Alfonso Cuarón
Alfonso Cuarón | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Alfonso Cuarón in July 2013. | |
| Born | Alfonso Cuarón Orozco November 28, 1961 Mexico City, Mexico |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, screenwriter, producer, editor |
| Years active | 1983–present |
| Notable work | Y Tu Mamá También Children of Men Gravity Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban |
| Spouse(s) | Mariana Elizondo (1980–1993) Annalisa Bugliani (2001–2008) |
| Partner | Sheherazade Goldsmith |
| Children | Tess Bu Cuarón Olmo Teodoro Cuarón Jonás Cuarón |
Alfonso Cuarón Orozco (Spanish pronunciation: [alˈfonso kwaˈɾon]; born November 28, 1961) is a Mexican film director, screenwriter, producer and editor best known for his films A Little Princess (1995), Y Tu Mamá También (2001), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Children of Men (2006), and Gravity (2013). His fantasy adventure series Believe is currently being broadcast on NBC.
Most of his work has been praised by both audience and critics, and he has been nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Original Screenplay for Y Tu Mamá También, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing for Children of Men, and Best Picture for Gravity, winning Best Director and Best Film Editing for Gravity. For the same film, he also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director and the BAFTA Awards for Best British Film and Best Direction. He also won a BAFTA Award for Best Film not in the English Language as one of the producers of Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth.
Cuarón's brother Carlos, as well as his son Jonás, are writers and directors as well and both acted as co-writers in some of his works. He is also friends with fellow Mexican directors Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu, collectively known as "The Three Amigos of Cinema."
Early life
Alfonso Cuarón was born in Mexico City, and is the son of Alfredo Cuarón, a nuclear physicist who worked for the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency for many years. He has two brothers, Carlos, also a filmmaker, and Alfredo, a conservation biologist.
Cuarón studied Philosophy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and filmmaking at CUEC (Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos), a school within the same University. There, he met director Carlos Marcovich and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, and they made what would be his first short film, Vengeance Is Mine.
Career
Cuarón began working in television in Mexico, first as a technician and then as a director. His television work led to assignments as an assistant director for several Latin American film productions including Gaby: A True Story and Romero, and in 1991, he landed his first big-screen directorial assignment. On January 12, 2014, Alfonso accepted the Golden Globe Award in the category Best Director for Gravity (The 71st Annual Golden Globe Awards, 2014). He also won two Oscars for Best Film Editing and Best Director.
Sólo con tu pareja
Sólo con tu pareja was a sex comedy about a womanizing businessman (played by Daniel Giménez Cacho) who, after spurning an attractive nurse, is fooled into believing he's contracted AIDS. In addition to writing, producing and directing, Cuarón co-edited the film with Luis Patlán. It is somewhat unusual for directors to be credited co-editors, although the Coen Brothers and Robert Rodriguez have both directed and edited nearly all of their films. Cuarón continued this close involvement in editing on several of his later films.
The film, which also starred cabaret singer Astrid Hadad and model/actress Claudia Ramírez (with whom Cuarón was linked between 1989 and 1993), was a big hit in Mexico. After this success, director Sydney Pollack hired Cuarón to direct an episode of Fallen Angels, a series of neo-noir stories produced for the Showtime premium cable network in 1993; other directors who worked on the series included Steven Soderbergh, Jonathan Kaplan, Peter Bogdanovich and Tom Hanks.
International success
In 1995, Cuarón released his first feature film produced in the United States, A Little Princess, an adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic novel. Cuarón's next feature was also a literary adaptation, a modernized version of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations starring Ethan Hawke, Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert De Niro.
Cuarón's next project found him returning to Mexico with a Spanish-speaking cast to film Y Tu Mamá También, starring Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna and Maribel Verdú. It was a provocative and controversial road comedy about two sexually obsessed teenagers who take an extended road trip with an attractive married woman in her late twenties. The film's open portrayal of sexuality and frequent rude humor, as well as the politically and socially relevant asides, made the film an international hit and a major success with critics. Cuarón shared an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay with co-writer and brother Carlos Cuarón.
In 2003, Cuarón directed the third film in the successful Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Cuarón faced criticism from some of the more purist Harry Potter fans for his approach to the film. At the time of the movie's release, however, author J. K. Rowling, who had seen and loved Cuarón's film Y Tu Mamá También, said that it was her personal favorite from the series so far.[1] Critically, the film was also better received than the first two installments, with some critics remarking that it was the first Harry Potter film to truly capture the essence of the novels.[2] It remained as the most critically acclaimed film of the Harry Potter film franchise until the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.
