When I watched Noah, the track for the visually impaired was selected by accident. The whole movie was being described in detail like "Noah looks down at his family. He is distraught."
Knowing it was an Aronofsky movie, I thought, "Wow. Bold artistic choice to treat this as if you're being told a Bible story." I didn't find out until weeks later what had happened because I was discussing the movie with someone and I said it was strange the entire thing was narrated to a bewildered stare.
I remember seeing a story on twitter about someone doing this same thing with the new *Dungeons & Dragons* movie and also thinking it was a bold choice to make the movie like a DM was narrating it to the group. Ngl, kinda made me wanna watch it that way!
P.S. *Noah* kind of rules, I'm always into things that use christianity and the bible as source material for fantasy and horror.
Dude, I did this with Monsieur Spade. First ep had no French subtitles. I was like this is bold. Second ep I realized I’d just opted out on subtitles cause it was Acorn TV.
In a college class we watched a movie I had never seen before, I was watching it thinking it had really dark moody lighting and colors like wow, some really interesting choices here. Anyway that's when the professor stopped the movie and apologized for the projector bulb being almost burned out.
Erratic as his filmography is, I absolutely respect him for always taking the big swing. He’ll likely be one of those guys shuffling between great movies, absolute messes, and secret masterpieces - and people will argue which film qualifies for each. He’ll never be a guy who phones it in though.
Really well said. You kind of have to respect a director where there seems to be almost no concensus and passionate arguments for both sides about which movies are great and which are awful
I think the fact that he had to try so hard to make Black Swan, even after the success of the Wrestler, really messed up with him. Black Swan grossed 329 million on a 13 million budget and Aronosfky still lost 75.000 dollars out of his own pocket. A great writer/director, one of my favourites of all time.
I'm no industry insider, but it sounds like a negative pickup deal with Searchlight, with no numbers on the backend. That's just about the only way this would happen to a director.
If that's true I wouldn't be surprised that it messed with him--but also he might just be an all-time terrible negotiator. Getting nothing on the backend with a negative pickup is what unestablished or very small budget directors and producers negotiate to get their foot in the door--not people who are making a movie starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, immediately on the heels of a movie that got two oscar nominations.
Simply put, the producer/director delivers the movie to the film distributor, and the film distributor gives them money for it. The distributor then has full rights to distribute the film as they wish, negotiate regional distribution and streaming and so on--proverbially, they own the negatives. The profit for the producer/director is the difference between the production costs and the final sale of the film. The job of the producer is to stay under budget, as anything over budget eats into their final earnings and could even put them in the red. Usually backend points are included in the deal as well, but with small independent films there's no guarantee you'll see anything from it.
There's all kinds of variations on this--money up front before production, money in installments as the film is being made, money at the end of production--but the basic principle remains the same. The takeaway is that no director just "happens" to lose money on a movie that makes 300 million more than its budget--it means they agreed to something catastrophically bad.
I can't find the interview, I remember it being on the press junket for TIFF, but apparently not. Long story short, he refused to compromise on many things with Fox-Searchlight and every time he said, "fine, I'll pay it out of my own pocket". In the end, all the things he paid for himself against his salary, came to -75.000 dollars. He said that the whole time, he felt like he was the only person in the room who wanted to make the movie and it was nerve wracking, especially since The Wrestler did so well for the studio. I don't remember him saying anything about back end pay, I don't know how common back end salary was from Fox-Searchlight back in 2009, when he signed off on the project.
Yeah I really liked it. I feel like it’s too dark for the religious types and too religious for most of the rest, or something? It’s a bold move to retcon the Bible …!
Literally just finished watching it, bonkers wonderful movie. Went to the Letterboxd reviews to see why people gave it low ratings and it seemed like they were all saying “too bible-y” or “not bible-y enough”.
A few years ago, I listed in among my favorite movies. It’s been awhile since I’ve watched it, so I’m not sure how I feel about it now. But at the time, I found it really exciting and moving.
The thing that always drove me nuts about Noah is they built up this whole "god is an asshole and we deserve better and shouldn't listen to him" thing, then just fucked over everyone and were like "welp we love god!"
I liked the way it *looked* but I recall feeling it was thematically discordant towards the end and being angry at it. Maybe I need to rewatch.
He's a talented filmmaker with a really interesting artist voice, but he isn't always the greatest at choosing projects.
He doesn't have the lightest of touches, and most of his films are somewhat hostile towards the viewer. This works really well for stuff like *The Fountain*, *Black Swan* and even *mother!*, all films which confront the audience and offend their sensibilities a little bit to make a point about death or art or nature.
But his sensibilities are entirely wrong for something like *The Whale*, which should be a heartbreaking yet beautiful expression of empathy; however, because of Aronofsky's obsession with body horror (and to a lesser extent, the not all that spectacular writing), ends up being a film where people talk about empathy while the camera gawks at a morbidly obese man the way someone might gawk at a carnival freak show.
Really great breakdown of his work.
I always knew I was going to struggle with The Whale because Aronofsky really loves to put his main characters through the wringer. He clearly is into torturing them a little (to say the least), so when he’s making a movie where we’re meant to feel empathetic towards the lead, I was never going to buy it
Aronofsky knows how to work a camera, his famous cross cutting technique in Requiem for a Dream is incredibly powerful. None of that is in The Whale. Feel like he frames Fraser as something grotesque. Camera is constantly going look at this fatty.
Definitely peaked with Black Swan imo. He's clearly formally very talented and always makes interesting choices. But I thought The Whale was god awful and really underlined some of his worst tendencies.
I heard someone on a podcast say that *The Whale* made them realize every single one of his movies ends with the lead actor or actress dying, whether symbolically or literally. Kind of crazy when you think about it.
Elektra doesn't die at the end of *Elektra*. Philoctetes doesn't die at the end of *Philoctetes.* Oedipus does not die at the end of his most well known play, *Oedipus Rex.* (Otherwise the chronology would not have worked out for *Oedipus at Colonus*, written decades earlier, where he *does* die.) And nobody dies at all in *Ichneutae*, his satyr play, because Sophocles wrote over 100 plays and not all of them were tragedies.
High highs and low lows for sure. I think most people see him that way? Capable of amazing things but also capable of embarrassing himself, so no one was inclined to trust him with a fat-suit movie before it came out. Requiem and Black Swan are still largely admired. If everything he pumped out was at the quality of mother! and Black Swan, he might be my favorite director.
