Movie Analysis (Part 3): “Gravity”
This week, I’m going through the script for the movie Gravity, excerpting every scene that touches on its primary ‘small’ story: Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) dealing with her grief related to the death of her young daughter. I laid out my rationale for this exercise in Part 1 of the series:
I’m not suggesting the small story in Gravity is wholly responsible for its ginormous box office success. What I am saying is this:
* At least some of the positive BWOM (By Word Of Mouth) about this movie derived from the audience’s emotional connection with a mother who has lost her child and is forced to cope with her grief under remarkable circumstances.
* If the filmmakers themselves looked at the movie as a metaphor for the Protagonist dealing with her personal issues, then it makes sense for us to think about the story that way as well.
* No spectacle movie can be considered to be great unless it has a compelling small story at work in it.
Here is what I propose: Over the next week, I’m going to go through the script for Gravity and strip out every single scene that references the movie’s small story. In that process, I am going to focus on three dynamics:
1. The overall arc of that subplot moving from Beginning to End.
2. How the metaphor of outer space services the psychological nature of this subplot.
3. Stone’s metamorphosis as she is forced to grapple with her grief.
More generally, I am hoping each of us will come away with an appreciation for the importance of the machinations of a story’s Internal World balanced against the entertainment value of all the action in its External World.
SPOILER ALERT: If you have not seen the movie and don’t wish to know what happens, do not click on More. If you do want to track the series, I’ll see you below the fold.
Plot Summary: A medical engineer and an astronaut work together to survive after a catastrophe destroys their shuttle and leaves them adrift in orbit.
Background: Dr. Ryan Stone is a biomedical engineer on her first Space Shuttle mission. She is accompanied by Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney) and Shariff (voiced by Phaldut Sharma).
Here’s where we left off yesterday per the IMDB Plot Summary:
As they [Stone and Kowalski] approach the slightly damaged ISS, they see that its crew has already evacuated in one of the Soyuz modules and that the parachute of the other Soyuz, designated TMA-14M, has accidentally deployed, making it useless for return to Earth. Kowalski says that the Soyuz can still be used to travel to Tiangong, the nearby Chinese space station, to retrieve another module that can take them to Earth. All but out of air and maneuvering fuel for the thruster pack, the two try to grab onto the ISS as they zoom by. At the last moment, Stone’s leg becomes entangled in the Soyuz’s parachute lines, and Stone grabs Kowalski’s tether, just barely stopping him from flying off into space.
Here are today’s excerpts:
MATT: Ryan!Matt flies past, pulling Ryan with him. Ryan bumps into a solar panel and their
tether snaps. Ryan falls.RYAN: The tether broke, I’m detached! I’m detached!
MATT: Grab a hold! Grab anything!Ryan falls. She becomes entangled in some of the Soyuz’s parachute rigging. The
rigging pulls her up. She reaches out her hand.MATT: Ryan! Give me five!
RYAN: I’ve got you.He flies toward her, unsuccessfully grabs for her hand.RYAN: I’ve got you. Right here, right here. Okay, get it.Ryan grabs hold of the tether attached to him.MATT: Shit! Shit.
RYAN: No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.EXT. OUTER SPACE - SPACE STATION - DAYRyan is pulled by the tether.RYAN: Got ya.Matt holds firmly onto the tether as he is yanked. Ryan holds firmly onto
the tether. Ryan’s left leg is entangled in the parachute rigging.RYAN: Got ya. You just... hold on and I’m gonna start pulling you in. I’m
gonna star--MATT: Hey, Doc.
RYAN: Just hold on. Hang on. I am gonna pull you in. I’m gonna pull you in.
MATT: Ryan, listen. You have to let me go.
RYAN: No.
MATT: The ropes are too loose. I’m pulling you with me.
RYAN: No.Matt takes hold of the tether clip.RYAN: No, no, no.
MATT: You have to let me go, or we both die.
