Darren Aronofsky discusses his 2017 divisive film Mother! and evangelical resistance to Noah

Speaking at the keynote address, at the indie movies focused SXSW film festival, Darren Aronofsky touched upon a variety of topics pertaining to his films. The American filmmaker discussed the evangelical resistance to Noah, casting Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler against the wishes of financiers and his most recent film _Mother!_ [caption id=“attachment_4386289” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Jennifer Lawrence and Darren Aronofsky. Image from Twitter/@pamelamontes55[/caption] The Requiem for a Dream director addressed the polarised opinions about his 2017 film Mother! and told Variety, “I wanted to make a film about Mother Earth and how we treat Mother Earth. The way I see we treat Mother Earth is incredibly disrespectful. We pillage her, we rape her, we call her dirt. That’s why Jennifer played the character the way she did. There’s a lot of emotion.” Equating the character of Javier Bardem with God, Aronofsky added, “I looked at the Bible and how the Old Testament God is painted. When you think about that God, if you don’t pray to him, he kills you. What type of character does that? For me, it was about interpreting that to human emotion." In his address aptly titled, The 10 Commandments of Indie Film, he also spoke about his other biblical themed movie, Noah, which he claims, was almost sabotaged by opposing evangelical groups. The director revealed that things had escalated to the extent that he had even lost control over the edit. The evangelicals at Paramount Pictures turned his 2 hour, 20 minute cut to 85. But when the revised version turned out bad, the filmmaker got his way and his final cut made it to the theaters. The movie went on to become an acclaimed worldwide hit. He also spoke about his most successful and widely accepted movie, the Natalie Portman-starrer Black Swan. He faced resistance while he was pitching the movie in 2010. He looks back on the feedback he received which was mostly about how horror fans wouldn’t like ballet and ballet fans wouldn’t like horror. The ensuing success of the movie and Academy awards proved his critics otherwise.