Roma (Alfonso Cuaron)

[Ezee E]

https://cdn.forbes.com.mx/2018/07/roma-640x360.png

IMDB (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6155172/?ref_=nv_sr_1)

[Henry Gale]

*waits impatiently to see this but realizes how lucky he still is to be able to do so in a week's time*

[Ivan Drago]

I get Tabu and Güeros vibes from the trailer. Can't wait for it, and crossing my fingers for a reasonable theatrical release.

[Ezee E]

Full thoughts to come tonight, I hope.

[Pop Trash]

I really hope Netflix gives this a wide-ish theatrical release since I've heard the cinematography is amazing. (I mean it's Cuaron, so that's a given)

[Ezee E]

I really hope Netflix gives this a wide-ish theatrical release since I've heard the cinematography is amazing. (I mean it's Cuaron, so that's a given)

It IS amazing. There's apparently a good amount of green screen in there that we just don't know about either. Lots of stuff happening in all parts of the screen, just like in Children of Men. It had a little art gallery of shots in Telluride too.

[Philip J. Fry]

It IS amazing. There's apparently a good amount of green screen in there that we just don't know about either. Lots of stuff happening in all parts of the screen, just like in Children of Men. It had a little art gallery of shots in Telluride too.Pretty much any shot could be hanging on a wall. It is great.

[Peng]

Glad for a chance of its Thai press screening a day before Netflix release, because I would be tempted to stream it out of convenience otherwise. The images of course look gorgeous and pristine on big screen, but the real reason to see it that way is for the sophisticated sound design, working in concert with its remarkable long takes and pans to envelope us in Cleo's routines, actions, and environment. This may be the technical achievement of the year.

However, I get the nagging feeling that Cuaron may be too close to the subject here, so much that he is too busy crafting an exact replication of his devotion to a person and place, becoming a portrait of high reverence rather than nuance. Thus it's affecting in broad scope, but not shattering in its details as I had hoped. There are some powerful images and stretches, in which the stressful, everything-goes-wrong day of the birth is a standout. Overall though, I feel like I was being led through a museum hall of extraordinary history rather than having a full cinematic experience. Its beauty awed me, and its tribute of faith to this woman's life impressed and occasionally moved me, but I was never deeply engaged by the time it ended. 7.5/10

[Weems]

I was thoroughly bored through most of this. This might be even worse than Gravity.

[Rico]

It's too cold. So when we get to the scene that should absolutely shatter the viewer, I felt nothing. There was no connection there.

[Ezee E]

Was watching at home yesterday, and this doesn't play nearly as well with it's very slow-paced first hour.

[Pop Trash]

There's already a backlash a brewin' for Roma which is more boring and predictable than anything in the movie. Anyway, I wasn't fully on board for the first hour or so. I liked it but my mind started wandering away from the upstairs / downstairs dynamics... but the last hour is really great. I love how Cuaron will stage a scene in the common areas with everyone together, but his camera will eventually get bored of the bougey happenings and follow Cleo around instead. Is there anyone better at lateral pan shots than Cuaron right now?

[baby doll]

For me, this is a good film almost ruined by the camerawork, which I found intensely distracting. I kept trying to get involved with the story, but Cuarón does this irritating thing where he pans independently of figure movement, which repeatedly drew my attention back to the camera, and a lot of the time, I simply didn't know where I was supposed to be looking. And it's not as if he were doing this for some analytical Brechtian purpose; in the last half-hour, the movie turns into a full-bore melodrama, with the heroine going into labour in the middle of a Tiananmen-style crackdown on student protestors. Watching this just a few days after the new Yamada Yoji film (which is not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination) makes me all the more appreciative in retrospect for Yamada's unassuming mastery of blocking actors in long takes, which doesn't call attention to itself.

[transmogrifier]

Cuaron has almost built his entire career on drawing attention to the camera and reminding the audience how much work must have gone into any one particular shot. It's quite irritating a lot of the time.

[Dukefrukem]

Cuaron has almost built his entire career on drawing attention to the camera and reminding the audience how much work must have gone into any one particular shot. It's quite irritating a lot of the time.

Is this what you think about in real time?

[Dukefrukem]

Mini-MC announcement in my mini-review. But as an expecting father, I lost it during the earthquake scene and then again in the delivery room and then again in the finale. This movie fucks.

