Abstract
Conceived and written as “A space suspense in 3D,” Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013) provides a unique site upon which to progress the establishment of a 3D poetics of stereoscopy. Drawing upon literal “deep space” as the most expanded of canvases upon which to experiment with the affordances of the 3D palette, Gravity evolves and extends a 3D visual system through its innovations in production processes with which to achieve photorealist perfection. Through analyses of both the screenplay and the final film, this chapter draws out Gravity’s key 3D aesthetics as evidenced within the script dialogue, direction, on-screen performance and the film’s resultant visual regime, which include both the presence of some emergent characteristics as well as the recurrence of others.
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Notes
- 1.
Aside from two scenes: the one in which Ryan enters the safety of the ISS airlock, takes off her space-suit and assumes a fetal position, and the closing sequence when Ryan swims to safety after landing on earth.
- 2.
The turning point for stereoscopic design in true 3D space as identified by Kehr was the CGI feature The Polar Express (Robert Zemeckis, 2003).
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Atkinson, S. (2016). Gravity—Towards a Stereoscopic Poetics of Deep Space. In: Spöhrer, M. (eds) Die ästhetisch-narrativen Dimensionen des 3D-Films. Neue Perspektiven der Medienästhetik. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-09422-5_5
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