my analysis:

           I chose to analyze a scene from Roma, the beautiful foreign film that won three academy awards this year, including Foreign Language Film, Best Director, and Best Cinematography. I selected the scene where the focus of the film, Cleo, a maid for a middle-class family in Mexico, goes through a miscarriage in a hospital. It is a powerful and painful scene to watch, and is a pivotal moment in the movie. It begins after Cleo’s water breaks and once at the hospital, they discover there is no heartbeat coming from the baby. Tension suddenly increases and yet there is no music and camera remains steady as it does throughout the entirety of the film. The viewer sees in empty hallway with a set of doors, and hears nothing but room tone, other than a single nurse walking across the frame. The camera remains still as we hear people talking urgently in the distance, and the medical staff surrounding Cleo on a gurney come bursting through each set of doors and cross the hallway as the camera steadily follows them. I think this decision to make the audience wait in the hallway while Cleo is being rushed through the hospital creates a suspense in the viewer and shows how something so stressful and urgent, despite being isolated, can be so easy to feel even when it isn’t directly in front of you. Then the camera cuts to a rather dark room with bright lamps above Cleo as she’s hoisted onto a hospital bed and a table next to her. The camera is close enough so we only see Cleo’s torso as the nurses and doctors examine her. The light above Cleo highlights her face and her expression of fear and anxiety. The shot remains constant as the medical staff rush around her discussing and probing her. The camera turns to the doctors as gives birth to the baby, which is held up into the light with limp limbs and immediately rushed over to the table beside Cleo. She watches helplessly while they attempt to revive the baby with compressions without success. The camera remains focused on Cleo throughout this process, emphasizing how all she can do is watch. Once they pronounce the baby dead, they bring it over to a sobbing Cleo, who clings to the life of her child that could’ve been. She struggles to let go as they pull the baby from her arms and bring it back to the table and wrap it up in cloth like a mummy. Once again, the focus remains on Cleo as she witnesses this horrific and traumatizing event. The lack of music, absence of color, and contrast-producing lighting creates an honest and saddening experience for the audience. The long held shots and persistent focus on the main character force the viewer into the position of a witness and produce a visceral sense of empathy in a way that I haven’t seen before. The scene feels like we are stuck by Cleo’s side without any way to aid her. Alfonso Cuarón’s cinematography and directing of this scene successfully created a painfully smooth and powerfully authentic turning point in his most recent film, Roma.