[Spinal]

This is an extraordinary movie. I'm really not sure what some of you are talking about. The camerawork is gorgeous and non-obtrusive. The pacing is exquisite, with gentleness giving way to moments of fierce intensity, as in life. The personal and the political intersect in meaningful, resonant ways. There are so many moments and images that remain vivid in my mind. I'm really glad I watched this in a movie theater instead of on a television or laptop.

[transmogrifier]

Is this what you think about in real time?

I don't understand the question. Everything I think is in real time?

[Ezee E]

This is an extraordinary movie. I'm really not sure what some of you are talking about. The camerawork is gorgeous and non-obtrusive. The pacing is exquisite, with gentleness giving way to moments of fierce intensity, as in life. The personal and the political intersect in meaningful, resonant ways. There are so many moments and images that remain vivid in my mind. I'm really glad I watched this in a movie theater instead of on a television or laptop.

Exactly this. I want to rewatch in a theater or a big, big TV, which I don't have the privilege of.

[Pop Trash]

Cuaron has almost built his entire career on drawing attention to the camera and reminding the audience how much work must have gone into any one particular shot. It's quite irritating a lot of the time.

Holy shit, you could say the same thing about Scorsese, PT Anderson, Orson Welles, Kubrick, Renoir, Hitchcock, and Max Ophuls.

[Pop Trash]

I don't understand the question. Everything I think is in real time?

I think he means reel time, as in while you were watching the film.

[Dukefrukem]

I think he means reel time, as in while you were watching the film.

Don't explain it to him. If he doesn't understand the question, his answer is just going to be some deflection or attitude stricken retort that neither propels the discussions or makes for an interesting dialog. I've just given up trying with him.

[baby doll]

Holy shit, you could say the same thing about Scorsese, PT Anderson, Orson Welles, Kubrick, Renoir, Hitchcock, and Max Ophuls.Except all those directors subordinate their camera movements, however virtuosic, to the narrative. When Welles cranes his camera in Touch of Evil, it's to show us something, whereas in Roma, Cuarón moves his camera to make us aware of the camera. I'll have to rewatch Y tu mamá también to see if it holds up, but my memory is that the camera movements in that film are much more purposeful, pulling away from the characters sitting in a cantina to show us the people working in the kitchen--though even so, it could be that the film is simply inflating the significance of its story by situating it in a larger sociopolitical context, as I think happens in Roma, where the allusions to state violence and indigenous land grabs function as a kind of virtue signalling.

[Pop Trash]

Except all those directors subordinate their camera movements, however virtuosic, to the narrative. When Welles cranes his camera in Touch of Evil, it's to show us something, whereas in Roma, Cuarón moves his camera to make us aware of the camera. I'll have to rewatch Y tu mamá también to see if it holds up, but my memory is that the camera movements in that film are much more purposeful, pulling away from the characters sitting in a cantina to show us the people working in the kitchen--though even so, it could be that the film is simply inflating the significance of its story by situating it in a larger sociopolitical context, as I think happens in Roma, where the allusions to state violence and indigenous land grabs function as a kind of virtue signalling.

This is some Armond White levels of cognitive dissonance. Here's the trailer to remind you.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BS27ngZtxg

[Pop Trash]

I don't think the camera is anymore obsequious in this scene...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg8MqjoFvy4

... than in this scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCDJC_uQKgg

Honestly, I might be more aware of the camera in Touch of Evil than in Roma.

[baby doll]

The third shot in the trailer, of the heroine doing household chores, is a good example of the kind of camera movement I'm referring to. Obviously that's not to say that every shot is distracting, but shots of this kind, in which the camerawork seems to break away from the plot, recur frequently throughout the film (the lateral tracking shot of the line of people walking in the countryside is another). On the other hand, the camera movement in Welles' film always has a narrative motivation.

[Ezee E]

Over time, I've just chosen to never really argue against any criticisms that there's too much focus on cinematography .

[Mysterious Dude]

To me, the long opening take of Touch of Evil does not serve the story. In fact, it distracts from any tension in the scene and just draws attention to itself. It seems to me it was done just for the sake of doing it. But then again, I like flashy cinematography, and I love Touch of Evil, so whatever. I'll just leave this quote here:


"I'd seen the film four or five times before I noticed the story," the director Peter Bogdanovich once told his friend Orson. "That speaks well for the story," Welles rumbled sarcastically, but Bogdanovich replied, "No, no--I mean I was looking at the direction."
Compared to Touch of Evil, Roma's camerawork is positively subdued.


It's too cold. So when we get to the scene that should absolutely shatter the viewer, I felt nothing. There was no connection there.
It shattered me.

