In21 Grams,sometime after the deaths of her husband and two daughters, Cristina (Naomi Watts) walks to the corner where they were run over by a truck and sits briefly on the curb, overwhelmed by grief (fig. 1). The film underscores the importance of the moment visually and acoustically: in the first shot of the sequence, a long take, the handheld camera follows the character along the street in a sustained close-up, circles around her when she reaches the spot, and nervously stands in front of her while she looks around as if lost. Two briefer shots show her...

The following interview with Alejandro González Iñárritu took place in Barcelona on June 22, 2009, during a particularly busy period of postproduction for his filmBiutifuland once we had finished writing our analysis of his work. In the course of the two-hour interview, the Mexican filmmaker answered our questions with generosity, kindness, depth, and intelligence, confirming in these and many other aspects that the unusual sophistication, compassion, and humanity that we have come to appreciate in his films are, at least in this case, an extension of the personality of their director. In the structure of the interview we...