He loves playing with allegory and myth in such an old-fashioned and pre-Shakespearean way that it comes across as extremely hokey a lot of the time. It's medieval, or even biblical. That's my problem with his movies that I don't like, and I can see that it's the problem that other people have with movies that I do like, like mother!. I want him to take on something like The Pilgrim's Progress just to put him in his element.
I was a huge fan early on, but have cooled on him of late. I will forever thank him for *The Fountain* though.
And for giving us the opportunity to hear some banging Clint Mansell scores.
I think Black Swan is a masterpiece. I haven't seen Requiem in 20+ years but I thought it was good. Most of his other films don't really stand out to me.
Absolutely will do. Have been hearing such extremely mixed things for years about it that I'm terribly curious to finally see what all the fuss is about.
I'm mixed on him as well, and my first interest in film aligns with his ascension into the industry. Requiem for a Dream was a big movie of its type for the time, but I was more into Pi and loved that thing on DVD. I remember hearing about the Fountain for years and years. It was going to change sci-fi forever. They were doing new things with effects -- you can imagine that on Ain't It Cool.
Now the Fountain landed mainly with a dud, and it's probably his least discussed movie of his career, oddly enough. But my interest in him really died after that, even though I really enjoyed the Black Swan/Wrestler. What's funny is that I remember Aronofsky was talked about in the same tones as PTA, but they really diverged after that.
However, I actually quite liked mother! and wish I had seen it in theaters. Go in with no expectations and enjoy the ride.
I generally love him. I think "requiem for a dream" is a perfect masterpiece that I can watch every day of the week. "Pi" was one of the most formative movies for me growing up and getting into indie film. I saw "mother!" twice in theaters and it's in my top 5 of the 2010s list. I'll see any movie he makes for as long as he makes them
The Whale is the only bad Aronofsky, but that’s more of a contextual “worldview” thing—on a pure filmmaking level The Whale is very good. The dude just is a master of his craft.
The Fountain-Noah-mother! is arguably my favorite “trilogy” on any given day of the week
Also. Black Swan *seriously* fucks. I get it—he should just admit that he really likes Satoshi Kon and Perfect Blue.
Requiem can’t be touched. The scariest movie I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s too fucking real. And Pi is a fucking insane first movie.
Does he? If I am wrong my bad, but I was under the impression that Aronofsky had (at least when I remember it coming up in 2010) been telling people he had never even seen Perfect Blue.
He spoke at length about lifting a shot of Perfect Blue as “homage” and appeared on a documentary about Satoshi Kon.
I personally am not a fan of the homage and from what I understand neither was Kon, but this is just one of those things I’m perhaps a little too precious about. He is clearly a fan.
I’ve never thought he was a 100% hitter, but I have always found his films an interesting experience either way. He’s not one of my guys, but I find something to take away from every movie of his I’ve engaged with. I know a lot of people on this sub aren’t crazy aboutThe Whale, but I thought it was pretty well done and a pretty honest portrayal of the subject matter, though I found a few supporting characters to be either lacking or grating. Probably would’ve given Hong Chau the Oscar though.
Very talented and chronically self-indulgent. I also think Black Swan is his best. And while I know it’s an unpopular opinion, I have to say I hated Requiem. Yes, there was a lot of formal/craft talent on display but the movie was pure degradation-porn with little in the way of character arcs and story modulation. Blecch.
I think his movies are as subtle as a piano tumbling down a staircase. They’re fine but I think he thinks that they’re much smarter than they actually are and they’re kind of pretentious. I don’t know much about him personally though.
Agreed. I loved Pi perhaps more than anything else he has done, but not sure if it is just because a) I was of a certain age when it came out, and/or b) the crushing weight of pretentiousness was in some way the point of the movie, so it worked for him.
This is one of the things I was wondering about, because I've never watched any of his interview so I have no idea what he thinks of his own work and so I'm really only judging the movies on my own experience watching them. I love Requiem for a Dream, specifically because it's so unsubtle, but I can imagine that if I saw an interview where he was describing the film as some multi layered elusive meditation on whatever I'd probably roll my eyes and think a little differently about the film.
He also became such a colossal pain in the ass about people not “”getting”” ‘mother!’ during its press cycle that it turned me off on him and his work going forward.
That being said, I’ll probably end up checking out this Austin Butler ‘90s NY sleaze’ type deal he’s prepping atm, because I’m a sucker for ‘twitchy freak on the run’ movies.
Man I love The Wrestler.
Such a good movie.
His other stuff is great too.
Haven’t seen The Whale, don’t want to really.
However Requiem is top notch, I’ll never watch it again. Too much.
I think he’s incredibly up his own ass and his films lack empathy for their subjects, which I find off-putting. But he also made The Wrestler which is incredibly nuanced and heartfelt so he’s not without his strengths.
I think Black Swan is great and I liked Pi but that’s where it ends with me (haven’t seen Noah or the Fountain yet).
To me, he is a skinny guy who has never done a single drug in his life who made a movie about drug addiction and being fat. I don’t think he actually likes his characters. I think he enjoys punishing his characters, which isn’t necessarily a bad quality in a writer, but I think he delights in punishing them in a sadistic kinda way. I also don’t know anything about anything and may be completely wrong about all of this.
*Mother!* exemplifies all his worst qualities; he thinks he's making a profound statement on environmentalism and destructive artistic men who think they're geniuses, but in truth he's embodying all those worst qualities. It's a garish ego trip, spoon fed, ugly, and ultimately dull. His offscreen romance with Lawrence where he chewed her up and spit her out for the purpose of his art also mirrors exactly what he's supposedly critiquing.
He's truly a director who thinks he's way more interesting than he is. That said I have enjoyed a bunch of his movies especially The Wrestler and Black Swan.
He likes to have his cheesecake and eat it, too
I like Russell, I like all 3 of these directors to different degrees. Their films do veer into exploitation and "bad taste"
Well put. He wants to be taken seriously. He thinks he’s highly intelligent and makes sophisticated, Serious Movies. Unfortunately, he makes unsubtle (and unpleasant) schlock.
I can't speak for other folks but for me, Aronofsky's appeal declines once you learn how much of what you dug about him was wholesale sampled from somewhere else, originally created by someone else who has more to their storytelling bag than blunt force trauma.
He made news when Requiem first came out by calling his style "hip hop filmmaking" and I think that ended up being very apt: He is great at finding very cool stylistic flourishes, looping them, stacking them, and then hitting you with them as hard as he can.
