{"id":2149,"date":"2018-12-24T03:56:15","date_gmt":"2018-12-24T03:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/?p=2149"},"modified":"2018-12-24T04:03:52","modified_gmt":"2018-12-24T04:03:52","slug":"special-dossier-on-roma-memories-of-c-leo-on-auteurism-and-roma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/2018\/12\/24\/special-dossier-on-roma-memories-of-c-leo-on-auteurism-and-roma\/","title":{"rendered":"Special Dossier on Roma: Memories of C\/Leo &#8211; On Auteurism and Roma"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by Jeffrey Middents*<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Memorias de C\/Leo: On Auteurism and Roma\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/307513611?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"470\" height=\"197\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The press surrounding the release of <em>Roma<\/em> has emphasized its autobiographical qualities, elements that Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n himself has <a href=\"https:\/\/variety.com\/2018\/film\/news\/roma-alfonso-cuaron-netflix-libo-rodriguez-1202988695\/\">confirmed in interviews<\/a> throughout the production process. The film drops specific references to Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s other films, allowing cinephiles in the know to turn it into a familiar (and fun) auteurist game: sure, the family goes to see <em>Marooned<\/em> (John Sturges 1969) which looks suspiciously like a low tech version of Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s <em>Gravity <\/em>(2013), but what about the scene of Ferm\u00edn\u2019s nude martial arts harking back to <em>S\u00f3lo con tu pareja <\/em>(2001)? (Ten points goes to the person who can make <em>Great Expectations <\/em>(1998) work\u2026) Perhaps wisely, at the time of this writing (concurrent with the immediate theatrical and streaming release of <em>Roma<\/em>), four of Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s earlier films \u2013<em> S\u00f3lo con tu pareja <\/em>(1991)<em>, A Little Princess <\/em>(1995)<em>, Y tu mama tambi\u00e9n<\/em> and <em>Children of Men <\/em>(2006) \u2013 are also available on Netflix to assist with this potential bit of fun.<\/p>\n<p>A self-aware auteur like Cuar\u00f3n, however, knows that mere citation is not enough: <em>Roma<\/em> also operates in dialogue with his earlier films, allowing layers of meaning to develop. (Pedro Almod\u00f3var has also done: the premises for both <em>Todo sobre mi madre <\/em>(1999) and <em>Volver<\/em> (2006) stem from individual \u2013 and unrelated \u2013 plot points within his earlier film <em>La flor de mi secreto <\/em>(1995)). This video essay quickly relates <em>Roma<\/em> back to its most obvious reference, <em>Y tu mam\u00e1 tambi\u00e9n<\/em>, by overlaying that film\u2019s narrator \u2013intoned by Daniel Gim\u00e9nez Cacho \u2013 onto <em>Roma<\/em>\u2019s rooftop scene. The narration largely consists of Tenoch\u2019s memory of his nanny, called \u201cLeo\u201d in <em>Y tu mam\u00e1 tambi\u00e9n<\/em>, which is triggered when he, Julio (Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal) and Luisa (Maribel Verd\u00fa) pass the sign for her hometown (Tepelme). Significantly, he chooses not to say anything about it to the others in the car. Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s choice to name the main character the nearly homophonic \u201cCleo\u201d invites direct comparisons between her and Leo: both movies feature C\/Leo answering phones that the rest of the family ignores; both women are adored by the children; while Tenoch\u2019s memory of Leo is triggered by a car ride to the ocean, Cleo actually travels with the children on a similar journey. <em>Y tu mam\u00e1 tambi\u00e9n<\/em> features a single scene where we actually see Leo walking through the house, carrying a sandwich, after which she sweetly strokes the head of Tenoch; the actress playing that role is none other than Liboria Rodr\u00edguez, Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s actual nanny, to whom he dedicates <em>Roma<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>My focus on the rooftop scene in the video essay, however, invites another, more interesting comparison: after Paco refuses to (pretend) die (in a shoot-out game with his brother) and leaves the scene, the youngest brother, Pepe, sprawls dramatically on a piece of concrete, demonstrating the fact that he is \u201cdead\u201d (\u201c<em>muerto<\/em>\u201d). Particularly in the way that word is drawn out, the scene recalls a late scene in <em>Y tu mam\u00e1 tambi\u00e9n<\/em>, when Luisa asks the little girl Lucero to show her the dead-man\u2019s float (\u201c<em>uuuy, qu\u00e9 muerta est\u00e1s<\/em>\u201d). I do not wish to attribute all of Luisa\u2019s characteristics on Cleo, but this highlights that both women act as mothers while being simultaneously denied the possibility of being mothers themselves. As such, I have also brought in narration from that part of <em>Y tu mam\u00e1 tambi\u00e9n<\/em> that originally accompanied the last time we see Luisa, diving into the ocean \u201c. Transposed onto <em>Roma<\/em>, the words offer a newer perspective on Cleo. Who is to say, after all, that the \u201cfoam\u201d from the sea is any less majestic and inspirational than the soap suds Cleo \u2013 and all the other domestic employees visible scrubbing on other rooftops in this scene \u2013 are washing away?<\/p>\n<p>This video essay also highlights the richness and depth of Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s use of sound in both films, that match the complex <em>mise-en-sc\u00e8ne<\/em> throughout his work. <em>Y tu mama tambi\u00e9n<\/em> is so attuned to teenage cacophony that, in order to provide context and history, the narration is presented with ambient sound turned off \u2013 an auteurist nod to Godard\u2019s similar use of such narration in movies like <em>Bande \u00e0 part <\/em>(1964). This made it relatively easy to lift the narration from one film without disturbing the complex soundscape of the other \u2013 but it also highlights how <em>Roma<\/em> evokes memory in a different aural manner. The deliberate pacing of the camera \u2013 there are only three shots in this scene, with the final shot lasting nearly 2 \u00bd minutes\u2013 corresponds with a softer symphony that supports the minimalist observations of Cleo and her surroundings.<\/p>\n<p>*Jeffrey Middents is Associate Professor of Literature at American University in Washington, DC. His book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dartmouth.edu\/~library\/digital\/publishing\/books\/middents2009\/\"><em>Writing National Cinema: Film Journals and Film Culture in Peru<\/em> <\/a>(2009) investigates the historical place of cultural writing within a national discourse by tracing how Peruvian cinema was shaped by local film criticism. He has also published print and video essays on documentary aesthetics in the work of Chilean filmmaker Particio Guzm\u00e1n, Peruvian director Luis Llosa\u2019s films made under producer Roger Corman, the theoretical perspective espoused by Kathryn Bigelow\u2019s Strange Days, the sense of place in contemporary Latin American cinema, movie stardom and \u201cthe indigenous\u201d in the works of Dolores del Rio and Magaly Solier, the pedagogy of teaching \u201cworld cinema\u201d and the racial complexities of the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He is currently working on a monograph on transnational auteurism and the work of Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Memorias de C\/Leo: On Auteurism and Roma\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/307513611?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"470\" height=\"197\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Jeffrey Middents* The press surrounding the release of Roma has emphasized its autobiographical qualities, elements that Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n himself&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":2196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[257,76,251,267],"class_list":["post-2149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","tag-alfonso-cuaron","tag-memory","tag-roma","tag-y-tu-mama-tambien"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2018\/12\/Cleo-on-the-roof-with-Pepe.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p49QSj-yF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2149"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2207,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions\/2207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}