Director of Mother!, Darren Aronofsky has 8 signature trademarks throughout his films. We look back at patterns in his work, including highlights like Requiem For A Dream, Black Swan and the Wrestler.
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Transcript provided by Youtube:
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You know you’re watching a Darren Aronofsky film if
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We witness the downfall of an ambitious, obsessive protagonist.
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Darren Aronofsky’s dark, gripping films focus on ambition and obsession, and the psychological
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torment that results from both.
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At first glance, Aronofsky’s protagonists seem disparate in nature: a mathematician,
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a group of drug addicts, a surgeon, a wrestler, a ballet dancer, and a prominent biblical
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figure.
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Yet all of these characters strive for greatness, and often fly too close
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to the sun.
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The very thing they yearn to do, like wrestle or dance, leads to their breakdown.
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Each film can be described as a character study, taking a deep dive into the inner psyche of
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creative yet disturbed individual.
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Often intelligent and creative people, they walk a fine line between inspired and insane, as
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they search for meaning or purpose in their life.
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This ambition is exemplified in Aronofsky’s first film, the $68,000 dollar budget Pi which
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won him Best Director at Sundance in 1998.
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It chronicles mathematician Max Cohen’s paranoid quest to find a single number
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that will give order to the universe.
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On this quest to prove that order exists, Max ends up demonstrating the opposite, as the
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chaotic world drives him insane.
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The low-budget debut was a precursor of what was to come as Aronofsky’s protagonists
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would continue to be driven by an insatiable need for meaning.
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[I’m not interested in your money. I’m looking for a way to understand our world.]
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This self-destructive drive persists throughout Aronofsky’s filmography, especially in The
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Wrestler and Black Swan, which many people often view as a pair of films about creativity.
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Both films’ protagonists pursue a dream that we know will crush them in the end.
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After a brief attempt at living a “normal life,” Randy returns to wrestling, knowing
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that his heart may give out.
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In the end, Randy would rather die doing what he loves, than live doing what he hates.
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[You hear them? This is where I belong.]
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Likewise, Nina foresees the psychological breakdown that will occur if she pursues the
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role of the black swan — both in her opening dream, and in watching the company’s previous prima ballerina
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Beth.
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But it doesn’t matter to Nina because she’s willing to give up her sanity to get what
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she wants.
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[You can’t handle this.]
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[I can’t? I’m the swan queen, you’re the one who never left the corps!]
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Aronofsky observes that to reach our potential, we sometimes must destroy ourselves in the
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process.
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Aronofsky’s characters often construct an elaborate fantasy to shield themselves from the horrors and
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uncertainties of their real worlds.
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In Requiem for a Dream, the characters suffering from addiction escape into dreams to distract
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from their painful reality.
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Harry fantasizes about growing old with Marion, Marion dreams of pursuing a career in fashion
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design, and Sara believes she will be on TV.
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[It’s a reason to get up in the morning. It’s a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow alright.]
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The fantasies of both Harry and his mother are symbolized by the red dress — which embodies
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the ideal image they think they want for their lives.
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But in reality, they’re addicted to the escape of these fantasies more than they
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truly want the life they picture at the end of that pier.
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Over the course of the film, the red dress transforms from a symbol of hope into a symbol
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of darkness, as his character’s’ dreams collapse under the weight of their crippling
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addictions.
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[Can you come today?]
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[I’ll come. I’ll come today. You just wait for me, alright?]
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Aronofsky observes that we sometimes need fantasies to continue living, or life
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would be too unbearable.
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Tragically, at the end, they tell themselves that everything is going to be okay, because they know it
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won’t.
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In The Fountain, Aronofsky shows characters embracing a fantasy for a different purpose
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— to deal with the unknown and achieve peace.
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Izzi writes
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a book about Spanish conquistadors searching for the mythical fountain of youth.
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to help herself and her husband, Tommy, cope with her eventual death from cancer.