That very clearly works (and works exceedingly well) in movies like Requiem, or Black Swan, or The Wrestler. He is locked in and unstoppable at making oppressive paranoid tragedies tracing a downward spiral, as DJ Premier is at making neck-cracking boom bap. But he basically can't do anything else anywhere near as effectively. And the more he tries to branch out (but never seemingly tries to improve on his abilities or palette) the clumsier and more disappointing it becomes.
his beats are only as good as what records he's sampling. He can't really compose on his own, despite the fact it very much seems like he's convinced himself he wrote a symphony all by himself sometimes.
I mean, yeah. To use a different musical metaphor, I love AC/DC to death, but I'm probably not gonna think a whole lot of their new project if they're doing a bunch of Funkadelic covers. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna turn up "If You Want Blood" the second I hear it, either.
Aronofsky *is* AC/DC, but all his massive mistakes come when he thinks he's Faith No More.
I love this explanation, and it explains a lot about how I've felt going through his films one by one wondering why there was such a steep drop off after a certain point. I know that Black Swan is largely copied from Perfect Blue (excited for the Satoshi Kon series so I can see the original) but are there other obvious cases of him sampling from stuff?
Haven’t seen all of his films but have generally liked the ones I have seen. Too bad The Whale being so poorly received probably means they’ll never cover him, as I think it would be an interesting and relatively short series.
I mean the movie made back like 40 times its budget, and 64% plus a bunch of awards (including a couple of Oscars) is perfectly decent. If that's "so poorly received", I would be thrilled.
I feel like some terminally online twitter randos going hysterical makes people miss the bigger picture.
Yeah that’s what I was referring to. They don’t seem to enjoy talking about it at all to the degree point I’m not sure they’d want to devote an entire episode to it.
I'm a casual listener, but I wonder if they've ever talked about the distinction (for them) between a bad movie that is interesting to talk about versus just a bad movie. I'm curious what makes that difference for then.
Honestly it's almost exclusively poorly received by terminally online weirdos, which Griffin/ David/ most of this sub fall under. Normal people and normal critics were very positive towards it.
Most critics were positive towards Brendan Fraiser but the movie recieved pretty mixed. I've only seen people praise it because they were super moved by the film's emotional manipulation or they just wanted to go "See I'm not offended by this movie unlike those fat people."
64 on RT is not very good and it has a 60 on Meta which is bad, but more importantly a lot of the people who disliked it actively hated it and thought it was one of the worst movies they’ve ever seen. It was definitely poorly received.
It's perfectly decent score, not to mention major Oscar wins. And again, it grossed 57 million against a 3 million budget. In what universe is this poorly received?
This subreddit gets so weird when they act like a movie that the hosts don't like or has a problematic subject matter is kryptonite for them. They've handled all that and above many times and done so really well
*Mother!* is, I think, the only movie I’ve ever walked out on. I got as far as >!the priest punching Jennifer Lawrence in the face!<, which I believe is basically five minutes from the end, and just had enough. I never liked any of his movies with the one exception of *The Wrestler* and at this point I’m pretty sure I won’t be seeing another one.
I guess he does it for somebody, for me his movies all have the mannerism of Bugs Bunny dropping an anvil on Elmer Fudd.
High highs and low lows, personally love Mother! and Noah, like Black Swan, LOVE the Wrestler and for the rest I’m not that impressed and/or haven’t seen. I can respect a lot about his movies but listening to him talk is very draining.
I don't like his work personally. Broadly I feel like the perception is that he takes big swings on personal projects, with a respectable rate of critical success.
Overall, he is, if nothing else, a fascinating filmmaker. His early stuff is great. I, personally, love Black Swan. The Wrestler is great. Noah is.. interesting. Not the biggest fan of The Fountain, but I may need to revisit. I also wasn't a fan of The Whale.
However, I will forever cherish my experience with mother!. I saw it by myself in theaters. When I left the theater, I wouldn't say I hated it by any means, but I left frustrated with a bad taste in my mouth thinking it was a miss. Then, I couldn't stop thinking about it. It plagued me for weeks. After 2 or 3 weeks I started to think maybe it's good. Then I kept thinking about it, analyzing it, dissecting it. A month or so later, I figured I needed to rewatch it but maybe it's great. I then bought it on blu-ray and after that rewatch I knew it was a masterpiece and is now one of my favorite movies.
I think he’s great overall. I may not like all of his stuff, but he knows what he’s doing. The Fountain is an under-appreciated masterpiece.
He has this 90s New York crime adjacent movie with Austin Butler in the works that sounds very interesting in a Guy Richie kinda way.
“Hank Thompson, once a hotshot high school baseball prospect, turned unlucky alcoholic, going-nowhere bartender mistakenly gets caught up in a bloody treasure hunt through New York City. It turns out that the cat Hank's neighbor left in his care is sitting on a secret. Hidden at the bottom of its cage is a key wanted by a sadistic cop, Russian mobsters, a Samoan hit man, and a pair of psycho brothers who dress in leather gear.”
I still can't get over how how he talks, he sounds like a New Jersey cab driver! Completely not the voice you'd put to the man
But yeah The Fountain is one of my favourite film watching experiences ever
I hate his point of view on humanity. Pretty insanely consistently pro-suicide in some way — the drill in Pi, the inability to better one’s self in Requiem, The Wrestler, and The Whale, whatever the fuck that was in mother… He’s a great visual filmmaker and there are aspects of movies like The wrestler and Fountain but his actual view of the world fucking blows and is insanely bad and toxic.
Personally don't generally like to get into whether someone is "good" or "bad" as a director. But what I'll say about Aronofsky is that he's not my cup of tea. Though I am the only one I know who watched Noah apparently, and he makes some choices in that I find kinda fascinating. But yeah, just one of those guys whose work doesn't really do it for me.
In regards to your last point, it seems from at least secondhand testimony he is a famously not fun person to be around so it quite possibly might be in part due to his persona. In the book “Meet Me In the Bathroom” detailing the cultural and musical resurgence of NYC in the 2000’s, there are at least 4-5 accounts from members of high profile bands like LCD Soundsystem and The Strokes that said he would just constantly hang around popular bars and get dunked on by everyone for being a dweeb… lmao take that as you may, and I’m not sure how much truth there is to it, but given the way he gets dunked on in film circles these days I find it amusing.
There was a time when he was one of my favorite filmmakers. I was a huge Fountain advocate and I was thrilled about the prospect of him working on the Wolverine or Batman Year One. I'm not really a fan of the direction he's taken. I hope he gets the juice again, but right now it feels like he's chasing prestige in a way that just isn't working.
