Home Featured Content

5 Reasons That Gravity Lives Up To And Even Exceeds Its Insane Hype

Sometimes hype is the devil. In our current climate of endless speculation about casting, plot details, sequels, and awards consideration, a strong case can be made that the anticipation of upcoming movies today is far more celebrated and attracts far more cultural energy than the experience of watching the actual movies, let alone thinking about and discussing movies some time after their release. The future is much more in demand than the present or the past. Then again, it could also be argued that this is indeed nothing new, but a longstanding human impulse that is merely being capitalized on by those in the business of selling movies and other cultural products, like anything else.

[h2]1) The long takes are indeed incredible[/h2]

Gravity

Recommended Videos

Cuarón’s trademark, thanks largely, maybe exclusively, to Children of Men, has become the long take. The one sequence in that movie featuring an intense attack on a car transporting the main characters was one of the key reasons it attracted so much attention for its unique visual method and immersive feel—with all the action unfolding in front of us with no cuts interrupting the image, there’s a realism to it that is especially affecting. It’s a cinematic technique he keeps returning to, and Gravity uses it more than anything he’s done in the past.

The result is even more intense and incredible than a person who hasn’t seen it is likely to imagine. One of the central conceits of the film is to replicate the feeling of being in space, to transport the audience so that we feel as though we’re floating alongside Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. It’s true that there’s a certain element to the traditional long take where the action has to be captured in one perfect go-round, unlike this movie where computer animation allows more room for multiple takes. In fact, it may be more suitable to call this a single-shot sequence rather than single-take. The effect, though, remains. The interrupted fluidity of the camera and character action we watch is made simultaneously hyperrealistic and slightly surreal, which captures the feeling of outer space perfectly. It also makes the shock of its big action set pieces that much more intense. There’s no doubt that the unique cinematic experience of Gravity is largely due to this bold and profoundly effective stylistic choice by Cuarón.

Continue reading on the next page…