[Ezee E]

Roma's one of very, very few movies that made me cry. The focus certainly wasn't on the cinematography at that moment, but it took excellent cinematography to make this more closed-in scene effective.

The hospital scene.

[baby doll]

To me, the long opening take of Touch of Evil does not serve the story. In fact, it distracts from any tension in the scene and just draws attention to itself. It seems to me it was done just for the sake of doing it. But then again, I like flashy cinematography, and I love Touch of Evil, so whatever. I'll just leave this quote here:

Compared to Touch of Evil, Roma's camerawork is positively subdued.For me, it's less a question of subdued-versus-flashy than purposeful-versus-purposeless. Welles' camerawork in the opening sequence of Touch of Evil has at least two purposes: one denotative (a great deal of narrative information is conveyed in a short period of time, beginning with the placement of the bomb in the car; in other words, the camera is always placed so as to give us an ideal view of the action and in that sense is subordinate to the narrative), the other thematic (creating a sense of continuity between the United States and Mexico and of fates intertwined, as Ebert alludes to in his Great Movies article). Cuarón's camerawork may be less ostentatious (though it's pretty ostentatious), but it's also less purposeful.

[Pop Trash]

Roma's one of very, very few movies that made me cry. The focus certainly wasn't on the cinematography at that moment, but it took excellent cinematography to make this more closed-in scene effective.

The hospital scene.

I had a weird experience when they first showed the baby I was thinking, "oh nice one Alfonso, did you get the baby from American Sniper to act in your movie?... oh... oh shit... that's what's going on." And then I felt like a total fool.

[transmogrifier]

Don't explain it to him. If he doesn't understand the question, his answer is just going to be some deflection or attitude stricken retort that neither propels the discussions or makes for an interesting dialog. I've just given up trying with him.

I truly didn't understand the question. But if this is your attitude, maybe don't ask me a question in the first place.

[transmogrifier]

Holy shit, you could say the same thing about Scorsese, PT Anderson, Orson Welles, Kubrick, Renoir, Hitchcock, and Max Ophuls.

I disagree. Take PT Anderson for example: his use of three long takes in Boogie Nights - one at the start to highlight the buoyant, bouncy beginning period, one slap-bang in the middle to mark the transition between the 70s and the 80s, from decadence to downfall, one at the end to illustrate calm and acceptance - has a clear thematic purpose. Compare this to Children of Men, where the car scene is an exercise in cinematic logistics more than anything else, and the battle scene expressly has fake blood (or is it dirt?) thrown on the camera lens as a direct reminder that the camera is there. It's all technological wizardry for the sake of it.

[Watashi]

I found it so distracting that all the promotional art and marketing for this movie is straight from the emotional climax of the movie.

[Pop Trash]

Compare this to Children of Men, where the car scene is an exercise in cinematic logistics more than anything else, and the battle scene expressly has fake blood (or is it dirt?) thrown on the camera lens as a direct reminder that the camera is there. It's all technological wizardry for the sake of it.

That's fair. I remember there being some naysayers i/r/t Children of Men's long takes and camerawork around the time it came out. Back when he actually got paid gigs, I read Mike D'Angelo's dissent in Esquire. That movie has aged a little too well, so I'm more positive about it than when it came out (but I did still think it was good back in 2006 or whenever). Anywhoo, I thought we were talking about Roma, here?

[Spinal]

The 2018 critical darling with distracting cinematography is The Favourite.

[Pop Trash]

The 2018 critical darling with distracting cinematography is The Favourite.

I agree, but I didn't think there was as much fisheye as I'd been led to believe. I also thought it worked conceptually with the interiors of the palace, but then I like "distracting" cinematography. I'm a Malick and Scorsese fan, after all.

[transmogrifier]

That's fair. I remember there being some naysayers i/r/t Children of Men's long takes and camerawork around the time it came out. Back when he actually got paid gigs, I read Mike D'Angelo's dissent in Esquire. That movie has aged a little too well, so I'm more positive about it than when it came out (but I did still think it was good back in 2006 or whenever). Anywhoo, I thought we were talking about Roma, here?

Heh, I haven't even seen Roma yet.

[baby doll]

The 2018 critical darling with distracting cinematography is The Favourite.I wasn't bothered by the cinematography in Lanthimos' film since I understood why he was doing what he was doing (fish eye lenses have been yoked to satiric exaggeration since at least Zazie dans le métro, if not earlier) and since we're not supposed to care very deeply for any of the characters.

