During an assembly-line interview process last week, I sat with writer and director Carlos Cuarón to talk about his new film, Rudo y Cursi. We met up at a self-described rock-and-roll hotel suite in downtown San Francisco. With his rat’s tail haircut and unwillingness to smile on demand, he reminded me of the kid I sat next to in eighth grade art class.
Carlos explained how Rudo y Cursi is a departure from his first writing credit, the foreign art-house classic, Y tu mamá también, although it is still a meditation on male bonding. After he got talking about the film, I asked Carlos to discuss his artistic influences.
The Rumpus: A big deal has already been made in the press about how the actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna are reunited for this film. Can you tell me about that casting decision?
Cuarón: I originally wanted to make a fake documentary about this soccer player from a humble background who made it big and who disappeared at the height of his success. And I told this story to Gael and Diego separately, and they both said they wanted to be this guy, so I had a problem. I had two actors and only one part. And at that moment I realized I really wanted to work with both of them again so I made up a brother and I met for lunch with them and told them my intention of the title and who was who. Gael’s first reaction was that he should play Rudo not Cursi and vice versa with Diego. And I told them that I did not want to repeat myself, not make Y tu mamá también II; that we had to start from scratch by casting them against their natural types. And they got it immediately, and I wrote the script for them. And also they also understood how these two Mexico City teenager characters from Y tu mamá también are opposite as well; they have nothing to do with two humble, naïve banana plantation peasants.
Rumpus: I know this was a drama, but thinking about it since it premiered last week, the humor is what stayed with me. I thought it was really funny, although more in the tradition of a Shakespearean tragedy-comedy. Did you think of it as a comedy?
Cuarón: I don’t think it is a comedy. It doesn’t have comedic structure. It doesn’t have a comedy tone. Just like Y tu mamá también, this film is a drama with a sense of humor. A sense of humor is a term invented by Dr. Johnson in the 16th or 17th century and what he meant was a further knowledge of humanity or human behavior. I see it as something that has to do with pain and laughter because you are laughing at things that if they were happening to you, then you wouldn’t be laughing, like two brothers fighting.
Rumpus: How was it for you to make these characters, whom you obviously love, always their own worst enemies? Were you ever tempted to give them more moments of grace or success?
Cuarón: I think that in life you get more or less everything. And I don’t believe in black and white. If you believe in black and white you are like Bush, you are with me or against me. I believe that life has to do with the grayness. What I love is human contradiction, and to me, every single character has to be contradictory because that is what creates dimension. If you only show the character’s light side it is boring, the same with only showing the dark side. All these characters have great virtues and terrible flaws.
Rumpus: The film begins in the lushness of a banana plantation. It’s a stark contrast to the coldness and alienation of Mexico City.
Cuarón: It was part of the visual concept. I knew that the first part would be very green but also very dusty and brownish. And I knew when going to Mexico City it had to be gray because cities mostly are gray, especially Mexico City. And the way I wanted to depict it with all these freeways and double levels and layers. These men are social climbers and they are poor, but as they begin to move up the social ladder they end up in a rooftop room, and that is also gray. But when they become stars they move into this house that is like a soccer football itself — white with black dots. And that is how I discussed it with Eugenio Caballero, the art director. The world of soccer and the world of the stadium has (sic) to do with primary colors and color saturation. I was very specific about how I wanted to do that.
Rumpus: You’ve talked a lot about color. You seem to be driven by visual imagery. Do you draw on any tradition of Latin American painting to help illustrate your work?
Cuarón: Not really, and every project is different. For some projects I’ve used the Pre-Raphaelites to illustrate the kind of light and color I want. For others I’ve used Hopper who is one great American painter; his use of high contrast is so interesting. In this case, some of the references were from a still photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia. And as I told you, there were different ways of using the colors throughout the movie so I had a bunch of references and I would show them to the art director and the photographer, and they would come up with more references. Eugenio Caballero uses what Guillermo del Toro finds as the (sic) serial killer book, and in this album Eugenio glues all his references, so all the things that I conceptually talked about and pictures I showed him, he would find his own and put into his serial killer book and then everything was very clear because whenever we needed this or that kind of texture we had a reference.
Rumpus: Please explain serial killer book? Why is it called that?
Cuarón: Because Guillermo del Toro says that Eugenio is so obsessive that this album is like the kind of book a serial killer might have, where they paste news clippings, etc. about their victims. It’s the same sort of thing. It’s amazing the kind of detail that an art director like Eugenio can get into. Every single part of the universe of every single character in the film is in this book. Obviously I work with him on it, but he does the serial killer book.
