FILM | Index THE CINEFILES
ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT . . . DARREN ARONOFSKY
As his rainy epic Noah is banned in a raft of countries, Hannah McGill takes a closer look at the director behind what he calls ‘the least Biblical Biblical film ever made’. Aronofsky studied at Harvard and the American Film Institute. He was inspired to make low-budget films by Spike Lee’s debut She’s Gotta Have It, and Lee’s description of his own work as ‘guerrilla filmmaking’.
His first short, Protozoa, was made in 1993, and starred the young Lucy Liu. His feature debut Pi cost $60,000, and was funded by $100 loans from friends and family. His mother did the catering.
Leaving just a little room for improvement, Aronofsky has described the night he heard that Pi had got into the 1998 Sundance Film Festival as ‘potentially the greatest night of my life’. He went on to sell Pi for $1m, and to beat Vincent Gallo, Lisa Cholodenko and Benson Lee to that year’s Sundance best director award.
Aronofsky’s 2006 sci-fi spectacular / historical epic / medical thriller / philosophical meditation The Fountain was originally set to be made in 2002 – until, after more than two years of preparation, Brad Pitt quit just weeks before shooting commenced. ‘He told me he felt like he was breaking up with a girl,’ Aronofsky later said. Hugh Jackman took over; the film was widely panned, but has since garnered a substantial fan following.
Nicolas Cage was under consideration to play the lead role in 2008’s The Wrestler, but withdrew. According to Aronofsky, this was because he understood that the director favoured Mickey Rourke for the role. According to Cage, it was because he did not have time to physically prepare. The film would win the Golden Lion at Venice and bag Rourke a Golden Globe.
Aronofsky first met with Natalie Portman about starring in Black Swan ten years before it was finally made. He says that over the ensuing years of their friendship, ‘Natalie would say, “I’m getting too old to play a dancer. You better hurry up.”’
On the set of Black Swan, Aronofsky had Barbara Hershey write letters in character to her screen daughter, Portman’s Nina, that he would give to Portman on particularly important filming days. ‘I never read the letters,’ he says. ‘I just thought it should be between the two of them.’
When Aronofsky broke up with Rachel Weisz, his fiancé and the mother of his son, in 2010, shady internet gossip blamed an affair with Natalie Portman. Directorial projects to which Aronofsky has been temporarily attached include the moribund Batman: Year One; the recent Robocop remake; David O Russell’s Oscar-nominated The Fighter; and the X-Men sequel The Wolverine.
For Noah, Aronofsky resolved to avoid visual clichés. ‘When I asked Russell Crowe to star . . . I promised him one thing,’ he has said. ‘I would never shoot him standing on the bow of a houseboat with two giraffes sticking up behind him.’
The Ark itself, he notes, is not necessarily even a boat. ‘What’s described in Genesis is not something that he navigates. It’s just a big box.’
A fan of graffiti and comic book art, Aronofsky has marked the releases of The Fountain, Black Swan and Noah with self-curated exhibitions featuring original work by his favourite artists. ■ Noah is on general release from Fri 4 Apr.
66 THE LIST 20 Mar–17 Apr 2014
Moonrise Kingdom (12A) ●●●●● (Wes Anderson, US, 2012) Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray. 94min. Anderson’s movie will delight his fans; others may consider it overlong, whimsical and emotionally lightweight. Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh, Mon 24 Mar. LIVE SCREENING National Theatre Live: War Horse (tbc) (2014) Screening of the stage version of Michael Morpurgo’s novel about WWI, featuring life-sized puppets created by the Handspring Puppet Company. Selected release. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (12) ●●●●● (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, US, 2000) George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson. 107min. A lighter work for the Coens but it’s still a rare treat. Summerhall, Edinburgh, Sat 22 Mar. Pinocchio (U) (Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske, Norman Ferguson, T Hee, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Bill Roberts, US, 1940) Voices of Mel Blanc, Don Brodie, Walter Catlett. 88min. Classic, brilliant and quite wonderful animated musical feature about a little puppet boy who had no strings to hold him up. Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh, Sun 6 Apr. Planes, Trains and Automobiles (15) (John Hughes, US, 1987) Steve Martin, John Candy, Laila Robbins. 92min. Predictable and sentimental ‘odd couple’ road movie which is nonetheless genuinely funny. Cineworld Renfrew Street, Glasgow, Fri 28 Mar. Psycho (15) ●●●●● (Alfred Hitchcock, US, 1960) Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles. 109min. Classic Hitchcock film, one of the big precursors to the modern slasher. Double bill with Mama. The Brass Monkey, Edinburgh, Sun 30 Mar. The Raid (18) ●●●●● (Gareth Evans, Indonesia/USA, 2011) Iko Uwais, Doni Alamsyah, Yayan Ruhain. 