that has - without hyperbole - changed the game of how films are made in a way that no film has managed since "Avatar." It is also, of course, set in space.
But it's the film's contrasting sparseness and claustrophobic moments that stand out. When the film's two surviving astronauts (Clooney and Bullock) survive a shocking and sudden attack of space debris that eliminates their shuttle and their fellow astronauts, the veteran Matt Kowalski (a confident, charming Clooney) relies as much on the power of his soothing voice and limp, homespun storytelling as he does on his level of ability as an astronaut to stabilize rookie Ryan Stone (Bullock, who is physically and mentally spiraling out of control through the void) in order to latch a strap to her. That simple tether is literally responsible for the only human connection afforded either of them in this desperate moment: one strap and two clips and virtually nothing else.
Umbilical imagery is a recurring visual motif in "Gravity," culminating in a stunning moment of visual poetry in which Bullock floats, weightless and centered, within a rounded open space in one of the shuttles, her space suit removed and her knees drawn in to a fetal position. The moment is surprisingly physically brave; though she is clothed, her clothing is minimal and it's as if she is naked because on an emotional level, she certainly is. Time and again, the astronaut must be grab hold of something or be attached to something if he/she is to have any chance of surviving.
Looking back on my viewing experience, there are three reasons why "Gravity" affected me so deeply, and I want to take a second to briefly explore those areas:
1. The film is deeply spiritual
"What do you like best about space?" Kowalski asks Stone at one point. Her response? "The silence." Given the simplicity of the film's plot and the likelihood that viewers will know much of the film's plot points going in, Cuaron and his team have to provide other reasons for an audience to have this particular cinematic experience. All three of the reasons I'm mentioning here are good enough, but this one meant the most to me.
Stone, on her first space mission, is clearly escaping something back home: personal failure and loss. Perhaps in some way, space travel is a risk that can only be taken by those who are in a place mentally where they're willing to gamble with their very existence, and Stone is. Like space itself, she's gone cold, and she appreciates the stark contrast of the mundane maintenance tasks she is being asked to perform against the celestial and majestic backdrop of space. For a few moments anyway, she appears to be more content with looking down on Earth than being on its soil, though her feelings on this obviously evolve.
Through the film's sequence of catastrophic events, Stone eventually undertakes a hero's journey that felt a lot like a reverse evolution take on rebirth, documenting her harrowing journey from essentially death back to - if she's successful - rising out of the mud of the ocean's shore. And in the film's stunning emotional centerpiece, Stone must confront her past as it applies to her present situation while simultaneously confronting the language barriers of the foreign aircraft she is attempting to pilot and the voices being transmitted into the shuttle, which are not of her language. Only God Himself could lead her out such a convergence of desperation, and her full awareness of this fact is what, perhaps, frustrates Stone most of all, forcing her to have a spiritual breakthrough before she can ever attempt a literal one through the earth's atmosphere.
2. The actual construction of the film is groundbreaking movie making
I rarely speak highly of the use of 3-D and am certain that I can count on one hand the number of times I felt it was truly effective. "Avatar" and "Hugo" come to mind as obvious leaps forward in the use of the technology, but before "Gravity," I never considered 3-D to be truly essential to the film viewing experience.
Cuaron is so effective with his use of 3-D that James Cameron is thanked in the film's closing credits, a move that, in retrospect, feels like a race car driver waving as he blows past the driver in the pole position. Trust me when I tell you that my biggest disappointment with "Gravity" will be when I rewatch the film at home one day without the benefit of 3-D. If ever a film begged to be seen in a movie theatre, this is it. In fact, go one better and spring for the IMAX experience as well. Not many films are with the inflated price of the ticket, but this one is. The 3-D gives a stunning depth to space itself, which until now could only be represented as a compressed, dark rectangle of nothing but now feels like a true chasm. It is this very depth and dimension of space itself that makes the loneliness even lonelier, the distance even greater, and the awesomeness of space infinitely more majestic.