[Rico]

del Toro put some thoughts down.

https://twitter.com/RealGDT/status/1084701184110153729

[Grouchy]

Well, this was just bad, wasn't it? Pretentious, overlong, both devoid of any real heart and emotionally manipulative to a fault. Cuarón is devolving as a filmmaker.

[Dukefrukem]

I basically feel the complete opposite. And I'm not a fan of Cuaron.

[Spinal]

I basically feel the complete opposite.

#metoo

[Pop Trash]

Well, this was just bad, wasn't it? Pretentious, overlong, both devoid of any real heart and emotionally manipulative to a fault. Cuarón is devolving as a filmmaker.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNcJpbPHwdM

[Grouchy]

There's no way they didn't anticipate the memes when they shot that line of dialogue.

[transmogrifier]

There's no way they didn't anticipate the memes when they shot that line of dialogue.

That whole movie is a tired response to memes.

[transmogrifier]

Definitely needed some more slow pans.

[DavidSeven]

I watched this on Netflix. Usually, I feel like people often overrate the "must be seen in theaters" element of some films, but I feel like it may be fully applicable here. It feels like it would work better in a completely immersive environment. At home, on a moderately sized TV and standard audio, this barely feels special at all. My suspicion is that whatever it is about this that works in the theater does not translate to less immersive forms of media. The black and white photography -- while nice -- did not captivate me. I didn't notice anything special about the sound. Without feeling a boost from those sensory elements, it really gets weighed down by its meandering narrative approach.

[Ezee E]

I watched this on Netflix. Usually, I feel like people often overrate the "must be seen in theaters" element of some films, but I feel like it may be fully applicable here. It feels like it would work better in a completely immersive environment. At home, on a moderately sized TV and standard audio, this barely feels special at all. My suspicion is that whatever it is about this that works in the theater does not translate to less immersive forms of media. The black and white photography -- while nice -- did not captivate me. I didn't notice anything special about the sound. Without feeling a boost from those sensory elements, it really gets weighed down by its meandering narrative approach.

Agreed. I feel like I may have said it already, but tried watching again on Netflix and it took a few times. The riot and what transpired was not nearly as affecting.

I'm wondering if this is what it was like for people that got to see Lawrence of Arabia or 2001 in the theater for the first time. Then again, people appreciated those from home as well.

[PURPLE]

I think del Toro makes some very salient points:

1. The film is a fresco, not a portrait. (Point 5)
2. The film follows one character's dramatic arc, and all of the major scenes in the film are moments of portraiture.

This combination makes no sense.

Point 6: Cuaron built HUGE sets and spent a huge amount of time and money building recreations of city streets, something that could be achieved in a contemporary film for free and would not be worth mentioning at all. Strange. It should be noted that the huge city street scene that the boys walk down to go to the theater adds absolutely nothing to the film except for the mere sight of a city street of the time. This is a visual fresco, but nothing else, and not even a creative fresco, merely an "accurate" one. This, to me, is emblematic of the film as a whole: A lot of effort put into appearances, but nothing is there for a reason.

The birth scene is perhaps the biggest example of this. There is nothing added to the film by seeing this lengthy and incredibly well orchestrated scene. In the hands of a great artist, like Mia Hansen-Love or Angela Schanelec, this scene would be completely avoided through ellipsis. This film, which is definitely a fresco, dedicates a huge piece of time to a small moment in this single woman's life of which the outcome has huge reverberations forward and backward, but of which the actual event is entirely meaningless. It doesn't matter how many seconds it took to get her from the front desk to the operating table, it doesn't matter how many times the doctors tried with no hope to resuscitate her child, and it hardly matters how many seconds she holds her child which is born dead. Everything important comes before and after this moment - and yet we sit with this moment for a huge amount of time. A film that is supposedly a fresco of a time and a socioeconomic context and a complex interplay between several lives is completely circumvented to focus on this incredibly unimportant goings-on around a far more important life event.

Now, this is not to say that Cuaron hasn't shown these impulses before. Gravity and Children of Men are Action Films with a capital AF (pun intended). It is true, too, that they have additional stories, but, as has been discussed, all of the camerawork serves the ACTION. They are action films. What even is this film? The film dedicates a lot of time to these ACTION scenes, but to no purpose. The film dedicates a decent amount of time to the greater "fresco" around the central character, but really is only focused on the major events in this character's life. And this character, sadly, is stuffed into a film to show off all of these details only to shove her to the forefront once some dramatic scenes come about. Everything about the film's end is about the character, but everything about the beginning of the film just focuses on everything around her. She is a tool elevated to the status of Most Important Tool, but never elevated to Person. A strange film, the worst realization of Cuaron's impulses.