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Aronofsky has said, “Instead of facing this tragedy in terror, [Izzi] is coming to terms
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with what is happening to her.”
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And the film also represents the director’s own spiritual beliefs.
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He’s gone on record that, “My biggest expression of what I believe is in The Fountain.”
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Aronofsky, like all of us, does not know what comes after death, but he believes in the
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value of these fantasies and stories we tell ourselves, to cope with the uncertain.
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These stories that we invent are his religion – after all, it’s the basis of his art and
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his living.
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For Aronofsky, these stories or beliefs aren’t necessarily always comforting or happy.
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His retelling of the Biblical Great Flood in Noah is brutal and dark, questioning the
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nature of humanity and capturing the way in which the Old Testament contains violent,
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disturbing material that denies us easy comfort and answers.
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But even if they are this disturbing, our need for these stories and dreams is as deep
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as our needs for meaning itself.
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Aronofsky’s films can be seen as a cinematic parallel to the Expressionist art movement.
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At the turn of the century, Expressionist painters
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sought to illustrate the conflict between the surface level beauty and deeply felt,
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internal turmoil and insecurity.
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Aronofsky has referred to himself as an expressionist, saying, quote, “Stylistically, I try to
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be an expressionist, to use the camera to push the emotion of the scene.
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That’s the goal, to marry style with performance.”
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Rather than with oil paints and a canvas, Aronofsky uses his expressive camera to express the
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inner lives of his characters, and visualize what can’t be seen.
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Aronofsky shoots his films so that we view the world through the subjective eyes of his
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protagonists.
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He achieves this with first person cinematic techniques like tracking shots, point-of-view
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shots and immersive sound, giving us the impression that we are experiencing the events of the
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film first-hand with them.
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But he then pushes this further by showing us hallucinations and imaginations created
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by their minds, leading us to question their sanity and bringing us into their fantasy worlds.
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In Requiem For A Dream, we see Aronofsky’s deliberate use of expressive camera,
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when he uses a split screen shot to show Harry and Marion talking to each other in bed.
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The characters are physically close, next to each another, so the totally unnecessary use of
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split screen is to make the viewer aware of the invisible divides that exists between these two characters.
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Even at this point they’re not really seeing each other but their own dreams and illusions
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brought about by their highs.
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As their addiction worsens, it becomes even more clear that they both need drugs
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more than each other.
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Aronofsky also uses the split screen earlier in the film , to demonstrate the divide
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between Harry and his mother, because of his devastating addiction.
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At some points early in Requiem for a Dream, Aronofsky will let a scene play out before cutting
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and revealing to us that it’s an imagination.
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This occurs when Harry imagines stealing a gun from a police officer, or when Marion
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imagines stabbing her shrink in the hand with a fork. These scenes in to the later film, because
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when Harry gets his arm amputated or when Marion is forced to prostitute herself,
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we expect and want Aronofsky to cut away, telling us it’s just been a fiction. But he doesn’t.
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Instead, we’re denied the addicts’ escape, and we’re forced to remain in the devastating reality
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of what’s really happening to these characters.
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Nina’s warped perception of reality in Black Swan forces the viewer to decide
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what is and isn’t objectively happening.
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And by the end, her fantasy has become the entire world we see.
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Like in Black Swan, in Pi Aronofsky places the viewer firmly in the mind of the protagonist,
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using surrealist imagery to show us Max’s headspace.
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Whereas Nina’s hallucinations express her fear of an alternate self taking over, Max’s
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This is a literal manifestation of his fear that he’s going insane; that his brain will rot,
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whereas Nina’s hallucinations of another her express her fear of an alternate, destructive self taking over.
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Aronofsky often shoots his characters looking into mirrors, again to demonstrate that expressionistic
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conflict between external beauty and internal turmoil.
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In Black Swan, Aronofsky’s expressionist tendencies are on full display as mirrors are constantly present.
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A ballet dancer’s entire career and arc hinges on their external appearance.
