Gravity —Towards a Stereoscopic Poetics of Deep Space

Conceived and written as “A space suspense in 3D,” Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron, 2013) provides a unique site upon which to progress the establishment of a 3D poetics of stereoscopy. Drawing upon literal “deep space” as the most expanded of canvases upon which to experiment with the affordances of the 3D palette, Gravity evolves and extends a 3D visual system through its innovations in production processes with which to achieve photorealist perfection. Through analyses of both the screenplay and the final film, this chapter draws out Gravity’s key 3D aesthetics as evidenced within the script dialogue, direction, on-screen performance and the film’s resultant visual regime, which include both the presence of some emergent characteristics as well as the recurrence of others.