100min. An Indonesian SWAT team storms a Jakarta tower block intending to take down crime lord Tama (Sahetapy), but finds itself trapped. Evans’ low-budget, high-impact approach has enormous gusto and ingenuity. Cineworld Fountainpark, Edinburgh, Mon 31 Mar; Cineworld Parkhead, Glasgow, Mon 31 Mar; Cineworld Renfrew Street, Glasgow, Mon 31 Mar. Random Acts of Romance (tbc) (Katrin Bowen, Canada, 2012) Emily Bett Rickards, Katharine Isabelle, Amanda Tapping. 87min. Anti-romantic comedy about how love is sloppy and messy and you just have to laugh at it. Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh, Thu 3 Apr. (Re)Constructed Pasts A selection of films coinciding with AR Hopwood’s False Memory Archive exhibition at the Talbot Rice Gallery. Featuring 5000 Feet Is the Best, Continuity, Stories We Tell and The Entire History of You. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Thu 27–Sat 29 Mar. The Reluctant Fundamentalist (15) ●●●●● (Mira Nair, USA/UK/Qatar, 2012) Riz Ahmed, Liev Schreiber, Kiefer Sutherland. 130min. Changez (Ahmed, impressive) is a Pakistan-born Wall Street financial analyst who finds himself ostracised after 9/11. The Pleasance, Edinburgh, Sun 23 Mar. RoboCop (18) ●●●●● (Paul Verhoeven, US, 1987) Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Ronny Cox. 103min. One of the best films of the 80s, with far more bite than its recent remake. Uncut version screening as part of Edinburgh Zombie Club’s Remakes Must Die Night. The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh, Wed 26 Mar. Rome, Open City (PG) (Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1945) Anna Magnani, Aldo Fabrizi, Marcello Pagliero. 101min. Rosselini’s definitive neo-realist film. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 21–Thu 27 Mar. LIVE SCREENING Royal Ballet: Romeo and Juliet (E) (UK, 2012) 132min. The Royal Ballet performs what has become one of its signature works since its première in 1965. Empire Clydebank, Clydebank, Tue 1 Apr. LIVE SCREENING Royal Ballet: The Sleeping Beauty (E) (UK) This version was revitalised by Monica Mason and Christopher Newton in 2006 for the company’s 75th anniversary, and since reworked further by top choreographers. Showcase Cinema Paisley, Paisley, Sun 23 Mar. LIVE SCREENING Royal Opera House: La Bohème (E) (John Copley, 2012) 165min. The Royal Opera House’s production of Puccini’s classic starring Rolando Villazón, beamed live from Covent Garden. Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh, Tue 8 Apr. LIVE SCREENING Royal Shakespeare Company: Richard II (tbc) Screening of the play starring David Tennant as Richard II. Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh, Tue 15–Thu 17 Apr; Cineworld Fountainpark, Edinburgh, Tue 15 Apr; Cineworld Renfrew Street, Glasgow, Tue 15 Apr. Silent Comedy Classics (tbc) Silent film comedy classics with live musical accompaniment and sound effects by Gladstone’s Bag. Britannia Panopticon Music Hall, Glasgow, Sat 29 Mar–Wed 2 Apr. Slow Food Film Night (tbc) An evening celebrating the blossoming local food movement in Edinburgh and beyond with screenings of Jeans and Marto and Local Roots. Edinburgh Larder Café, Edinburgh, Thu 20 Mar. The Smurfs 2 (PG) ●●●●● (Raja Gosnell, US, 2013) Neil Patrick Harris, Hank Azaria, Christina Ricci. 105min. Sequel to the 2011 animated blue adventure. Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow, Sat 29 Mar. Tangled (PG) ●●●●● (Nathan Greno, Byron Howard, US, 2010) Voices of Mandy Moore, Zachary Levi, Donna Murphy. 100min. Disney/Pixar funk-up of the classic tale of Rapunzel that is nonetheless traditional to the core. Paisley Arts Centre, Paisley, Sat 5 Apr. Ted (15) ●●●●● (Seth MacFarlane, US, 2012) Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Seth MacFarlane. 106min. John (Wahlberg) is a grown man living with a potty-mouthed teddy bear who came to life as the result of a childhood wish. Cineworld Renfrew Street, Glasgow, Sat 5 Apr. Under the Sea (U) (Howard Hall, UK, 2009) 65min. Jim Carrey narrates an underwater 3D look at the impact of global warming upon the diverse coastal regions of Southern Australia, New Guinea and the Indo-Pacific areas. Cineworld IMAX, Glasgow, Thu 20 Mar. Unforgiven (15) (Clint Eastwood, US, 1992) Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman. 123min. Darkly disturbing Western which destroys the genre’s traditional notions of clear-cut good and evil. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Tue 25 Mar. Wake In Fright (18) ●●●●● (Ted Kotcheff, Australia/US, 1971) Donald Pleasence, Gary Bond, Chips Rafferty. 114min. Rediscovered horror from Kotcheff, director of the first Rambo film. A teacher arrives in the Australian Outback, en route to Sydney. But a marathon booze session brings about enormous change. See feature, page 30. Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, Sat 22 Mar; Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh, Tue 25 Mar. We’re the Millers (15) ●●●●● (Rawson Marshall Thurber, US, 2013) Jennifer Aniston, Emma Roberts, Jason Sudeikis. 110min. How to get a huge shipment of drugs across the US/Mexico border? Assemble a fake, whitebread family to ferry it over, of course. Cineworld Renfrew Street, Glasgow, Sat 29 Mar. LIVE SCREENING West End Theatre: Noel Coward’s Private Lives (tbc) (Jonathan Kent, UK, 2013) Toby Stephens, Anna Chancellor, Anthony Calf. Stephens and Anna Chancellor star in this live production of Noel Coward’s 1930s comedy play. Cineworld Fountainpark, Edinburgh, Thu 20 Mar; Cineworld Parkhead, Glasgow, Thu 20 Mar; Cineworld Renfrew Street, Glasgow, Thu 20 Mar.