Compare this film to, say, La Dolce Vita. The main character is a cypher, and he's of no importance, and thus the film is able to be first and foremost a fresco, because the protagonist doesn't matter.

Compare this film to, say, Moonlight. The main character is a cypher, and he is of no importance for the first two thirds of the film because he has no choice and has no chance. The last third of the film, rather than elevating him to a miraculous savior, stops completely and finally allows him to fully utilize his voice and showcase his humanity. One brief cry on a beach simply isn't comparable.

Compare this film to, say, Eighth Grade. The main character is extremely shy and quiet and can never say the right thing, but the film spends the entire film excavating each and every social situation imaginable to figure out exactly how she engages with the world and showcases her ability both to begin to find a truthful voice and to recognize others' struggles, or others' inability to recognize the struggles of others.

Cuaron has made at least two underwhelming films in one: a shallow, unfocused fresco and a poorly realized portrait. There may be other poorly realized films, as well, it's hard to tell when they're poorly realized. So, OK, he made an unfocused film, who cares? Well, it just feels like even more of a shame when so much capability is clearly shown in the showcase scenes, and so much attention has been paid to some of the socioeconomic layering that Del Toro mentions, but it feels like a person making a film for plaudits by hinting at all of these elements merely as an excuse to delve into big set-pieces that are entirely hollow in the final tally. Cuaron is entranced by setpieces, not by people - and this makes his films about people vapid, and his action films incredible.

EDIT - For the record, I think the camerawork works fine for a fresco and for an action film, respectively, within each scene. There's just some narrative dissonance between the narrative conventions utilized in the film, each of which is filmed appropriately but makes no sense in conjunction.

[Pop Trash]

I think the strength of this film is evident when every single dissent I've read would actively make the film worse. Reminds me of reading some of the Boyhood dissents, "no, the film you want would be worse than the film we have, so I'm glad Alfonso Cuaron and Richard Linklater are making films and not you."

[baby doll]

I think the strength of this film is evident when every single dissent I've read would actively make the film worse. Reminds me of reading some of the Boyhood dissents, "no, the film you want would be worse than the film we have, so I'm glad Alfonso Cuaron and Richard Linklater are making films and not you."I'd be grateful if you could explain to me how having a more purposeful camera style would've made Roma worse.

[PURPLE]

I feel comfortable in the small minority that thinks that La Dolce Vita will be remembered more fondly than Roma.

[Grouchy]

I think the strength of this film is evident when every single dissent I've read would actively make the film worse. Reminds me of reading some of the Boyhood dissents, "no, the film you want would be worse than the film we have, so I'm glad Alfonso Cuaron and Richard Linklater are making films and not you."
Eh, what's the difference between that and "anyone who doesn't get this is an idiot"?

I won't pretend to know the precise camerawork that would make Roma a better film. I do know the one there is failed to involve me with the characters and was constantly calling attention to itself in a bad way.

[Yxklyx]

Lots of criticism here so how did it get 5 stars in this thread - not everyone gave it a star rating?

[Ezee E]

Lots of criticism here so how did it get 5 stars in this thread - not everyone gave it a star rating?

It is now a 4, lol.

[transmogrifier]

Lots of criticism here so how did it get 5 stars in this thread - not everyone gave it a star rating?

I never remember to rate the thread.

[Spinal]

I never remember to rate the thread.

The thread ratings aren't super helpful anyway, since about two-thirds of them settle in at four stars.

[Lazlo]

My boss came to us a couple a weeks ago before the Oscars with the idea of shooting and cutting a "day-in-the-life" of a NASCAR race in the style of Roma. I rolled my eyes pretty hard, thinking of the challenges. But we shot it at Sunday's race in Phoenix and I cut it this week and it turned out to be pretty decent! Sound mix is awesome, headphones recommended. Enjoy!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iCDptXe6F8

[Grouchy]

Hah, that's pretty good. I love the idea of applying that movie's style to any subject.

[Lazlo]

Hah, that's pretty good. I love the idea of applying that movie's style to any subject.

Thanks man! Worked out better than I thought it would.

[StanleyK]

This was excellent. I can agree with some criticism about the camerawork being showy or distracting in Children of Men and Gravity, but not here, and I definitely disagree with it being boring or manipulative. Perfect pacing, and the ending affected me even if I knew where it was going.