RYAN: I’m not letting you go!Ryan is pulled and Matt yanks her back.RYAN: We’re fine!
MATT: No. Ryan, let go.
RYAN: No. No. You’re not going anywhere. You’re not going anywhere.Matt starts to unclip the tether.MATT: It’s not up to you.
RYAN: No, no, no, no, no... no... Please don’t do this.Matt unclips the tether.RYAN: Please, please, please, please don’t do this. Please don’t do this.
No, no, no. Please don’t, Matt. Please don’t do this.Matt lets go of the tether and floats off.MATT: You’re gonna make it, Ryan.
RYAN: No!Ryan floats toward the space station. Matt floats away.RYAN: I had you. I had you! I had you.Ryan smacks into a part of the space station and flips over. She grabs
hold of a metal railing. We see Matt far away now in the b.g. Ryan’s C02
alarm goes off, indicating that she’s out of oxygen.
So you are probably asking, “Why is Myers excerpting this? It’s not ‘small’ story, it’s Big Story. Action. Survival. And the drama of Matt’s selfless act and Ryan being left alone.
Certainly that is the meaning of the text of the dialogue. But I suggest there is something else going on, a layer of subtext.
To make my point, we need to shift gears and go back to an older draft of the script, dated November 2, 2009. There are a bunch of significant differences between that draft and the shooting script. Here is a key one: In this earlier draft, Ryan did not have a daughter. Instead she had a dog.
That’s right… a dog.
She hardly has anything to say about it, summing up her pet this way: “Just — a dog. A regular dog.” She doesn’t even provide a name for the creature. We are talking a generic dog.
Let’s cut to the very last scene in the 2009 draft which has a similar ending as the movie: Ryan successfully makes it back home. The last lines of scene description in the earlier draft:
SHE BEGINS TO WALK ON EARTH, laughing.SHE IS PUNCH DRUNK.SHE IS FREE.
Question: Free of what?
Compare to the finale of a movie that also takes place on a beach: The Shawshank Redemption where Red meets Andy in Mexico. Here is the final side of dialogue in the movie:
RED (V.O.)
I hope I can make it across the
border. I hope to see my friend
and shake his hand. I hope the
Pacific is as blue as it has been
in my dreams.
(beat)
I hope.When Red says, “I hope,” that is the culmination of his personal metamorphosis, moving from cynicism born of “institutionalization” to hopefulness, which is what Andy has been ‘preaching’ and teaching by example for 19 years. “Get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’.” Brooks, who committed suicide, represents the latter. Andy the former. Red chooses to follow Andy’s path, not Brooks.
So “I hope” is replete with all sorts of meaning, a fitting capstone to a truly great movie.
Compare that to Ryan and the final line of scene description in the 2009 draft of Gravity: SHE IS FREE.
Again: Free of what?
Given where Cuarón and his son, who co-wrote the script with him, went with subsequent drafts, my guess is they hit the end of the 2009 draft and asked the same question.
Basically it boils down to this: What is the point of this entire journey? I don’t think they felt like they had nailed that in the 2009 draft.
So my guess is that is likely where the dog evolved into Ryan’s daughter. And the daughter’s death. And Ryan being stuck in her grieving process. And the metaphor of “space” related to the void created by the daughter’s death. And the whole idea of “rebirth” which Cuarón has suggested is thematically what Gravity is about: “What we were trying to do was a film about adversity and the possible outcome of a rebirth.”
Rebirth = Freedom. Freedom from the soul-sucking attachment to the death of her daughter. As noted yesterday, Ryan is stuck in a rut, leaving work and “just driving,” avoiding going home so she won’t have to face the gnawing absence of her daughter, unable to face the finality of her personal tragedy.
Why do I think this is going on in the movie? Because all of that dialogue and action cited in the Big Story scene above… is not in the 2009 draft at all. Simply. Not. There. This is what happens instead:
The very tips of their fingers touch...BUT THEY MISS.Matt passes by her and continues floating away.
