For my textual analysis, I have chosen Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men (2006), a dystopian science-fiction thriller layered with religious, cultural, and political subtext. The film, a loose adaptation of P. D. James’ 1992 novel, is set in a future world consumed by an epidemic of female infertility, and follows our main protagonist Theo Faron (Clive Owen), a former activist turned jaded bureaucrat, who must help transport a pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea. I have chosen the section of the film between 00:00:32:21 – 00:04:45:03, which takes place during the opening of the film. In this scene, the audience are introduced to Theo and the chaotic world full of terrorist attacks, refugee crises, and economic depression. To analyse this section, I am focusing on Cuarón’s stylistic use of cinematography, mise-en-scène, sound, and genre. The context examined focuses on social and political factors connected to the film around the time of its production.
The scene begins with a black screen accompanied by a J-cut of a television broadcast. The audience hears the intra-diegetic sound from the news report being televised into the café before they receive any visual information, and learn about the political unrest around the world, with news of “the siege of Seattle,” “the Army’s occupation of mosques,” and “the deportation of illegal immigrants.” By being deprived of any optical supplement, this causes the viewer to focus on the announcements being made and imagine the world these news anchors are describing.
The first shot of the film is a high angle shot of a group of civilians in a coffee shop watching the breaking news of Diego Ricardo’s death. Their distraught faces suggest their hopelessness and sense of mortality as the death of ‘Baby’ Diego is a reminder of the vulnerability of humanity due to their inability to produce children. However, when Theo enters, he seems unaffected and almost disinterested by the news, more focused on ordering his coffee. It then cuts to a low angle shot of the television airing a montage of the famous child’s life to show the perspective of the onlookers to imply how much they rely on the hegemonic power of the media to shape dominant ideologies within society.
The diegetic melody called ‘Fragments of a Prayer’ accompanies the images being televised. This piece has a slow tempo and utilises a string orchestra, Tibetan temple bowls and the voice of Sarah Connolly, an English mezzo-soprano. Cuarón used this composition from John Tavener throughout the film in short segments as a leitmotif to help explain the emotional state of the characters.
The camera ventures out of the café with a tracking shot that follows Theo to the exit before panning to the right, revealing the busy city of London. The choice to have the camera move similarly to a conscious being that has its own motivations and instincts, creates a sense of reality, and produces a visual aesthetic akin to a documentary. This intentional decision from Cuarón and Lubezki was to make the film look “more naturalistic” rather than “conventionally beautiful.”
Children of Men, whilst being set 20 years into the future, is largely recognisable in terms of its landscape. There are no robots or spaceships, and the few futuristic additions included, such as the video billboards, are already familiar to today’s reality. Cuarón explained that they “didn’t want to do Blade Runner” and instead wanted “references to real life” by shying away from the sleek technological advancements of classic sci-fi films and remaining cluttered and pragmatic.
The dull lighting depends on colour washing to suggest a smoggy, polluted version of London, echoing some of the brutal imagery featured in Dickensian novels. This establishes the atmosphere of the film and compliments Cuarón and Lubezki’s goal to make the audience feel “as though the action is happening for real.” Lubezki explained that another motivation for the naturalism within the film, was to properly convey the violence because he didn’t want to “beautify or glorify it.”
An explosion suddenly occurs, overpowering all the other diegetic sounds and creating an atmosphere of danger and vulnerability. The high-pitch ringing sound that ensues from the bomb coerces the audience to relate to Theo as we can hear the tinnitus he is currently experiencing, creating the feeling of tension and suspense which continues into the title screen ‘CHILDREN OF MEN’ through the use of an L-cut.
Cuarón’s Children of Men was a relatively critically successful film, being nominated for three Academy Awards including: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing. Unfortunately, however, it was considered a commercial failure, grossing less than $70 million at the box office, which was a huge loss in comparison to the $76 million the film cost to make. This was largely due to the film’s studio, Universal, not knowing how to market the film and, instead, focusing its resources on other films. Now, after almost two decades since its initial release, Children of Men has had a momentous resurgence because of its uncanny resemblance to the modern day. Even before making the film, Cuarón understood that the environment it portrayed was a reflection of the “state of things today” and already a fully-fledged reality for millions of people around the world, specifically those who lived outside of the wealthy western democracies.