The Big Picture · Interview
October 11, 2017/ 24 min/ Sean Fennessey
Sean Fennessey talks to Darren Aronofsky a few weeks after mother! split critics and drew an F CinemaScore, about why he chases intensity and grounds every provocation in something real.
11 films across 1 segment.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
Darren Aronofsky on making mother!
The film in the room. Jennifer Lawrence as a stand-in for Mother Earth, Javier Bardem as a god-like creator, Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer as Adam and Eve. Written fast, then rehearsed for weeks in a taped-out warehouse in Brooklyn while the house was built in Montreal.
Aronofsky on the cracked-toenail moment as a jump scare built out of realism; also his example of a film that tested awfully and got made anyway.
The MPAA wanted the intense ending trimmed; cutting it, he says, would have undermined the whole point about how far addicts go.
The Old Testament immersion he says fed mother!; its box-office success is what let Paramount greenlight this one.
"No one wants to see a feature with Mickey Rourke": his example of getting a risky film made by finding the right people at the right price.
Almost 20 years since he started shooting it; he gets the rights back at the 20-year mark, a Jim Jarmusch habit he admired.
The Spike Lee film he caught on the one open seat in a Brooklyn mall, his first independent film and the turn toward the alternative.
Flipping channels, it came on and re-inspired him: his answer for how he decides what to do next.
The Ukrainian film he cites as a recent reminder of the power of cinema.
Teased at the close: next week's guest is Noah Baumbach on his Netflix film.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing Spielberg
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV White FamousCalifornicationSaturday Night Live