Darren Aronofsky's films in one sentence:
PI- Gimic and black and white student film.
Requiem For A Dream- Magical realism with no magic and done already to death by other filmmakers hyper fast abrasive montage sequences that impress film school students.
The Fountain- Darren tries to find the meaning of life after only reading a couple pages in a either The Bible or a World Cultures textbook.
The Wrestler- Upper class guy Darren gets to tell bougie art film audiences what he thinks poor people do and proves that what he is expressing is real through un-imaginative anti-cinematic cinéma vérité.
Black Swan- The train that never could Aronofsky was building up to this film by not building at all because he never had the potentiality to make a good movie.
I apologize then on the behalf of cinema that you are given films like Black Swan and told that they are decent, the best of the year, etc. So you want to run out and see them, tell strangers you're excited about them as to have some human connection, etc. When the majority of what have been fed is garbage. So sweeter smelling garbage, but garbage none the less, is then digestible to you.
-KARL
The Wrestler: Gripping main character with a motive, extremely well-acted and believable. Coherent storyline from beginning to end, set in a world whose atmosphere has complete semblance with the character and the story. I don't know, I was pretty well-absorbed into it, that seems very cinematic if you ask me, Karl.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that The Fountain was a total piece of trash and The Wrestler was a vastly overrated film, however, I thought Pi was quite good, which is why his most recent films have been such a disappointment. The Black Swan? I don't know...
ReplyDelete@Jon, there was something stiff to the preformance by Rourke. The storyline was coherent, but the world didn't embody anything. We see a decaying boardwalk with his daughter, we see a strip club, we see him locked out of a trailer, etc., but we never see anything past that. There was no inner working to the film, it just did what was on paper. Also, I think the writer saved the more human elements for Big Fan, which I felt has more relevance to humanity as a whole.
ReplyDelete@Joshua, I think PI was just Aronofsky trying to make PI, but with a script that built up to the pitch line of the film. It's cyber punk aesthetic ultimately didn't lead to much. I feel it has a lot of connection actually with The Fountain in that regard.
Correction, I think PI was just Aronofsky trying to make Eraserhead.
ReplyDelete-KARL