[But that's just
fine with me]
And so one [of a
number] of the available interviews about his latest movie proceeds as follows...
You've worked 'Biblical myth' into
a number of your movies, but also Biblical mysticism. Pi dealt
with the Kabbalah. Noah found room for both Methuselah and
rock monsters. Did you look outside to auxiliary text for Mother ?
Aronofsky: This one's really just playing with stuff that's in the Old Testament and the New Testament. It covers both and so the film actually unfolds 'in an order' in much the same way that similar stories occur in The Bible.
Are there direct connections
everywhere? My mind jumped to the Great Flood in a scene where Javier Bardem
stands in the doorway as it begins to pour rain.
Aronofsky: I promise you, it all lines up [with The
Bible]. That was the breakthrough, the road map I had to get through this.
The allegory in Mother! feels worldly
-- you're not just unpacking American Christianity or a certain sect. You've
been all over the globe over the years, so did your travels inform the movie?
Aronofsky: I would imagine, I think. Since I was very young, like a teenager, oh actually even before that, my parents used to pack me and my sister up in a car every summer and drive across the United States. I definitely had the bug when I graduated high school early and backpacked around the world for six months. I definitely have had that in my gut to explore as much of this beautiful planet as I can.
Apparently Anthony Bourdain is a big fan of Mother!, making
we wonder if you two are close after you joined him for Parts Unknown's
Madagascar episode. Did the trip make an impact?
Aronofsky: I had an amazing
experience! Madagascar's a very, very impoverished place. Their biggest
currency is a four dollar bill. It's just hard to kind of grasp the poverty
there. That's an intense thing to be around and to witness face-to-face and see
people struggling like that. It's an incredibly, incredible beautiful place and
it was an amazing place.
Leading up to the shoot, you spent three months rehearsing with
Jennifer, Javier, and the rest of the main players in a Brooklyn warehouse.
Your notes on the film make it sound like a technical rehearsal -- figuring out
how to pull off long shots in the confines of the house -- but did you discover
anything with Jennifer along the way?
Aronofsky: To be truthful, in that five-day writing process, there was
a lot of symbolism. The ideas of the movie, the structure was there, the set
pieces were there. I wanted to make these characters real. I think that's what
Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem did. They were able to translate these big
allusions and metaphor into human characters.
Knowing a bit about your life, your
relationships, some turbulence over the years, I imagine you applied personal
experience to the micro conflict. Are there specific moments that feel
self-incriminating.
Aronofsky: Whenever I make a character I tell a story. I'm always finding something that's truthful and part of me. I wasn't the ballerina yet I made a movie about the ballerina. I wasn't a wrestler, but I was able to relate to Randy the Ram [in The Wrestler]. I wasn't a conquistador [like the main character of The Fountain] and I'm definitely not a math wiz [like Max in Pi]. I think that's your job as a filmmaker is to relate to these characters and figure out what makes them human and how am I going to turn them into something that the whole world can understand. Sure I've had experiences that are connected to this, but it's not... I just try to find the humanity of all of it, if that makes sense.
Was there awareness, and possibly intention, about making a movie
where a male artist pushes a woman to her breaking point that required you to
push Jennifer to physical extremes?
Aronofsky: Look,
actors want to act. If you go to an acting class somewhere on Broadway you're
going to see actors not choosing scenes from a TV show sitcom. They're going to
be doing scenes from Tennessee Williams. That's because they want to -- that's
what they love to do. I'm always looking for actors that remember that and
don't want to just show up. There's a place for that where you just show up and
you do your job, and you do your little thing and that's it. The fun thing
about some of these movies is to push actors all
the way to the edge and see what happens.
At the end, Javier's character completes a poem,
which we don't actually hear, but instead see as 'silent images'. Did you have
an actual poem?
Aronofsky: Those are the unknowable words. You can't ever really know it. It had to be something that was very, very expressive in that way. It didn't go beyond that. There was no way of sharing it with an audience. Saying that this type of work that could, it inspired. That's just the impossible.
OK. Lastly, one blunt "what does it
mean" question: what's the yellow dust all about?!?
Aronofsky: That's the one thing that I
have not shared with anyone. But if you see it a couple more times you'll get a
vibe for it.
MY NOTE: AND WE KNOW WHAT
THE CRYSTAL [i.e., in the movie, Mother] STANDS FOR !
That damned apple!!
Darren Aronofsky is an American filmmaker. He has received acclaim, and also
generated controversy, for his often surreal, disturbing films.
'Mother' certainly fits the bill.
