Alfonso Cuaron Wins Best Director For ‘Gravity’

Alfonso Cuarón made history last night at the Academy Awards when he picked up the award for Best Director for his efforts on the visual masterpiece Gravity. It was a huge night for Gravity and Cuarón, who used groundbreaking technology to showcase Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in space.

As we previously reported, for Cuarón it was a significant moment not only in his career but in Oscar history. While there wasn’t a lot of coverage around his historical moment, Cuarón became the first Mexican director to take home the award for Best Director.

Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity dominated the ceremony by winning seven awards. It wasn’t a complete sweep but Gravity took home the bulk of the awards. In addition to Cuarón winning for Best Director, the sci fi film also took home Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects. The only huge award Gravity got shut out of was Best Film which went to 12 Years a Slave. The Steve McQueen film was a front-runner at the beginning of awards season, but lost a bit of its buzz when American Hustle and Gravity cleaned up at the previous award ceremonies.

During his Best Director win, Alfonso made sure to thank his leading lady Sandra Bullock, who gave a tour-de-force performance in the film.

“Sandy, you are ‘Gravity,’ you are the soul and heart of the film. You are an amazing collaborator and one of the best people I have ever met.”

Although Alfonso didn’t see his film take the biggest award of the night, all of the technical awards that it received seemed like a bigger honor, especially since the director spent most of his time with a fine toothed-comb over film’s visual aesthetic.

When he spoke with io9, the director was clear on the visual metaphors and symbolism that Gravity took on, and fleshing out the connection between humanity and Earth within the visual scope of the film.

“Space already lends itself to all these metaphorical possibilities. I think rebirth in many ways is part of the journey for everybody, not only every human in Earth, but it’s also the journey of great characters. Great characters in literature or in cinema they go through the stages of rebirth and of a new understanding.”

In addition to Gravity Alfonso Cuarón has received praise in the past for his dystopian thriller Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Y Tu Mamá También.