Gravity Pulls Six BATFA Awards Into Its Orbit
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With the Academy Awards ceremony on March 2, things still look good for Alfonso Cuarón and his space epic Gravity. The film has already won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director, as well as the Producers Guild of America Award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture (tied with Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave). It’s going to be an interesting race at the Oscars, with Gravity having won six BAFTA Awards (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) at last night’s ceremony in London, England.
Gravity was nominated for 11 BAFTA Awards, and the film took home the trophies for Best Original Music for Steven Price, Best Sound, and Best Special Visual Effects. It’s no surprise that Gravity won the awards in all of the technical achievement categories, but the film also scored nominations for Best Original Screenplay, Best Production Design, Best Editing, and Best Actress in a Leading Role for Sandra Bullock. Gravity won the Outstanding British Film award, and while it was also nominated for Best Film, it lost out to 12 Years a Slave. Emmanuel Lubezki won the Best Cinematography award and Alfonso Cuarón managed to win the Best Director award too.
Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity is nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Female Actor in a Leading Role for Sandra Bullock, and Best Director. The space epic is tied for the most Oscar nominations this year with American Hustle, which seems to be falling out of favor for the Best Picture award. It appears that Gravity and 12 Years a Slave are the two favorites for the Best Picture prize. The most likely outcome is 12 Years a Slave winning Best Picture, while Alfonso Cuarón would win Best Director.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Anne Thompson from IndieWire’s Thompson on Hollywood blog, Cuarón talks about his career as a whole and what led him to make a movie like Gravity. Cuarón opens up about getting lost in the Hollywood system when he first came to America to make movies.
Cuarón’s career started off in Mexico with the film Sólo con tu pareja, before he started to make movies for Hollywood with A Little Princess and Great Expectations, which was a commercial failure. Cuarón talks with IndieWire about the difficulties of the language barrier and his cinematic style that led him to return to Mexico to make Y Tu Mamá También. With the success of that film, Warner Bros. tapped the director to take on the Harry Potter franchise with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Cuarón also touches upon one of the long-shot takes he created while making the science fiction classic Children of Men. He calls the scene where Clive Owen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Pam Ferris, Clare-Hope Ashitey, and Julianne Moore are racing to get away from the armed gang a “happy accident.”
The 86th Academy Awards airs on Sunday, March 2 on ABC, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres.