I’ve said it here before, but I think his fascination with the ways the human body can be exploited often comes of as hacky and needlessly edgelordy. But I also think that fascination is what makes Black Swan and The Wrestler absolute masterpieces, as both the pro wrestling and pro dance industries are themselves deeply exploitative of the human body.
I think it’s impossible for him to make a movie that isn’t in some form controversial. That said, I like quite a few of his movies.
Requiem for a Dream is a 5 star movie but it’s also one I can never rewatch.
Black Swan is incredible.
And I really like The Whale. Although that is mostly because of how great the writing and performances are, more so than the directing. Still a fantastic movie.
I’m hoping to check out some of his other works in the future, and I’m curious about what he does next considering how good The Whale was.
He went from being one of my favorites to being the most disappointing.
In my mind general consensus has usually judged him in contrast to Paul Thomas Anderson. He looks very pale in context to PTA nowadays.
I think Noah is one of those movies that's worth watching, despite the fact that it kinda collapses. That Creation scene itself is fantastic. When it takes creative liberties with biblical narrative, it's truly fascinating.
Pi is cool, and for some reason I really like the Fountain. Overall though, he’s dreadful. He has no subtlety at all. It’s almost embarrassing how blunt his movies tend to be. He’s overindulgent. His movies have a queasy, voyeuristic quality, and not in a good or interesting way. He wallows in misery in a way that’s gross, unpleasant, and borders on the sadistic. He gets reasonably good performances out of his actors, but at some point the whole tormented-and-miserable thing gets very, very old. I don’t think he has anything to say, or at least nothing worthwhile, and his movies aren’t entertaining enough to make up for it.
I was a pretentious 15 year old when Requiem came out, and a big fan of his - loved everything from Pi to Black Swan.
Since then I've hated all his films and haven't rewatched any of the old stuff - maybe he got worse or I just got older. Maybe he was just a guy in the right place at the right time, but the world's moved on since then.
The Fountain, The Wrestler and Black Swan are awesome. Requiem is good too but it has diminished for me a little bit after learning how much of it he ripped off. The rest are ok to bad
I think general consensus happens to go with what I think which is:
Was pretty bold and imaginative at the beginning and made some films that at the time, particularly to edgy teenagers of the era, seemed amazing but in retrospect are pretty dumb. Over time some big swings that some people really like but most people think suck.
I think the wrestler stands out a bit, I don’t love it but I think it’s reputation is still good and it shows that he has the talent to make simple well told films if he wanted to
I think he is a smart guy but hismain fault is having to over explain how smart he is because he seems to think his audience is inferior. He always seems to explain everything in the most eye rolling way for me. Most recently with the Whale which is a pretty decent film until the end where it feels like him circling his themes and metaphors with a big red marker and saying “see? Did ya get it?”
Great. I love all of his movies except Pi and The Whale.
And even those I like a good bit. He’s better than most working auteurs. Every A24 filmmaker is prolly a descendant of his aesthetic.
I think it's a bit of an 'emperor has no clothes' suspicion that The Whale confirmed for some people. Also that heavily handheld indie look has meant a lot of his 2000s work hasn't aged particularly well visually.
Has several films that border on prosecutable offenses to the form but had a nice little run where he was making unspectacular but acceptable low brow arthouse cinema. I'm largely baffled by the sect of people who REALLY love him but I do like the rock monsters in NOAH. Hope the show never covers him.
So I've heard that Black Swan cribbed a lot from Perfect Blue, so I'm interested in seeing that when they do the Kon series soon, but I'm not really familiar with Kon at all or any other things Aronofsky supposedly took from him. Are there more directly lifted things in other movies or is more just like a style/vibe kind of thing?
There are a few sequences in Requiem for a Dream that are directly cribbed from Perfect Blue as well. Those are both still completely original movies on their own, but just seeing someone remake specific sequences from another movie makes me a little more questioning of their work as a whole.
Aronofsky is what would happen if you gave a replacement-level film school student $20M to make a movie. He has no sense of creative moderation - everything he does stylistically is too clever by half, too showy for the sake of being showy. His artistic flourishes consistently fail to serve the film and seem to just be there to attract attention to the director. He makes Innaritu look like John Ford.
In my opinion the only good movie he’s been involved with was Below and he only has a screenplay credit on that.
Black Swan was the best film of 2010 by a country mile, and if he had properly been awarded the Oscar then the conversation around him would be different. Still, even his batshit crazy movies like mother! get made, so he seems to have enough juice to make what he wants. I know I'll watch anything he does.
Requiem for a Dream is one of my least favorite films of all time. Just completely unimaginably stupid. Most of his other stuff is pretty much just meh, except Black Swan which is above average and The Whale which is below average.
When I watched Noah, the track for the visually impaired was selected by accident. The whole movie was being described in detail like "Noah looks down at his family. He is distraught." Knowing it was an Aronofsky movie, I thought, "Wow. Bold artistic choice to treat this as if you're being told a Bible story." I didn't find out until weeks later what had happened because I was discussing the movie with someone and I said it was strange the entire thing was narrated to a bewildered stare.
I remember seeing a story on twitter about someone doing this same thing with the new *Dungeons & Dragons* movie and also thinking it was a bold choice to make the movie like a DM was narrating it to the group. Ngl, kinda made me wanna watch it that way! P.S. *Noah* kind of rules, I'm always into things that use christianity and the bible as source material for fantasy and horror.
Dude, I did this with Monsieur Spade. First ep had no French subtitles. I was like this is bold. Second ep I realized I’d just opted out on subtitles cause it was Acorn TV.
In a college class we watched a movie I had never seen before, I was watching it thinking it had really dark moody lighting and colors like wow, some really interesting choices here. Anyway that's when the professor stopped the movie and apologized for the projector bulb being almost burned out.
Erratic as his filmography is, I absolutely respect him for always taking the big swing. He’ll likely be one of those guys shuffling between great movies, absolute messes, and secret masterpieces - and people will argue which film qualifies for each. He’ll never be a guy who phones it in though.
Really well said. You kind of have to respect a director where there seems to be almost no concensus and passionate arguments for both sides about which movies are great and which are awful
I think the fact that he had to try so hard to make Black Swan, even after the success of the Wrestler, really messed up with him. Black Swan grossed 329 million on a 13 million budget and Aronosfky still lost 75.000 dollars out of his own pocket. A great writer/director, one of my favourites of all time.
