Darren Aronofsky is not surprised by the strong reaction to his recent release, Mother!. The Jennifer Lawrence – Javier Bardem starrer has polarised critics and viewers alike, with a reviewer calling it the “worst film of the century”.
In conversation with radio host John Horn following a recent screening at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Aronofsky said:
“We always knew it was a strong cocktail. When I was trying to tell the history, or the story, of people on Mother Earth, I was like, ‘Oh, the Bible could be a really kind of good blueprint to sort of hang all these stories’. Whatever you believe, it doesn’t matter. But there’s power in those stories because we can relate to them and they have different types of meanings for different types of people.”
The passionate responses to the film, both good and bad, has pleased Aronofsky considerably.
Recommended
“We wanted to make a punk movie and come at you. And the reason I wanted to come is because I was very sad and I had a lot of anguish and I wanted to express it. Filmmaking is such a hard journey. People are constantly saying ‘no’ to you. And to wake up every morning and get out of bed and to face all those ‘no’s,’ you have to be willing to really believe in something. And that’s what I look for in my collaborators and what I pitched the actors.”
He concluded: “So I wanted to howl. And this was my howl. And some people are not going to want to listen to it. That’s cool.”
Image Courtesy: Screen Rant