‘Gravity’ sequence earns positive buzz at Comic-Con

Comic-Con attendees might be running out of superlatives to
throw at Alfonso Cuarón’s upcoming deep-space thriller Gravity, after an
extended sequence was presented at the festival on Saturday. Fans took to
Twitter to call the footage—which showed leads George Clooney and Sandra
Bullock weathering an attack on a space station—“beyond intense” and “one of
the most extraordinary things I’ve ever seen.” Others singled out the
“astonishing 3D” or the impressive long takes that structured the sequence, and
apparently comprise much of the film.

A panel conference with Cuarón, Bullock, and producer David
Heyman followed the showing, and helped elucidate the unusual process of making
an unusual movie. Gravity tells the story of two astronauts who are cut
off from their shuttle after a space debris collision, and are left
floating—untethered and with a dwindling supply of oxygen. Bullock and Clooney
are the only two actors shown in the film, which seems to layer even its bursts
of action with a tone of eerie minimalism.

Isolation, however, was not just a plot point, but a
technological necessity. In order to replicate the conditions of zero-gravity,
Bullock spent much of the shoot suspended in a 9x9 foot cube, surrounded by
camera-wielding robotic arms. She would often stay inside her contraption
between takes, and claimed she learned to meditate during the shoot. At other
times, a camera might rush towards her at 25 miles an hour, only to stop an
inch from her nose.

 

When asked about inspiration behind the project, Cuarón paid
respects to Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped, which details a war
prisoner’s plan to break out of a Nazi prison. It’s a fitting mention given Escaped’s
focus on confinement, but also because of the 1956 film’s meticulous attention
to sound—from the turn of a key to the distant footstep of a guard.  Gravity
promises similar detail. As soon as Cuarón took the stage he poked fun at the
explosions that the studios had put in the trailers; “As we know, there is no
sound in space. In the film, we don’t do that.” And Bullock credited the
specially designed music and sounds that played on her headphones between takes
for putting her in the right space.

Cuarón, who’s famous for his displays of filmmaking
prowess—especially that seven-and-a-half-minute single shot in Children of
Men—made sure to emphasize the human side of the story, downplaying the
importance of his virtuosic methods in favor of the film’s “emotional journey.”
And Bullock certainly included some intriguing nuggets about her character—she
tried to make herself as androgynous as possible in order to portray a woman
with a conflicted past in relation to motherhood and femininity. Then again,
who can’t be curious about the technological spectacle of it all (and a rumored
17-minute long opening take)? When asked if making a film entirely out of very
long shots was a challenge Cuarón joked, “It’s not difficult for me. It’s
difficult for everyone around me.”