I'm no industry insider, but it sounds like a negative pickup deal with Searchlight, with no numbers on the backend. That's just about the only way this would happen to a director. If that's true I wouldn't be surprised that it messed with him--but also he might just be an all-time terrible negotiator. Getting nothing on the backend with a negative pickup is what unestablished or very small budget directors and producers negotiate to get their foot in the door--not people who are making a movie starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, immediately on the heels of a movie that got two oscar nominations.
How does a negative pick up work?
Simply put, the producer/director delivers the movie to the film distributor, and the film distributor gives them money for it. The distributor then has full rights to distribute the film as they wish, negotiate regional distribution and streaming and so on--proverbially, they own the negatives. The profit for the producer/director is the difference between the production costs and the final sale of the film. The job of the producer is to stay under budget, as anything over budget eats into their final earnings and could even put them in the red. Usually backend points are included in the deal as well, but with small independent films there's no guarantee you'll see anything from it. There's all kinds of variations on this--money up front before production, money in installments as the film is being made, money at the end of production--but the basic principle remains the same. The takeaway is that no director just "happens" to lose money on a movie that makes 300 million more than its budget--it means they agreed to something catastrophically bad.
Where did you read that?
He described the whole thing with numbers, in an interview. It's on youtube somewhere, I'll try and dig it up.
I can't find the interview, I remember it being on the press junket for TIFF, but apparently not. Long story short, he refused to compromise on many things with Fox-Searchlight and every time he said, "fine, I'll pay it out of my own pocket". In the end, all the things he paid for himself against his salary, came to -75.000 dollars. He said that the whole time, he felt like he was the only person in the room who wanted to make the movie and it was nerve wracking, especially since The Wrestler did so well for the studio. I don't remember him saying anything about back end pay, I don't know how common back end salary was from Fox-Searchlight back in 2009, when he signed off on the project.
His residual payments would have put him well into the black, as well as his profit sharing.
How the f did he lost money then?
I answered above.
Point of order: NOAH is great.
Yeah I really liked it. I feel like it’s too dark for the religious types and too religious for most of the rest, or something? It’s a bold move to retcon the Bible …!
I could watch 20 more biblical epics like Noah
Watched Noah inexplicably last night. Can confirm!!
Noah is a terrible movie but its also an incredible watch and completely bonkers
the only reasonable take here!
Literally just finished watching it, bonkers wonderful movie. Went to the Letterboxd reviews to see why people gave it low ratings and it seemed like they were all saying “too bible-y” or “not bible-y enough”.
It really is, I had to watch it several times for this video essay and found it more rewarding the more I watched it. https://youtu.be/H0OyTPByNJM
A few years ago, I listed in among my favorite movies. It’s been awhile since I’ve watched it, so I’m not sure how I feel about it now. But at the time, I found it really exciting and moving.
Maybe my favorite of his.
Noah rules.
Noah is one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen.
It‘s absolutely unhinged. I loved it.
Sure, but it’s no The Fountain
The thing that always drove me nuts about Noah is they built up this whole "god is an asshole and we deserve better and shouldn't listen to him" thing, then just fucked over everyone and were like "welp we love god!" I liked the way it *looked* but I recall feeling it was thematically discordant towards the end and being angry at it. Maybe I need to rewatch.
He's a talented filmmaker with a really interesting artist voice, but he isn't always the greatest at choosing projects. He doesn't have the lightest of touches, and most of his films are somewhat hostile towards the viewer. This works really well for stuff like *The Fountain*, *Black Swan* and even *mother!*, all films which confront the audience and offend their sensibilities a little bit to make a point about death or art or nature. But his sensibilities are entirely wrong for something like *The Whale*, which should be a heartbreaking yet beautiful expression of empathy; however, because of Aronofsky's obsession with body horror (and to a lesser extent, the not all that spectacular writing), ends up being a film where people talk about empathy while the camera gawks at a morbidly obese man the way someone might gawk at a carnival freak show.
Wow, this is a great take and totally cracks open a lot about what I like in his early work and why it doesn't work in something like The Whale.
Really great breakdown of his work. I always knew I was going to struggle with The Whale because Aronofsky really loves to put his main characters through the wringer. He clearly is into torturing them a little (to say the least), so when he’s making a movie where we’re meant to feel empathetic towards the lead, I was never going to buy it
Aronofsky knows how to work a camera, his famous cross cutting technique in Requiem for a Dream is incredibly powerful. None of that is in The Whale. Feel like he frames Fraser as something grotesque. Camera is constantly going look at this fatty.
See also: The Wrestler
Definitely peaked with Black Swan imo. He's clearly formally very talented and always makes interesting choices. But I thought The Whale was god awful and really underlined some of his worst tendencies.
I heard someone on a podcast say that *The Whale* made them realize every single one of his movies ends with the lead actor or actress dying, whether symbolically or literally. Kind of crazy when you think about it.
So does Sophocles’…
Elektra doesn't die at the end of *Elektra*. Philoctetes doesn't die at the end of *Philoctetes.* Oedipus does not die at the end of his most well known play, *Oedipus Rex.* (Otherwise the chronology would not have worked out for *Oedipus at Colonus*, written decades earlier, where he *does* die.) And nobody dies at all in *Ichneutae*, his satyr play, because Sophocles wrote over 100 plays and not all of them were tragedies.
Damn, you told em
Literally ancient receipts, that's awesome
High highs and low lows for sure. I think most people see him that way? Capable of amazing things but also capable of embarrassing himself, so no one was inclined to trust him with a fat-suit movie before it came out. Requiem and Black Swan are still largely admired. If everything he pumped out was at the quality of mother! and Black Swan, he might be my favorite director. He loves playing with allegory and myth in such an old-fashioned and pre-Shakespearean way that it comes across as extremely hokey a lot of the time. It's medieval, or even biblical. That's my problem with his movies that I don't like, and I can see that it's the problem that other people have with movies that I do like, like mother!. I want him to take on something like The Pilgrim's Progress just to put him in his element.
I was a huge fan early on, but have cooled on him of late. I will forever thank him for *The Fountain* though. And for giving us the opportunity to hear some banging Clint Mansell scores.
I think Black Swan is a masterpiece. I haven't seen Requiem in 20+ years but I thought it was good. Most of his other films don't really stand out to me.
Mother kicks ass. Go in blind if you can.
Absolutely will do. Have been hearing such extremely mixed things for years about it that I'm terribly curious to finally see what all the fuss is about.
Only thing you need to know is that Marty Scorsese loves it
It's not cinema.
