`Gravity,` Sandra Bullock is light years beyond earlier work

22-23-672 AN:CULTURE
Cinéma
7/10/13
14:22
Page 22
[888] C2
With ‘Gravity,’ Sandra Bullock is
light years beyond earlier work
AU SEPTIEME CIEL. Sandra Bullock a déjà remporté un Oscar en 2010 pour son rôle dans le mélo The Blind Side: L’éveil d’un
Champion. Dans Gravity, le nouveau film d’Alfonso Cuarón encensé aux festivals de Venise et Toronto, l’actrice prend une
nouvelle dimension. Elle a conquis cette journaliste du Los Angeles Times qui parie sur une nouvelle nomination l’année
prochaine.
LOS ANGELES TIMES / MCT
With ‘Gravity,’ Sandra Bullock is light
years beyond earlier work
Dans Gravity, Sandra Bullock trouve
enfin un rôle à sa mesure
(light years beyond lit. à des années-lumière de, en
réf. au sujet du film)
wildly follement, ici extrêmement / stunning époustouflant / sheath fourreau / to wade into plonger
dans / wave vague / rave éloge enthousiaste, critique dithyrambique / performance interprétation /
pull force d’attraction / to settle in s’installer.
2. starry parsemé d’étoiles / to take, took, taken
sthing for granted considérer comme allant de soi,
trouver tout naturel / afterburn (en psych.) effet
qu’un événement passé continue d’avoir sur une personne / to linger perdurer.
22 • VOCABLE Du 17 au 30 octobre 2013
BY BETSY SHARKEY
ORONTO — It was after midnight, after
the gala showing of director Alfonso
Cuaron’s “Gravity” at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, after
the wildly emotional standing ovation, after
actress Sandra Bullock in a stunning blackand-white sheath waded into waves of raves
for her performance at the film’s after-party,
that a sense of certainty about “Gravity’s”
pull settled in.
2. Walking back to the hotel under a starry
sky that Cuaron will never let me take for
granted again, I knew the afterburn of Bullock’s performance would linger for years.
3. If it’s a good year at the festival, I’ll see something rare amid all the praising, red-carpet
T
parading and Oscar-hopeful strutting. A seminal moment in an actor’s career. And Bullock’s
otherworldly turn in “Gravity” was exactly that.
A scene
4. It came in a very specific scene in
Cuaron’s magnificent contemplation of the
human spirit, when the engineer Dr. Ryan
Stone, who Bullock portrays, is alone in the
space module.
5. Suspended, floating, pressing buttons,
checking gauges, she moves with the slow
drag of a weightless world. The spacesuit’s
bulk has been shucked off. Cuaron is shooting from the side. With Bullock’s hair
cropped short, her body nearly bare, the light
Page 23
i
softly filtering in, the scene looks embryonic.
Feels embryonic. Is embryonic.
6. Dr. Stone is one of those irrepressibly
courageous characters that moviegoers absolutely love. Empowering to women, unthreatening to men, she is the sort of hero
who is brought down to earth not so much
by flaws as very relatable fears. Beyond the
significant philosophical life-and-death ones
born of a major crisis swirling around her,
it’s the more grounded ones about the very
ordinariness of the way we tend to move
through our days that make Ryan so compelling. How the movie industry will feel is
another matter, because “Gravity” is very
likely to upset its moneymaking apple cart
where Bullock is concerned.
7. In Ryan, the actress puts Hollywood on notice that she will no longer be content with
the plucky, sincere and slightly silly girl-nextdoor niche she’s owned since quirky Annie
Porter slipped behind the wheel of “Speed’s”
explosive bus in 1994. Nor will she only say
“yes” to romantic-comedy proposals, which
are abundant and seem close to demanding
an exclusive commitment.
Acting
8. I don’t mean to suggest we will lose
her in that form, for comedy without Bullock would be a tragedy. There is a great physicality and a fearlessness in her work. Her
willingness to look foolish, to offset that allAmerican beauty with bone-deep awkwardness, is rather legendary. She flails, she falls,
she giggles, she snorts. She literally rolls
CULTURE
SOCIÉTÉ
14:22
ENJEUX
7/10/13
DÉCOUVERTES
22-23-672 AN:CULTURE
Is Sandra Bullock lost in space? (2013 WARNER BROS ENTERTAINMENT INC)
around in the ridiculous like a kid in fresh
snow. Bullock’s brand of funny, when she’s
on, is exhilarating to watch.
9. Even her Oscar turn in “The Blind Side”
as Leigh Anne Tuohy, a Memphis mom who
takes in a kid from the projects, played to
her strengths. Or at least the ones we are
most familiar with. The crisp precision she
brings to dialogue. The way she adjusts every
muscle to match her character. In Tuohy, the
telegraphing of a kind of brittle confidence
and absolute surety that in other hands
would have proved off-putting.