Cuarón's feature Children of Men, an adaptation of the P. D. James novel starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine, received wide critical acclaim, including three Academy Award nominations. Cuarón himself received two nominations for his work on the film in Best Film Editing (with Alex Rodríguez) and Best Adapted Screenplay (with several collaborators).
He created the production and distribution company Esperanto Filmoj (Esperanto Films, named because of his support for the international language Esperanto[3]), which has credits in the films Duck Season, Pan's Labyrinth, and Gravity.
Cuarón also directed the controversial public service announcement "I Am Autism" for Autism Speaks that was sharply criticized by disability rights groups for its negative portrayal of autism.[4]
In 2010, Cuarón began to develop the film Gravity, a drama set in space. He was joined by producer David Heyman, with whom Cuarón worked on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, the film was released in the fall of 2013[5] and opened the 70th Venice International Film Festival in August.[6] The film received ten Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. Cuarón won the Academy Award for Best Director, becoming the first Latino to win the award, while he and Mark Sanger shared the award for Best Film Editing.
In 2013, Cuarón created Believe, a science fiction/fantasy/adventure series that is being broadcast as part of the 2013–14 United States network television schedule on NBC as a mid-season entry. The series was created by Cuarón for Bad Robot Productions and Warner Bros. Television. In 2014, TIME placed him in its list of "100 Most Influential People in the World" - Pioneers. [7]
Personal life
Cuarón has been living in London since 2000.[8] He was married to Italian actress and freelance journalist Annalisa Bugliani from 2001 to 2008. They have two children: daughter Tess Bu Cuarón (born 2003) and son Olmo Teodoro Cuarón (born 2005).
Filmography
Feature films
| Year | Film | Credited as | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Writer | Producer | Editor | Assistant director | Associate producer | ||
| 1986 | Les Pyramides Bleues | Yes | |||||
| 1989 | Romero | Yes | |||||
| 1991 | Sólo con tu pareja | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| 1995 | A Little Princess | Yes | |||||
| 1998 | Great Expectations | Yes | |||||
| 2001 | Y Tu Mamá También | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
| 2004 | Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban | Yes | |||||
| Crónicas | Yes | ||||||
| The Assassination of Richard Nixon | Yes | ||||||
| 2005 | Black Sun | Yes | |||||
| 2006 | Children of Men | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||
| Pan's Labyrinth | Yes | ||||||
| 2007 | Year of the Nail | Yes | |||||
| 2008 | Rudo y Cursi | Yes | |||||
| 2010 | Biutiful | Yes | |||||
| 2013 | Gravity | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
Short films
- Who's He Anyway (1983)
- Vengeance Is Mine (1983) Co-director
- Cuarteto para el fin del tiempo (1983)
- Paris, je t'aime (2006) (segment "Parc Monceau")
- The Shock Doctrine (2007)
Documentary films
- The Possibility of Hope (2007) Short
TV
- La Hora Marcada (1986) (episodes "Ángel Pérez", "El taxi", "Zangamanga", "No estoy jugando" and "A veces regresa")
- Fallen Angels (1993) (episode "Murder, Obliquely")
- Believe (2014)
Awards and nominations
See also
References
- ^ J.K. Rowling Accessed January 17, 2007.
- ^ RT: Prisoner of Azkaban
- ^ Interview by Sam Green with Cuarón.
- ^ Autistic Community Condemns Autism Speaks
- ^ Sandra Bullock, George Clooney sci-fi drama 'Gravity' pushed to 2013
- ^ Venice Film Festival 2013: Sandra Bullock stuns in a scarlet dress with George Clooney | Mail Online. Dailymail.co.uk. Retrieved on 2014-05-22.
- ^ "The 100 Most Influential People - Pioneers: Alfonso Cuarón". TIME.com. April 23, 2014. Retrieved April 26, 2014.
- ^ Baftas 2014: Alfonso Cuarón wins best director for Gravity | Film. theguardian.com. Retrieved on 2014-05-22.
External links
- Alfonso Cuarón at IMDb
- Alfonso Cuarón: A Life in Pictures, BAFTA webcast, July 27, 2007
Template:Harry Potter film crew
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
- 1961 births
- Living people
- English-language film directors
- Mexican film directors
- Mexican film producers
- Mexican screenwriters
- National Autonomous University of Mexico alumni
- People from Mexico City
- Mexican expatriates in the United Kingdom
- Spanish-language film directors
- Mexican television directors
- Mexican television writers
- Mexican television producers
- Best Director Golden Globe winners
- Best Director BAFTA Award winners
- Best Film Editing Academy Award winners
- Best Director Academy Award winners
- Best Director Empire Award winners
- Directors Guild of America Award winners