Some complain that the use of 3-D glasses gives them headaches and that wearing the glasses dulls the colors on the screen. I certainly refer to these two complaints when eschewing the format for the traditional 2-D experience. Fortunately, "Gravity" is set in space, and its natural darkness lends itself nicely, I think, to a 3-D viewing experience where the loss of brightness isn't a factor. And while I did hear of some filmgoers struggling with the images and headaches, I was not one of them, and that has definitely been a problem for me in the past.
Which leads to the second aspect of technical brilliance regarding "Gravity," and that is the mind-blowing camera work. If anything might make you a little woozy, it will be the perpetually floating camera, spinning lazily without rest and then, when circumstances call for it, spinning wildly as if you were viewing things from some sort of carnival ride. (I'll say more about this in my next point.)
Because Cuaron has worked with his team to break new ground in cinematography, the audience gets an experience that truly feels like space. I don't claim to know the details of how they accomplished what they did, but I will say it today that anything short of an Oscar for cinematography would be slap in the face to the unbelievable sights they created here. I walked in to "Gravity" already stunned by Cuaron's ability to stage an extended tracking shot sequence; he virtually ripped the crown away from Scorsese with his last film, "Children of Men." In retrospect, that feels like it was practice. How could this film not have been filmed in space itself? How can a camera travel in an unbroken shot through the glass of a space suit helmet and then pass back out again? I have not been so mystified, thrilled and baffled by cinematography since "Citizen Kane."
3. The film stirred in me a visceral, physical reaction
Take this as a compliment when I say that "Gravity" is almost unbearable to watch. I mean this from a physical standpoint. As I mentioned before, the camera work generates a constant, slow tumbling sensation, and though you get used to it, there are times when you're reaching for your popcorn bag to use it as a barf bag when that motion picks up and when chaotic interferences cause tumbling to turn into uncontrollable spinning, such as near the film's beginning when Clooney's character must attempt to stabilize a wildly flipping Bullock.
I have rarely felt such panic sitting in a movie theatre. My resting position involved my arms tightly folded across my chest, and if I wasn't gripping my sides, I was gripping the arm rests as if on Space Mountain rather than at a movie. When Bullock's character struggled to draw substantial breaths, I followed suit. When she felt extreme hot and cold temperatures out in space or attempting to reenter the earth's atmosphere, I swear I felt them, too. By the time the film ended, I had slammed my spine into the back of my seat and pressed my back into my chair, unable to move as the credits rolled. How often can you say "I was on the edge of your seat" about a movie and mean it, literally? It was difficult for me to react to the film as if I had not myself just been in space and experienced reentry so that I might return to my car to drive home.
Umbilical imagery is a recurring visual motif in "Gravity," culminating in a stunning moment of visual poetry in which Bullock floats, weightless and centered, within a rounded open space in one of the shuttles, her space suit removed and her knees drawn in to a fetal position. The moment is surprisingly physically brave; though she is clothed, her clothing is minimal and it's as if she is naked because on an emotional level, she certainly is. Time and again, the astronaut must be grab hold of something or be attached to something if he/she is to have any chance of surviving.
Looking back on my viewing experience, there are three reasons why "Gravity" affected me so deeply, and I want to take a second to briefly explore those areas:
1. The film is deeply spiritual
"What do you like best about space?" Kowalski asks Stone at one point. Her response? "The silence." Given the simplicity of the film's plot and the likelihood that viewers will know much of the film's plot points going in, Cuaron and his team have to provide other reasons for an audience to have this particular cinematic experience. All three of the reasons I'm mentioning here are good enough, but this one meant the most to me.
Stone, on her first space mission, is clearly escaping something back home: personal failure and loss. Perhaps in some way, space travel is a risk that can only be taken by those who are in a place mentally where they're willing to gamble with their very existence, and Stone is. Like space itself, she's gone cold, and she appreciates the stark contrast of the mundane maintenance tasks she is being asked to perform against the celestial and majestic backdrop of space. For a few moments anyway, she appears to be more content with looking down on Earth than being on its soil, though her feelings on this obviously evolve.
