As with Gray’s prior films, it’s a saga defined by empathetic melodrama and lush, haunting, hypnotic widescreen visuals. Yet despite its adherence to the “classical” style that has gained him so much acclaim both here and abroad, the 48-year-old director’s latest (whose touchstones include Apocalypse Now and Aguirre the Wrath of God) also stands as something of a departure, at least insofar as it’s his first tale to not be set in his native New York—a shift, he claims, that was less than wholly conscious.