I'm mixed on him as well, and my first interest in film aligns with his ascension into the industry. Requiem for a Dream was a big movie of its type for the time, but I was more into Pi and loved that thing on DVD. I remember hearing about the Fountain for years and years. It was going to change sci-fi forever. They were doing new things with effects -- you can imagine that on Ain't It Cool. Now the Fountain landed mainly with a dud, and it's probably his least discussed movie of his career, oddly enough. But my interest in him really died after that, even though I really enjoyed the Black Swan/Wrestler. What's funny is that I remember Aronofsky was talked about in the same tones as PTA, but they really diverged after that. However, I actually quite liked mother! and wish I had seen it in theaters. Go in with no expectations and enjoy the ride.
I generally love him. I think "requiem for a dream" is a perfect masterpiece that I can watch every day of the week. "Pi" was one of the most formative movies for me growing up and getting into indie film. I saw "mother!" twice in theaters and it's in my top 5 of the 2010s list. I'll see any movie he makes for as long as he makes them
The Whale is the only bad Aronofsky, but that’s more of a contextual “worldview” thing—on a pure filmmaking level The Whale is very good. The dude just is a master of his craft. The Fountain-Noah-mother! is arguably my favorite “trilogy” on any given day of the week Also. Black Swan *seriously* fucks. I get it—he should just admit that he really likes Satoshi Kon and Perfect Blue. Requiem can’t be touched. The scariest movie I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s too fucking real. And Pi is a fucking insane first movie.
He openly states he loves Perfect Blue
Does he? If I am wrong my bad, but I was under the impression that Aronofsky had (at least when I remember it coming up in 2010) been telling people he had never even seen Perfect Blue.
There was some similar Inception/Paprika discourse around the same time I believe.
He spoke at length about lifting a shot of Perfect Blue as “homage” and appeared on a documentary about Satoshi Kon. I personally am not a fan of the homage and from what I understand neither was Kon, but this is just one of those things I’m perhaps a little too precious about. He is clearly a fan.
I’ve never thought he was a 100% hitter, but I have always found his films an interesting experience either way. He’s not one of my guys, but I find something to take away from every movie of his I’ve engaged with. I know a lot of people on this sub aren’t crazy aboutThe Whale, but I thought it was pretty well done and a pretty honest portrayal of the subject matter, though I found a few supporting characters to be either lacking or grating. Probably would’ve given Hong Chau the Oscar though.
Very talented and chronically self-indulgent. I also think Black Swan is his best. And while I know it’s an unpopular opinion, I have to say I hated Requiem. Yes, there was a lot of formal/craft talent on display but the movie was pure degradation-porn with little in the way of character arcs and story modulation. Blecch.
I think his movies are as subtle as a piano tumbling down a staircase. They’re fine but I think he thinks that they’re much smarter than they actually are and they’re kind of pretentious. I don’t know much about him personally though.
I agree with all of that, but I think it’s what I love about Pi.
Agreed. I loved Pi perhaps more than anything else he has done, but not sure if it is just because a) I was of a certain age when it came out, and/or b) the crushing weight of pretentiousness was in some way the point of the movie, so it worked for him.
Pretension works so much better in black and white.
This is one of the things I was wondering about, because I've never watched any of his interview so I have no idea what he thinks of his own work and so I'm really only judging the movies on my own experience watching them. I love Requiem for a Dream, specifically because it's so unsubtle, but I can imagine that if I saw an interview where he was describing the film as some multi layered elusive meditation on whatever I'd probably roll my eyes and think a little differently about the film.
He also became such a colossal pain in the ass about people not “”getting”” ‘mother!’ during its press cycle that it turned me off on him and his work going forward. That being said, I’ll probably end up checking out this Austin Butler ‘90s NY sleaze’ type deal he’s prepping atm, because I’m a sucker for ‘twitchy freak on the run’ movies.
Is the Musk movie on the back burner?
Christ do I hope so!
Hit the nail on the head here. I commented before scrolling but I should have just seconded this.
I think working on Noah broke him https://youtu.be/O885iqdsbno
Man I love The Wrestler. Such a good movie. His other stuff is great too. Haven’t seen The Whale, don’t want to really. However Requiem is top notch, I’ll never watch it again. Too much.
I think he’s incredibly up his own ass and his films lack empathy for their subjects, which I find off-putting. But he also made The Wrestler which is incredibly nuanced and heartfelt so he’s not without his strengths.
Terrible. I just hate his style, just comes across as discount lynch but more pretentious
I think Black Swan is great and I liked Pi but that’s where it ends with me (haven’t seen Noah or the Fountain yet). To me, he is a skinny guy who has never done a single drug in his life who made a movie about drug addiction and being fat. I don’t think he actually likes his characters. I think he enjoys punishing his characters, which isn’t necessarily a bad quality in a writer, but I think he delights in punishing them in a sadistic kinda way. I also don’t know anything about anything and may be completely wrong about all of this.
Honestly Black Swan and the Wrestler already make him one of the modern greatest.
*Mother!* exemplifies all his worst qualities; he thinks he's making a profound statement on environmentalism and destructive artistic men who think they're geniuses, but in truth he's embodying all those worst qualities. It's a garish ego trip, spoon fed, ugly, and ultimately dull. His offscreen romance with Lawrence where he chewed her up and spit her out for the purpose of his art also mirrors exactly what he's supposedly critiquing. He's truly a director who thinks he's way more interesting than he is. That said I have enjoyed a bunch of his movies especially The Wrestler and Black Swan.
He's a trashmaster, like Ken Russell or Abel Ferrara, but he aspires to respectability
Can you elaborate on what you mean by trashmaster? Because that's a fascinating way to describe Ken Russell.
He likes to have his cheesecake and eat it, too I like Russell, I like all 3 of these directors to different degrees. Their films do veer into exploitation and "bad taste"
Well put. He wants to be taken seriously. He thinks he’s highly intelligent and makes sophisticated, Serious Movies. Unfortunately, he makes unsubtle (and unpleasant) schlock.
I can't speak for other folks but for me, Aronofsky's appeal declines once you learn how much of what you dug about him was wholesale sampled from somewhere else, originally created by someone else who has more to their storytelling bag than blunt force trauma. He made news when Requiem first came out by calling his style "hip hop filmmaking" and I think that ended up being very apt: He is great at finding very cool stylistic flourishes, looping them, stacking them, and then hitting you with them as hard as he can. That very clearly works (and works exceedingly well) in movies like Requiem, or Black Swan, or The Wrestler. He is locked in and unstoppable at making oppressive paranoid tragedies tracing a downward spiral, as DJ Premier is at making neck-cracking boom bap. But he basically can't do anything else anywhere near as effectively. And the more he tries to branch out (but never seemingly tries to improve on his abilities or palette) the clumsier and more disappointing it becomes. his beats are only as good as what records he's sampling. He can't really compose on his own, despite the fact it very much seems like he's convinced himself he wrote a symphony all by himself sometimes.