Through the film's sequence of catastrophic events, Stone eventually undertakes a hero's journey that felt a lot like a reverse evolution take on rebirth, documenting her harrowing journey from essentially death back to - if she's successful - rising out of the mud of the ocean's shore. And in the film's stunning emotional centerpiece, Stone must confront her past as it applies to her present situation while simultaneously confronting the language barriers of the foreign aircraft she is attempting to pilot and the voices being transmitted into the shuttle, which are not of her language. Only God Himself could lead her out such a convergence of desperation, and her full awareness of this fact is what, perhaps, frustrates Stone most of all, forcing her to have a spiritual breakthrough before she can ever attempt a literal one through the earth's atmosphere.
2. The actual construction of the film is groundbreaking movie making
I rarely speak highly of the use of 3-D and am certain that I can count on one hand the number of times I felt it was truly effective. "Avatar" and "Hugo" come to mind as obvious leaps forward in the use of the technology, but before "Gravity," I never considered 3-D to be truly essential to the film viewing experience.
Cuaron is so effective with his use of 3-D that James Cameron is thanked in the film's closing credits, a move that, in retrospect, feels like a race car driver waving as he blows past the driver in the pole position. Trust me when I tell you that my biggest disappointment with "Gravity" will be when I rewatch the film at home one day without the benefit of 3-D. If ever a film begged to be seen in a movie theatre, this is it. In fact, go one better and spring for the IMAX experience as well. Not many films are with the inflated price of the ticket, but this one is. The 3-D gives a stunning depth to space itself, which until now could only be represented as a compressed, dark rectangle of nothing but now feels like a true chasm. It is this very depth and dimension of space itself that makes the loneliness even lonelier, the distance even greater, and the awesomeness of space infinitely more majestic.
Some complain that the use of 3-D glasses gives them headaches and that wearing the glasses dulls the colors on the screen. I certainly refer to these two complaints when eschewing the format for the traditional 2-D experience. Fortunately, "Gravity" is set in space, and its natural darkness lends itself nicely, I think, to a 3-D viewing experience where the loss of brightness isn't a factor. And while I did hear of some filmgoers struggling with the images and headaches, I was not one of them, and that has definitely been a problem for me in the past.
Which leads to the second aspect of technical brilliance regarding "Gravity," and that is the mind-blowing camera work. If anything might make you a little woozy, it will be the perpetually floating camera, spinning lazily without rest and then, when circumstances call for it, spinning wildly as if you were viewing things from some sort of carnival ride. (I'll say more about this in my next point.)
Because Cuaron has worked with his team to break new ground in cinematography, the audience gets an experience that truly feels like space. I don't claim to know the details of how they accomplished what they did, but I will say it today that anything short of an Oscar for cinematography would be slap in the face to the unbelievable sights they created here. I walked in to "Gravity" already stunned by Cuaron's ability to stage an extended tracking shot sequence; he virtually ripped the crown away from Scorsese with his last film, "Children of Men." In retrospect, that feels like it was practice. How could this film not have been filmed in space itself? How can a camera travel in an unbroken shot through the glass of a space suit helmet and then pass back out again? I have not been so mystified, thrilled and baffled by cinematography since "Citizen Kane."
3. The film stirred in me a visceral, physical reaction
Take this as a compliment when I say that "Gravity" is almost unbearable to watch. I mean this from a physical standpoint. As I mentioned before, the camera work generates a constant, slow tumbling sensation, and though you get used to it, there are times when you're reaching for your popcorn bag to use it as a barf bag when that motion picks up and when chaotic interferences cause tumbling to turn into uncontrollable spinning, such as near the film's beginning when Clooney's character must attempt to stabilize a wildly flipping Bullock.
"Gravity" is the kind of film that many might never watch a second time because it is that exhausting and intense. Over the years, I've assembled such a list of films, my "one and done" list. Every movie on that list is a film that was so powerful and full of impact but also so emotionally exhausting that I question my ability to re-experience it. Without question, "Gravity" belongs on such a list, though in the days that have passed since I've seen it, I almost can't imagine not allowing myself to return to the film upon home release to further consider its brilliance. From the acting performances to every last technical detail, it's a stunner. Even the one scene in the film that originally felt like a sore misstep (and I don't want to name it here) feels purposeful upon further reflection.
How could a movie look so weightless and feel so full of mass? "Gravity," indeed.