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As the film progresses, she keeps looking into mirrors to make sure her internal
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unraveling doesn’t leak into her external appearance.
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The mirror also reminds us of Nina’s duality, both between inner and outer selves, and the black
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and white swan — and this mirror shot expresses the danger of fractured or multiple selves.
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The conflict between external and internal also shows up in Requiem for a Dream.
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In one scene, Tyrone stands in front of some mirrors, admiring his external appearance
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before being swept away in a daydream, melancholically remembering a moment in his childhood with
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his mother.
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This memory is triggered, in part, because his external appearance is at odds with his
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inner distress.
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On the outside, he looks in good physical shape, but on the inside, he knows that drugs have taken
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hold of his body and his life, and that he has disappointed his mother.
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Aronofsky illustrates that allowing our inner and outer selves to disconnect from each other
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leads to misery and madness.
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A key scene featuring strobe lighting often signifies the moment when the characters’
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inner strife finally manifests itself externally or physically.
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In Pi, the lights begin flickering in Max’s apartment before he decides to drill into
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his skull — it’s the moment when the internal and the external merge.
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His psychological distress can now be objectively seen, and leads him to damage his body.
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Likewise, in The Wrestler, lights flash in as Randy exists the ring after a particularly
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brutal match, and soon his repressed knowledge that he’s too old to
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keep wrestling translates physically in a heart attack.
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In Black Swan, the club scene is when Nina first outwardly expresses and acknowledges
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her sexual desire.
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In all of these scenes,
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the strobe light expresses the character’s world-shattering realization, and it signals that their
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inner distress has entered the outer-world and become physical.
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Like his subjective camera, the sound design in Aronofsky’s films is especially prominent
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because it tells us what the characters hear or feel, whether they’re
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doing drugs, using a computer, making money, waking up, or eating breakfast.
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These sounds bring us into the characters’ inner worlds, and they also give his films a noticeable rhythm,
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which keeps the viewer on edge.
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Aronofsky often explores extreme parent-child
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dynamics in his films.
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[You know, as a parent you can really understand that. If you’re too just with your child
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then you’re too strict and can really mess up your child. If you’re too merciful with your child then
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they don’t learn a lesson and it can go bad in another way. So being a good parent is having a good balance
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of justice and mercy.]
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In this way, 2017’s Mother!, with its echoes of Rosemary’s Baby, ties into Aronofsky’s other work as
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throughout his films, we’ve seen parent figures who are separated from their children
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by various delusions, seeing their own distorted visions of a child instead of who that child really
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is.
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In Requiem for a Dream, Harry’s mother is seemingly driven to addiction and insanity by aspirations
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to be on TV. But these delusions grow because of her son’s neglect.
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He rarely visits her, and when he does she’s unable to face the signs that addiction has
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taken over her son’s life, so she retreats into her fantasy to avoid acknowledging his absence and his addiction.
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All of the outward conflicts and plot in the Black Swan can likewise arguably be interpreted as expressions
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of a central parent-child conflict: Nina’s
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bitter, repressive mother gave up ballet to raise her daughter, and is now obsessed with
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Nina’s ballet career and trapping her in the childlike state we see Nina rebel against.
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Noah portrays a father whose cruel actions in the name of God result in a falling out between him and his son.
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The story seems to draw from the biblical tale of Abraham and Isaac, but it’s again getting at this issue of
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parents who see their children through the filter of a greater desire or belief,
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that has nothing to do with that child as an individual.
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Aronofsky’s melodrama and psychological horror tends to
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extend from a core story that’s based in these real family conflicts.
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Throughout his films, Aronofsky places the viewer in the mindset of someone experiencing
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psychological distress, self-doubt, and isolation.
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He uses his trademark expressive imagery and subjective camera techniques to flesh-out the stories
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of marginal, creative people as they experience universal struggles with darkness.
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[The only person standing in your way is you. It’s time to let it go.]
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