Darren Aronofsky

Darren Aronofsky (b. 1969) is an acclaimed American filmmaker known for his psychologically disturbing films. Before studying as a director at the American Film Institute, Aronofsky attended Harvard University, where he studied anthropology and filmmaking. He secured a reputation as a “cerebral” filmmaker with his feature debut Pi (1998), a low-budget, surrealist thriller in which a brilliant mathematician aims to reduce the world to the purely mathematical. After the film’s critical success and his Directing Award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, Aronofsky boarded on his first major project, Requiem for a Dream (2001), which follows the spiraling plunge into desperation of its four main characters, whose lives closely intertwine through various phases of drug addiction and pathological obsession. Aronofsky’s third feature, The Fountain (2006), received ambiguous reviews that, while acknowledging its visual and stylistic merits, often described the film as blatantly “pseudo-metaphysical.” The film failed at the box office, but now enjoys a cult status. By contrast, Aronofsky’s fourth feature, The Wrestler (2008), was released to critical acclaim. It stars Mickey Rourke as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, faced with a life crisis that has entrapped him in both bodily and mental pain, due to his inability to accept change (aging) or to grasp emerging opportunities. Like The Wrestler, Black Swan (2010) epitomizes the physical and psychological pain faced by the performers who use their bodies in extreme ways to express themselves emotionally. Noah (2014), Aronofsky’s sixth feature, is a biblically inspired epic that portrays Noah as a prophet who experiences hallucinations of an impending apocalyptic flood as messages from God. Aronofsky’s most recent feature is mother! (2017), a psychological horror film that, like Noah, conveys ecological themes through damage to the body of the protagonist, a central theme in Aronofsky’s oeuvre that is related to rationality (Pi), obsession (Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan), and finally environmental ethics (Noah, mother!). Many of Aronofsky’s films have received divided reviews and even provoked debate. For instance, there was considerable controversy regarding the graphic scenes of sexual abuse that are interwoven with scenes of physical and emotional torment in Requiem for a Dream. But it also drew critical acclaim and garnered an Academy Award nomination for Ellen Burstyn, who portraits elderly widow Sara Goldfarb in the film. Noah caused controversy for its interpretation of Noah as the first environmentalist, instead of remaining faithful to the biblical story. Most recently, mother! received similarly divided reviews as The Fountain. On the one hand, the film received praise for its artistic vision, its allegorical narrative, and the performance of its main characters, but it met with disapproval for its banality, nonsensicality, excess, and pretentiousness. It was described by horror novelist Mylo Carbia as the most controversial film since Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) after its screening in Venice Film Festival. It gained the reputation of being the most ambiguously received film in 2017, perhaps exemplifying the way in which Aronofsky’s films do not leave anyone indifferent.