Alfonso Cuaron Becomes First Latin Director To Win The Oscar
Alfonso Cuaron won an Oscar for Best Director for his work on the space odyssey Gravity, but he also made history for the Latin American community becoming the first of his people to receive the highest cinematographic honor in the movie industry.
As reported by The Inquisitr, the critically acclaimed film was nominated for 10 awards (tied with American Hustle) and ultimately led the night when it was awarded seven Oscars: Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing. American Hustle was a surprising shut down.
For the 52-year-old this was the culmination of years of work, research, and attempts to get the green light from a major studio to produce his idea.
The Mexican born director was presented his Oscar by Angelina Jolie and the frail-looking, legendary actor Sidney Poitier.
In the film Sandra Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone — a medical engineer — who is on her first space mission and is accompanied by shuttle commander Matt Kowalski (George Clooney), who is leading his last mission.
This was not the first nomination for Alfonso Cuaron who became a main stream director with the 1995 drama A Little Princess, which was nominated for cinematography.
two-time oscar winner Alfonso Cuaron, thank you very much pic.twitter.com/iC9TwgqRae
— A strange encounter (@edd_gosbender) March 3, 2014
In 2006 his Children of Men — starring Clive Owen and Julianne Moore — was nominated for three Oscars, including writing and film editing for Cuaron and Gravity’s Emmanuel Lubezki for cinematography.
The newly crowned Oscar winner has made a name for himself not being typecast and choosing a variety of genres for his projects.
“He deserves the prize. He has made a very interesting career in Hollywood,” said Ernesto Diezmartinez, a movie critic for national newspaper Reforma.
Gravity was an epic undertaking as Alfonso Cuaron explained to MTV News recently:
“Well, we had to pre-visualize the whole film before we started shooting — in a very precise way. It was not only pre-visualization, but also pre-lighting it. We have to light it virtually because then everything on set was pre-programmed.”
We can only imagine.
Contrary to those detractors in his native Mexico, who criticize him for coming to Hollywood, the Mexican-born director keeps his heritage close to his heart and joked about his thick accent, after Sandra Bullock thought he wanted to give her “herpes” when he said “ear piece.”
Alfonso Cuaron also made front page headlines in his native Mexico, when after winning the Golden Globe for Best Director earlier in the award season, he exclaimed: “Ay, guey!” which in Mexican slang loosely means “Oh boy!”
[Image via lewishamdreamer via photopin cc]