10. The academy awarded her and fans
adored her. Even those who criticized the
film for yet another story of an African
American saved by a white character didn’t
sling their barbs her way. “Gravity” comes
at a particularly good time. The actress is already in a power position, not in need of a
career boost.
11. Bullock just turned an impossibly younglooking 49. By now, most have forgotten that
she was something of a wild child in her
early days. Her failed marriage to bad-boy
Jesse James is a fading memory. She has that
Oscar on her shelf, and should consider making room for another.
12. When not working, the actress seems to
lead a quietly settled life that includes spending time away from Hollywood’s glare in her
young son’s birthplace of New Orleans, and
increasingly the down-home comfort of
Austin, Texas.
A risk
13. For all the nesting she’s doing on the
home front, taking the role in “Gravity” was
a risk. It required stretching far outside her
comfort zone to reach a level of emotionality and vulnerability that we’ve not seen
from the actress before.
14. There have certainly been films along the
way that allowed her go deeper and darker.
Her bruised socialite in “Crash,” her 9/11 widowed single-mother in “Extremely Loud &
Incredibly Close,” her writer in Capote’s shadows in “Infamous,” among them.
15. But they were barely warm-ups for the
trust exercise Cuaron demanded of her in
“Gravity.” It is a free-fall, really, that he asked
for, one with major implications. She not
only took it, but in doing so, pulls off a
breathtaking landing. ●
3. amid au milieu de / praising éloges / hopeful
aspirant, candidat / strutting parade (to strut se
pavaner) / seminal majeur, décisif / otherworldly
d’un autre monde, surnaturel / turn ici rôle.
4. to portray incarner.
5. to check vérifier, contrôler / drag force de résistance, ici slow drag lenteur / weightless en (état
d’)apesanteur / spacesuit combinaison spatiale /
bulk masse, volume / to shuck off se débarrasser de,
retirer / to shoot, shot, shot tourner, filmer / to crop
couper / bare nu.
6. moviegoer cinéphile / to empower investir d’un
pouvoir, responsabiliser, ici empowering émancipateur / unthreatening inoffensif / flaw défaut, faille /
relatable à qui/quoi il est facile de s’identifier, compréhensible / beyond au-delà de, outre / significant
important / to swirl tourbillonner / grounded terre à
terre / compelling convaincant / (it) is very likely to
(il) a toutes les chances de / to upset, set, set the/s.o.’s
apple cart ficher par terre, ruiner les plans (de qn) /
moneymaking lucratif.
7. to put, put, put on notice informer / to be content
with se satisfaire de / plucky courageux / slightly un
peu / silly stupide / girl-next-door fille d’à-côté, fille
toute simple, sympa / niche créneau, ici type de rôle
/ quirky bizarre / to slip se glisser / wheel volant / commitment engagement, investissement.
8. fearlessness audace / willingness volonté / foolish
stupide / to offset compenser, faire contrepoids à / allAmerican typiquement américain / bone-deep profond / awkwardness maladresse / to flail s’agiter
frénétiquement, se débattre / to giggle glousser /
to snort grogner / to roll around se rouler / brand
marque, ici style, genre / funny ici drôlerie, comique
/ to exhilarate exciter, enthousiasmer.
9. mom maman / project cité HLM / to play to s.o.
strengths utiliser les atouts, les qualités de qn, mettre
en valeur le talent de qn / crisp net, impeccable / to
match aller de pair avec, correspondre à / telegraphing ici manière de communiquer (sans passer par
les mots), d’exprimer (par des gestes, attitude, etc.)
/ brittle fragile / confidence confiance (en soi), assurance / surety certitude / off-putting rebutant.
10. academy académie cinématographique décernant
les Oscars / to award récompenser / to sling, slung,
slung lancer / barb sarcasme, critique / boost impulsion, coup de pouce.
11. wild child enfant terrible / failed raté / to fade
s’évanouir, disparaître / shelf étagère / room place.
12. quietly settled paisible, rangé / glare feu des projecteurs / birthplace lieu de naissance / increasingly
de plus en plus / down-home rustique, simple.
13. nesting construction d’un cocon (to nest (se) nicher) / to stretch s’étendre, to stretch outside (of)
sortir (de) / comfort zone (psy.) zone de confort.
14. bruised meurtri / socialite personnalité mondaine, homme/femme du monde / Crash Collision
(2004) / widowed veuf/veuve / single-mother mère
célibataire / Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close Extrêmement fort et incroyablement près (2011) / shadow
ombre / Infamous Scandaleusement célèbre (2006).
15. barely à peine, tout juste / warm-up échauffement, entraînement / trust confiance / free-fall chute
libre / to pull off accomplir, réussir / breathtaking
époustouflant / landing atterrissage.
Du 17 au 30 octobre 2013 VOCABLE • 23