Like the infinite blackness of space in “Gravity,” the unseen trucker becomes something that the audience is able to project into both are black holes of fear. Since the trucker is never seen, the truck itself becomes anthropomorphic, a monster on the road ready to gobble up Weaver. In the case of “Duel,” that single character is a traveling salesman played by Dennis Weaver, who is menaced by an unseen trucker in a big rig behind him on the road. Both films feature a single character, who has to overcome incredible odds to get out alive. On multiple occasions, Cuarón has cited Steven Spielberg‘s “ Duel” as a major inspiration for “Gravity,” and it’s easy to see why: Cuarón borrowed the rhythm of “Duel” for his film, a structure that shares less resemblance to a traditional three-act narrative than to a theme park ride like Space Mountain. Ordinarily to reference the great Bresson at the height of his powers would be a terrible act of hubris, but it’s mark of just how good “Gravity” is that, while it does unashamedly deal much more in thrills and shocks, it is not diminished by the comparison. So many of these elements were overtly embraced by Cuarón for “Gravity”-embraced, homaged and then repurposed into something new and totally different.
It’s a pared-back, spartan, but unbelievably compelling work of genius, heightened by Bressonian hallmarks like a fascination with hands, a deep respect for character conveyed through action, the expressive use of offscreen sound and camerawork of such fluidity and grace that it occasionally stops your heart. Through whatever magnificent alchemy Bresson perfected during his career, he communicates a sense of immediacy, urgency and realism without ever stooping so low as to give us obvious emotional cues in terms of performance. Stone, has to brave it in order to get home. And while he may be breathing real air, the environment outside his cell is fully as toxic and potentially lethal as the vacuum of space-yet Fontaine, like Dr. Loneliness and looming despair eat away at the edges of both films while Bullock’s Ryan Stone may be in or out of radio contact with earth, Fontaine ( Francois Leterrier) is enclosed in a tiny cell with only occasional communication, via whispers through bars, a snatched word at the bathing trough or tapping through cell walls to keep him sane and socialized. Robert Bresson’s astoundingly authentic recreation of the real-life story of a French Resistance fighter’s incarceration in a Nazi-run prison and his complex escape plan, may differ completely from “ Gravity” in terms of location, time period and a hundred other surface details, but spiritually the kinship is undeniably close.
Well, if you’re going to namecheck a film as an inspiration, may as well make it a masterpiece. So whether you’re looking to get yourself in the mood for a screening this opening weekend, or you want to decompress after watching it with a DVD that occupies something of the same universe, any or all of the following ten titles can throw a new light on what will be one of your most extraordinary viewing experiences of the year. So we’ve collected ten films here: five of them have been namechecked by Cuarón directly ( here and here) as inspirations for “Gravity,” and the other five are titles we chose for their thematic or tonal similarities.
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