Mariana Gaviria

April 4th 2018

Book to Film

The use of background references in Children of Men

In Children of Men, long shots are used to intimately and realistically show the

path and world of the characters, the feelings of stark, documentary-style realism make

the world that the characters live in believable. However, this is not the only way that

Cuaron achieves this. The use of figurative background references helps establish the

context of political bigotry and authoritative power more strongly. References are

splashed all across the beginning of the film, to then be collected, intertwined and

connected as the movie realizes itself. Some of the references that reinstate and

underline the criticism of a hungry, infertile and chaotic society under authoritative

regimes are subtle: Jasper and Miriam reciting “Shanti, Shanti, Shanti” which

references T.S Elliot’s The Wasteland— a work that depicts an infertile world. Or, the

pig that float’s outside the Arc of Arts, referencing the Pink Floyd album Animals based

on George Orwell's’ Animal Farm, which itself is a satirical criticism of dictatorial

regimes.

However, the moment in which these background details truly become significant is

when Cuaron combines them and connects the intertexts to deepen both the

hypothetical stakes in the film but also the social commentary it is trying to make. A

moment in which this combination occurs is when Theo is going through the uprising

at Bexhill with Kee. At the beginning of the scene, the camera which had been
following the characters leaves them behind for a few seconds and focuses on a

mother desperately crying and holding her dying, bloodied son in her arms. This shot

directly references Michelangelo’s famous sculpture La Pieta, which Theo’s cousin

refers to earlier in the film: when talking about the statue next to him (Michelangelo's

David) he says “Couldn’t save La Pieta, it was smashed before we got there.” La Pieta

is a sculpture where Mary cradles a crucified dying Jesus in her arms, looking down at

him, questioning the cruelty of existence. This same image we can then see repeated

in La Guernica that hangs behind Theo when he is dining with his cousin at the Arc of

Arts. La Guernica, although a more modern depiction, also seconds the imagery of the

mother and son suffering amidst a war-torn world.

This inter-layering of references in the film takes art from its sacred context and puts it

on a level where either consciously or subconsciously is working to arise familiar

images of despair and suffering in the viewer. The director sets the same image in

different historical, religious and political contexts, only to reiterate one of the most

important and relevant points of the film: that abuse of power can only cause one

outcome, suffering.