Darren Aronofsky discusses 'The Fountain' and 'Noah's Ark'

Chris Tilly catches up with the visionary director to talk about films past and present.

May 30 2007

To celebrate the release of 'The Fountain' on DVD, writer/director Darren Aronofsky tells Chris Tilly about the film's difficult journey to the screen, discusses the mauling it took at the hands of critics, and talks about his forthcoming film version of 'Noah's Ark'.

Are you sick and tired of talking about 'The Fountain' yet?

Well I haven't talked to anyone about it in months actually, so I'm all fresh.

Pleased to hear it – so how long has it been since you first started thinking about the project?

I definitely had some of the ideas in 1999, because me and a bunch of friends were at a millennium party and a few days before I pitched them some ideas for it. That's the earliest date I can figure out, so it's been more than seven years.

Aside from the length of time, how else did making 'The Fountain' differ to making 'Pi' and 'Requiem for a Dream'?

Making movies is very similar – it doesn't matter what the scope or the budget it, you have a limited amount of money, you have a limited amount of time and you have a limited amount of creativity. That's 'the triangle' as I call it – everything is pulling on each other. You can have one or two at one time, but never all three. And that's the boundary you have to work in. So it's all about decision-making and making the right choice at the right moment, then not regretting it. And if you do fuck up, rolling with the punches.

The film obviously had a difficult journey to the screen – were there times when you felt like giving up.

Yes, but for me, I choose a picture based on the characters and ideas in the film. Because to wake up every day and be psyched about something and then get a whole crew to be excited about it, it needs to be something that you can find a well of passion in. And if it's not, there's just too much shit trying to shut you down. To be as stubborn as I was, there had to be a lot in there for me to hold on to.

So it was the characters that pulled you through?

Definitely – trying to see the characters come alive.

You've travelled all over the world with this film now – what's the reaction been like from different audiences?

To me it's always been very supportive. I know the critics have been pretty tough on it but watching audiences watch it, it's been the most favourable of all the films I've done. 'Pi' was really out there for a lot of people, and 'Requiem for a Dream' was real tough on audiences that weren't expecting it. With 'The Fountain' I've watched people holding their girlfriend's hands and sniffling and crying and that's always been really good.

Does that make it all worthwhile?

Any time you get someone understanding what you are putting out there, in a way that's sometimes deeper than you could have ever imagined, that's all the reward you need. When it touches people. 'The Fountain' is undeniably a very different kind of movie for a studio to release, but when people get it and take the time to write a letter talking about what it meant to them, it's very rewarding.

But the critics didn't seem too keen – did that hurt after the acclaim of your first two films?

My mentor Stuart Rosenberg said 'never read the critics because when they're bad, it hurts and when they're good, it's worse', because then it makes you cocky and destroys you in a different way. I haven't read the critics since I read the bad New York Times review of 'Pi'. That was the last one. It can go either way with critics, and the reality is that 'The Fountain' is a completely earnest film. It takes itself very seriously, and in today's times that is the avant garde. Cynicism is in the mainstream. I remember watching David Letterman in the late '80s early '90s when he first started out, and it was this completely new thing where he was making fun of everything. Before that talk shows were Johnny Carson, where there was humour but also sincerity. Letterman kind of ripped that apart and the '90s have had that sort of cynicism and the result of that is Paris Hilton. We've kind of brought her on ourselves – this age of superficiality, of empty pop culture, of the Spice Girls, of people being famous for having no talent and adding nothing to the culture. But you look at Al Gore's film and you realise that people are becoming conscious of the fact that we're really screwing up the world and it's fine for people to make serious movies. I just think that critics are the last people to let go of that cynicism. Especially Time Out New York – I can't read their reviews because they just seem to love ripping shit apart. Not to be harsh on Time Out, but to me, it's really about the reaction of the people who get it. And the really rewarding thing is when people go to the theatre expecting to see a movie and then suddenly 'The Fountain' hits them and they walk out like 'What the hell was that?' But a little bit of it sort of sticks with them. I kind of made an art film in studio clothing and I think that's very bizarre for people. And the problem is the critics, who are always complaining about all this crap that's out there, any chance that an art film gets through the studio system, there should be a certain kind of support…

…you can't expect them to support a film they think is bad.

Even if they don't like it, the fact that the studio has supported a film that's as uniquely positioned as 'The Fountain', there's something different there that's worthy of support.

What's up next for you?

I'm writing a new screenplay – an adaptation of 'Noah's Ark'. I'm probably going to do something small first to clear the palette and get back to directing, and then I'd like to make Noah.

So that's going to be big then?

Definitely – I don't know how you flood the world otherwise.

Why do you think now's the time to re-tell that story?

Well it's the first apocalypse story, and as we as a race look at our own apocalypse in front of us, especially by flooding, I think it's part of the zeitgeist. People are thinking about what London six feet under is going to be so that's why I'm going to do it.

'The Fountain' is out on DVD now.

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