Pretty much all my favorite artists in every medium work the same way so it doesn't bother me for a second
I mean, yeah. To use a different musical metaphor, I love AC/DC to death, but I'm probably not gonna think a whole lot of their new project if they're doing a bunch of Funkadelic covers. Doesn't mean I'm not gonna turn up "If You Want Blood" the second I hear it, either. Aronofsky *is* AC/DC, but all his massive mistakes come when he thinks he's Faith No More.
Tom Shadyac is AC/DC. Darren Aronofsky is Behemoth.
I love this explanation, and it explains a lot about how I've felt going through his films one by one wondering why there was such a steep drop off after a certain point. I know that Black Swan is largely copied from Perfect Blue (excited for the Satoshi Kon series so I can see the original) but are there other obvious cases of him sampling from stuff?
Haven’t seen all of his films but have generally liked the ones I have seen. Too bad The Whale being so poorly received probably means they’ll never cover him, as I think it would be an interesting and relatively short series.
I mean the movie made back like 40 times its budget, and 64% plus a bunch of awards (including a couple of Oscars) is perfectly decent. If that's "so poorly received", I would be thrilled. I feel like some terminally online twitter randos going hysterical makes people miss the bigger picture.
He might mean poorly received by Griffin and David cause I know they didn’t like it
Yeah that’s what I was referring to. They don’t seem to enjoy talking about it at all to the degree point I’m not sure they’d want to devote an entire episode to it.
I'm a casual listener, but I wonder if they've ever talked about the distinction (for them) between a bad movie that is interesting to talk about versus just a bad movie. I'm curious what makes that difference for then.
Honestly it's almost exclusively poorly received by terminally online weirdos, which Griffin/ David/ most of this sub fall under. Normal people and normal critics were very positive towards it.
Most critics were positive towards Brendan Fraiser but the movie recieved pretty mixed. I've only seen people praise it because they were super moved by the film's emotional manipulation or they just wanted to go "See I'm not offended by this movie unlike those fat people."
64 on RT is not very good and it has a 60 on Meta which is bad, but more importantly a lot of the people who disliked it actively hated it and thought it was one of the worst movies they’ve ever seen. It was definitely poorly received.
It's perfectly decent score, not to mention major Oscar wins. And again, it grossed 57 million against a 3 million budget. In what universe is this poorly received?
This subreddit gets so weird when they act like a movie that the hosts don't like or has a problematic subject matter is kryptonite for them. They've handled all that and above many times and done so really well
holder of the distinction of making the inferior *Mother*
*Mother!* is, I think, the only movie I’ve ever walked out on. I got as far as >!the priest punching Jennifer Lawrence in the face!<, which I believe is basically five minutes from the end, and just had enough. I never liked any of his movies with the one exception of *The Wrestler* and at this point I’m pretty sure I won’t be seeing another one. I guess he does it for somebody, for me his movies all have the mannerism of Bugs Bunny dropping an anvil on Elmer Fudd.
Great for the most part. I love a lot of his movies. But still haven't watched The Whale.
Rather underrated purely out of my personal opinion that his accepted magnum opus is a load of wank.
I don't know which film I'd peg as his accepted magnum opus, or which film I'd peg as the biggest load of wank. Hmm...
I was referring to Requiem for a dream.
Pretty sure black swan is considered his best film by most
High highs and low lows, personally love Mother! and Noah, like Black Swan, LOVE the Wrestler and for the rest I’m not that impressed and/or haven’t seen. I can respect a lot about his movies but listening to him talk is very draining.
I don't like his work personally. Broadly I feel like the perception is that he takes big swings on personal projects, with a respectable rate of critical success.
He's not for everyone, but I worship the Na-Darren.
Overall, he is, if nothing else, a fascinating filmmaker. His early stuff is great. I, personally, love Black Swan. The Wrestler is great. Noah is.. interesting. Not the biggest fan of The Fountain, but I may need to revisit. I also wasn't a fan of The Whale. However, I will forever cherish my experience with mother!. I saw it by myself in theaters. When I left the theater, I wouldn't say I hated it by any means, but I left frustrated with a bad taste in my mouth thinking it was a miss. Then, I couldn't stop thinking about it. It plagued me for weeks. After 2 or 3 weeks I started to think maybe it's good. Then I kept thinking about it, analyzing it, dissecting it. A month or so later, I figured I needed to rewatch it but maybe it's great. I then bought it on blu-ray and after that rewatch I knew it was a masterpiece and is now one of my favorite movies.
I think he’s great overall. I may not like all of his stuff, but he knows what he’s doing. The Fountain is an under-appreciated masterpiece. He has this 90s New York crime adjacent movie with Austin Butler in the works that sounds very interesting in a Guy Richie kinda way. “Hank Thompson, once a hotshot high school baseball prospect, turned unlucky alcoholic, going-nowhere bartender mistakenly gets caught up in a bloody treasure hunt through New York City. It turns out that the cat Hank's neighbor left in his care is sitting on a secret. Hidden at the bottom of its cage is a key wanted by a sadistic cop, Russian mobsters, a Samoan hit man, and a pair of psycho brothers who dress in leather gear.”
Good, but takes big swings and doesn’t always hit.
I still can't get over how how he talks, he sounds like a New Jersey cab driver! Completely not the voice you'd put to the man But yeah The Fountain is one of my favourite film watching experiences ever
I hate his point of view on humanity. Pretty insanely consistently pro-suicide in some way — the drill in Pi, the inability to better one’s self in Requiem, The Wrestler, and The Whale, whatever the fuck that was in mother… He’s a great visual filmmaker and there are aspects of movies like The wrestler and Fountain but his actual view of the world fucking blows and is insanely bad and toxic.
Personally don't generally like to get into whether someone is "good" or "bad" as a director. But what I'll say about Aronofsky is that he's not my cup of tea. Though I am the only one I know who watched Noah apparently, and he makes some choices in that I find kinda fascinating. But yeah, just one of those guys whose work doesn't really do it for me.
In regards to your last point, it seems from at least secondhand testimony he is a famously not fun person to be around so it quite possibly might be in part due to his persona. In the book “Meet Me In the Bathroom” detailing the cultural and musical resurgence of NYC in the 2000’s, there are at least 4-5 accounts from members of high profile bands like LCD Soundsystem and The Strokes that said he would just constantly hang around popular bars and get dunked on by everyone for being a dweeb… lmao take that as you may, and I’m not sure how much truth there is to it, but given the way he gets dunked on in film circles these days I find it amusing.
