Cuarón's Contrast

Rachel Sugg

English 3750

Professor Monaghan

21 October 2016

Alfonso Cuarón’s Contrast between Background and Foreground in Children of Men

Part of Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men includes what is popularly known as the “Art Scene” or the “Ark of the Arts”. After being recruited by Julien to help Kee find transport out of the country, Theo visits his cousin Nigel to obtain the transit papers. Nigel is a government minister who orchestrates a state funded collection of priceless works of art. When Theo arrives, it is clear that Nigel lives very differently than the rest of the world. Protected behind heavy security and shielded away from the disintegrating world below, Nigel invites Theo to join him for a luxurious dinner. Throughout this scene

So much attention is payed to the foreground or the lead story that the background usually goes by without much notice. This is a symbolic technique that Cuarón uses throughout the film utilizing the engaging nature of background to draw the audience to realize aspects they may have not noticed. This is used in the Art Scene on multiple levels. Firstly, as Theo arrives at Nigel’s, the non-diegetic soundtrack of Greg Lake’s “In The Court Of The Crimson King”. When Theo steps out of his car and is met by several guards, a Banksy piece can be seen tucked away in the background. Followed by a shot with Theo walking into Nigel’s suite, with two tall grey walls on either side of him that create a vanishing point element as the audience is presented with the striking visual of Michelangelo’s David at the end of the hall. Theo’s figure is backlit, therefore creating a silhouette, nearly blacking him out completely in the foreground, bringing more attention to the background. The statue is without the left ankle, leaving the audience to assume that the damage was caused before the salvage by some unknown result of the crippling society. This visual of the renaissance sculpture paired with progressive rock

In the scene where Theo is escaping with Kee in a wheelchair through the ruined streets, the camera focuses on the main story, following Theo and Kee running for safety, but is preoccupied and caught by a woman in the background cradling her dead son on the ground. This image can also be referenced as a citation to a piece of art previously mentioned in the “Ark of the Arts” scene as Michelangelo’s La Pietà. The image of the mother holding her son is attributing to the statue with Mary holding the recently crucified Jesus Christ, drawing on the similar question regarding the cruelty of men. This image also invokes Picasso’s Guernica, also previously seen in the “Arts Scene”, which depicts a woman crying out as she holds her dead child in the lower left hand corner, which is sectioned off and highlighted in one of the shots from the scene. While the “Ark of the Arts” scene shows the extracted art placed in a symbolic ivory tower, Cuarón puts art back on the ground where it belongs and brings it alive through ancient and current contexts as well as a background for the main