Any interviewer’s worst nightmare is to be at the fag end of a series of celebrity interactions. The Hindu was the last but one to have a tête-à-tête with American director, producer and screenwriter Darren Aronofsky at the Taj Colaba before he rushed off to Liberty cinema for a Masterclass. As 2018 draws to an end, we throw the spotlight on a conversation with the acclaimed filmmaker who was honoured with the the Excellence in Cinema Award - International, at the Jio Mami 20th Mumbai Film Festival With Star.
Whether it’s Requiem For A Dream or Mother! ,the Harvard University and American Film Institute graduate has held audiences captive with what one would call shock-n-awe cinema. One that ever so often zooms in on the human mind and behaviour, the pains and turmoils embedded deep within. One that is compelling but controversial; persuasive yet polarising. We could barely scratch the surface of his oeuvre but still hung on, in the rush, to the few words he had to say.
What fascinates you about the human mind, its problems, dichotomies, reconciling the splits?
I don’t know how to answer that except that’s what we are. We are in our heads, we are our heads. I have always been interested in what we are, what we are thinking about and what we are feeling. Why the focus on it? I am not really sure, I just find it very fascinating. I have always been not just about exploring outer space but about inner space.
Does it lend itself well and challenge the craft? How you hone images and sound to bring that world alive?
One of the great things that cinema can do is transport the audience into the mind of a character. It’s different than theatre in that way. It’s more like literature in that you can go in and out of a character’s head. You can tell an audience what a character is looking at. You can give them a sense of what they are hearing and what they are feeling. So there are lots of different ways in which you can use cinema to express how the brain is functioning and working. Image and sound is the basis but how you decide to use them to create a subjective experience for an audience is part of the fun of making movies.
The open-endedness, the lack of answers, the beguiling and intriguing touch… Do you like that kind of relationship with the audience where you are not explicating but letting them go on a trip of their own?
I think filmmaking is about this kind of an exercise in empathy. You are inviting audience members to take a ride with an actor who is portraying a character and to experience their reality and their world. There’s always going to be many many interpretations of what you get out of that journey but hopefully it is all within the same sort of intent.
I think audiences are really smart. Many of them are bored of seeing the same type of movie over and over again, some aren’t, some love it but you know I have always tried to create cinema that leaves people time and room to make their own conclusions.
Pi at the start of your journey was in the indie space. I am not implying that your language has turned mainstream but there have been big actors and support from studios in your latter films. How has that journey been for you as a filmmaker?
Filmmaking itself is very very similar. You are always going to have partners. If you are an independent filmmaker you will certain kinds of partners and if you are working with studios they are not that different. It’s just about making sure that everyone at the beginning of the process is making the same type of movie and that they want to move forward with that.
Is cinema a provocative tool for you?
Those are big words, so hard to explain. I never go out trying to provoke. I am just telling the stories that come to me.
I don’t sit there behind the scenes and think about how something is going to become controversial. In fact I am usually surprised which part of things are actually controversial in films. I just try to be truthful and honest to the stories in front of me.
The repercussions of the controversies, and I see that happen in India too, these random calls to ban films… That must be really bothersome…
I don’t know, I like it.
You must be the first filmmaker to tell me that…
I don’t know, I think any of the controversy I have generated is not with ill intention. For me I am working to bring light into the world. Even though the films are often very dark, they are about revealing the light. They are not evil for evil’s sake and when they are dark it is usually critical of that darkness. I think some people miss that at times but most people sort of get that.
I have funny story about that title. When I was trying to make that movie I was at a dinner and this guy Bob Shaye who ran New Line Cinema and then we were all going to some party afterwards. Somehow it was just me and Bob in his limo.
I was a very young filmmaker and it might have been one of the first limousines I would have been in and Bob told me the worst title possible for a movie is Requiem For A Dream and I was like Bob, that’s the name of the book. He said, ‘It doesn’t matter if it’s the name of the book. Just change it’.
And I told him I can’t do that. It just tells you no one really knows what a title is until it gets out there into the world. It’s the same thing when you heard certain Internet companies’, those early names. When you first heard Yahoo and said, ‘what’s Yahoo?’. Those are very strange names. You don’t really know what a name is until it gets out into the world.