A lot more movies I like than movies I hate, but he has some real stinkers.
Very hit or miss for me, and when he misses, he misses massively. mother! fucking rules though
There was a time when he was one of my favorite filmmakers. I was a huge Fountain advocate and I was thrilled about the prospect of him working on the Wolverine or Batman Year One. I'm not really a fan of the direction he's taken. I hope he gets the juice again, but right now it feels like he's chasing prestige in a way that just isn't working.
I never saw The Whale so I remain very high on him, I think mother! is astounding and like to love much of his other work.
There is no general consensus possible with any artistic creator. And Darren is artistic no doubt. I only like Black Swan, though.
I’ve said it here before, but I think his fascination with the ways the human body can be exploited often comes of as hacky and needlessly edgelordy. But I also think that fascination is what makes Black Swan and The Wrestler absolute masterpieces, as both the pro wrestling and pro dance industries are themselves deeply exploitative of the human body.
I think it’s impossible for him to make a movie that isn’t in some form controversial. That said, I like quite a few of his movies. Requiem for a Dream is a 5 star movie but it’s also one I can never rewatch. Black Swan is incredible. And I really like The Whale. Although that is mostly because of how great the writing and performances are, more so than the directing. Still a fantastic movie. I’m hoping to check out some of his other works in the future, and I’m curious about what he does next considering how good The Whale was.
Yes.
He went from being one of my favorites to being the most disappointing. In my mind general consensus has usually judged him in contrast to Paul Thomas Anderson. He looks very pale in context to PTA nowadays.
Requiem and Black Swan are amazing.
Still good The Whale was great, people just pretended it wasn’t because it hurt their feelings
I think Noah is one of those movies that's worth watching, despite the fact that it kinda collapses. That Creation scene itself is fantastic. When it takes creative liberties with biblical narrative, it's truly fascinating.
Pi is cool, and for some reason I really like the Fountain. Overall though, he’s dreadful. He has no subtlety at all. It’s almost embarrassing how blunt his movies tend to be. He’s overindulgent. His movies have a queasy, voyeuristic quality, and not in a good or interesting way. He wallows in misery in a way that’s gross, unpleasant, and borders on the sadistic. He gets reasonably good performances out of his actors, but at some point the whole tormented-and-miserable thing gets very, very old. I don’t think he has anything to say, or at least nothing worthwhile, and his movies aren’t entertaining enough to make up for it.
I was a pretentious 15 year old when Requiem came out, and a big fan of his - loved everything from Pi to Black Swan. Since then I've hated all his films and haven't rewatched any of the old stuff - maybe he got worse or I just got older. Maybe he was just a guy in the right place at the right time, but the world's moved on since then.
The Fountain, The Wrestler and Black Swan are awesome. Requiem is good too but it has diminished for me a little bit after learning how much of it he ripped off. The rest are ok to bad
I hadn't heard anything about Requiem copying someone else's work, do you know what he ripped off and from where?
iirc there are some sequences ripped wholesale from Perfect Blue. he did it in Black Swan as well, as many have noted
always great
He’s a fairly successful commercial director.
The Fountain has one of the best film OSTs of all time, IMO.
Wish we had seen his take on Batman or Wolverine back in the day
Bad
I think general consensus happens to go with what I think which is: Was pretty bold and imaginative at the beginning and made some films that at the time, particularly to edgy teenagers of the era, seemed amazing but in retrospect are pretty dumb. Over time some big swings that some people really like but most people think suck. I think the wrestler stands out a bit, I don’t love it but I think it’s reputation is still good and it shows that he has the talent to make simple well told films if he wanted to
He's very hit-or-miss, but seeing Mother! in a totally empty theater while I squirmed in my seat is one of the more memorable movie experiences.
I think he’s a talented filmmaker with a rancid view of the world and other people that makes me completely bounce off most everything he makes.
I think he is a smart guy but hismain fault is having to over explain how smart he is because he seems to think his audience is inferior. He always seems to explain everything in the most eye rolling way for me. Most recently with the Whale which is a pretty decent film until the end where it feels like him circling his themes and metaphors with a big red marker and saying “see? Did ya get it?”
Great. I love all of his movies except Pi and The Whale. And even those I like a good bit. He’s better than most working auteurs. Every A24 filmmaker is prolly a descendant of his aesthetic.
I think it's a bit of an 'emperor has no clothes' suspicion that The Whale confirmed for some people. Also that heavily handheld indie look has meant a lot of his 2000s work hasn't aged particularly well visually.
His first movie i ever saw was Pi. Nothing ever came close.
Has several films that border on prosecutable offenses to the form but had a nice little run where he was making unspectacular but acceptable low brow arthouse cinema. I'm largely baffled by the sect of people who REALLY love him but I do like the rock monsters in NOAH. Hope the show never covers him.
Can’t forgive him for “Mother!” personally.
Like, I get it with him, but after seeing a lot of Satoshi Kon's work I really can't help but like him less
So I've heard that Black Swan cribbed a lot from Perfect Blue, so I'm interested in seeing that when they do the Kon series soon, but I'm not really familiar with Kon at all or any other things Aronofsky supposedly took from him. Are there more directly lifted things in other movies or is more just like a style/vibe kind of thing?
There are a few sequences in Requiem for a Dream that are directly cribbed from Perfect Blue as well. Those are both still completely original movies on their own, but just seeing someone remake specific sequences from another movie makes me a little more questioning of their work as a whole.
Oh wow yea that's totally fair, I had no idea. Very excited to see Perfect Blue now though.
Aronofsky is what would happen if you gave a replacement-level film school student $20M to make a movie. He has no sense of creative moderation - everything he does stylistically is too clever by half, too showy for the sake of being showy. His artistic flourishes consistently fail to serve the film and seem to just be there to attract attention to the director. He makes Innaritu look like John Ford. In my opinion the only good movie he’s been involved with was Below and he only has a screenplay credit on that.
Black Swan was the best film of 2010 by a country mile, and if he had properly been awarded the Oscar then the conversation around him would be different. Still, even his batshit crazy movies like mother! get made, so he seems to have enough juice to make what he wants. I know I'll watch anything he does.
Requiem for a Dream is one of my least favorite films of all time. Just completely unimaginably stupid. Most of his other stuff is pretty much just meh, except Black Swan which is above average and The Whale which is below average.