Watch: In Alfonso Cuaron’s ‘Children of Men,’ The Story Is in the Background

Rarely, when watching a film, do we look to the background for crucial information–although directors from Alfred Hitchcock to the Coen Brothers have encouraged us to do otherwise. In this new video essay in his Nerdwriter YouTube series, Evan Puschak takes Alfonso Cuaron’s dystopian ‘Children of Men,’ a film which has more than enough going on in its foreground to keep most viewers fully occupied, and looks at its background. Puschak pushes the meaning of the word ‘background,’ examining the film’s range of reference, from Pink Floyd to George Orwell and everything in between–the nods Cuaron makes become as significant as the desolate, chaotic physical background he offers us.