That’s it. The entirety of their separation.
So why the drawn-out affair in the shooting script — 3 pages!! — where Matt ends up choosing to uncouple himself from Ryan?
Here’s one reason: It amplifies Matt’s character, giving his character a selfless act to save Ryan’s life. I’m sure that appealed to George Clooney as an actor.
But there’s another reason and to get to it, I invite you to re-read the entire section excerpted above and consider the subtext: Ryan not talking to Matt, but rather to her daughter. Check out this dialogue from that perspective:
RYAN: I’ve got you. Right here, right here. Okay, get it.----MATT: Shit! Shit.
RYAN: No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.----RYAN: Just hold on. Hang on. I am gonna pull you in. I’m gonna pull you in.
MATT: Ryan, listen. You have to let me go.----RYAN: No, no, no.
MATT: You have to let me go, or we both die.
RYAN: I’m not letting you go!----RYAN: We’re fine!
MATT: No. Ryan, let go.
RYAN: No. No. You’re not going anywhere. You’re not going anywhere.----MATT: It’s not up to you.
RYAN: No, no, no, no, no... no... Please don’t do this.----RYAN: Please, please, please, please don’t do this. Please don’t do this.
No, no, no. Please don’t, Matt. Please don’t do this.Matt lets go of the tether and floats off.----RYAN: I had you. I had you! I had you.
Obviously the text of the dialogue is about Ryan communicating with Matt amidst this crisis situation, but if we look at the dialogue metaphorically as Ryan ‘talking’ to her daughter with regard to her death, it works on so many levels:
* Ryan desperately trying to alter the past: “I’m going to pull you in”.
* Ryan refusing to give up her grieving, her final connection to her ‘living’ daughter: “I’m not letting you go.”
* Matt speaking as a Mentor: “You have to let me go.” This line is, in my view, the foundation of Ryan’s metamorphosis-journey.
* Again as Mentor: “You have to let me go, or we both die.” Psychologically this is totally true for as long as Ryan cannot move beyond her state of psychic stagnation related to her daughter’s death, she will persist in a life-less existence, eventually resulting in her psychic dissolution.
* Ryan: “We’re fine!” This is Ryan denying her Disunity state.
* Matt: “It’s not up to you.” For whatever reason, fate chose to ‘take’ Ryan’s daughter away from her, no matter how “stupid” it may feel to Ryan.
* Ryan: “No. No. You’re not going anywhere. You’re not going anywhere.” Again refusing to move on with her grieving and accepting her daughter’s death.
* Ryan: “No, no, no, no, no… no… Please don’t do this. Please, please, please, please don’t do this. Please don’t do this.” Again desperation to avoid the truth of what has happened to her daughter.
And then this:
* Ryan: “I had you. I had you! I had you.” Yes, she did. She ‘had’ her daughter as a mother giving birth. She ‘had’ her daughter as a parent raising a child. She ‘had’ her daughter as one human being bonding in a powerful way with another human being.
But now the daughter is gone… yet Ryan cannot allow her to go. She needs to be set free from that constrictive psyche state. Which, again, is why I think Cuarón moved from Ryan having a dog to Ryan having a daughter, the latter providing a much more specific and powerful emotional challenge.
There is yet one key piece of the backstory which has yet to be revealed and in my view the final step Ryan needs to take in her psychological journey. That is coming up later in this series.
How about you? What are your interpretations of what has transpired up to this point in the story? Do you feel it’s effective? Or not? If not, how would you have approached this ‘small’ story? Or maybe you have a different ‘small’ story you think would have worked better.
A reminder: As far as I’m concerned, there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ when it comes to an individual’s experience of a story, so if you liked or disliked Gravity, feel free to wade into the discussion. At the end of the day, I’m hoping this series will underscore the importance of stories having a compelling inner life.
Hope to see you in comments!
For Part 1 of this series, go here.
Part 2, here.
Tomorrow we continue with our analysis of Gravity.
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