I couldn't sleep one night and I was sitting in my office and I realized that I was an independent filmmaker. Darren Aronofsky More Quotes by Darren Aronofsky More Quotes From Darren Aronofsky As filmmakers, we can show where a person's mind goes, as opposed to theater, which is more to sit back and watch it. Darren Aronofsky theater mind watches I try to live my life where I end up at a point where I have no regrets. So I try to choose the road that I have the most passion on because then you can never really blame yourself for making the wrong choices. You can always say you're following your passion. Darren Aronofsky passion regret choices I think religion is often very different from spirituality. Religion is often about rules and people trying to control our lives who are actually very unspiritual... God can be found anywhere, and in fact, everywhere. And you don Darren Aronofsky trying people thinking Film is a great tool to play with time, going back and forth through time, or speeding time up and slowing it down and do stuff like that. That's something you can't experience in real life that you can experience on film, and it takes you to a different place. Darren Aronofsky film different real I had some big ups and downs when I was in my 20s and the one thing I learned was, no matter how low it gets, something good will come along - something always comes out of that dark period. Darren Aronofsky matter dark lows I think it's important as a filmmaker, as any person working in the arts, that you've got to try new stuff and challenge yourself and take chances. Darren Aronofsky challenges art thinking Every film had its own grammar. And it's your job as a director to basically figure out a language to tell a story. Darren Aronofsky stories jobs directors Noah was this sort of patron saint in my life. When I finished Pi and I started to think about what was next, I was like, "Wow, it's interesting that no one has done a film of one of the greatest stories ever told." Even if you're not a Jew, a Muslim, or a Christian, you likely have a flood story in your culture. Darren Aronofsky christian interesting thinking I'm Godless. I've had to make my God, and my God is narrative filmmaking Darren Aronofsky movie narrative actors Also expressionistic filmmaking - making the audience feel like they were inside the characters' heads. And so we create all these different types of techniques to put the audience there. Darren Aronofsky technique different character In seventh grade I had a magical teacher, her name was Mrs. Fried. She wore only pink, she drove a pink Mustang, and she was half out of her head. But very inspiring. And one day she said, "Take out a paper and pen and write something about peace." For some reason I wrote a poem on Noah - I don't know why I chose Noah - and it turned out it was for a contest for the UN. I ended up winning and reading the poem in front of the UN. I remember Mrs. Fried telling me, "When you write your first book, dedicate it to me." That was like, "Whoa." Darren Aronofsky reading teacher book I think that there's an infinite amount of places where you can stick a camera. There's an infinite amount of choices of what could be going on. There's an infinite amount of places for so many things, so you have to figure out how to do your job. Darren Aronofsky choices jobs thinking For too long we have been taking, and the Earth has been giving. But that free-for-all, that all-you-can-eat buffet, it's over. The salad bar is closed. Darren Aronofsky bars giving long Casting ethnic characters is a very hard thing to do, but it's important. It's also interesting. Darren Aronofsky important character interesting I was always writing about the connection between man and nature. I grew up in a neighborhood that was right on the beach, but the beach was not like a beach you would imagine - there was a lot of pollution. And the most magical thing to me as a kid was sea glass, so I wrote about that a lot. Darren Aronofsky writing beach kids You hear stories about directors using manipulation to get actors to do certain things, but I think when you're working with professional actors, it's all about trust. They can do anything you want, it's just a matter of them understanding what you're looking for, and the reason why. Darren Aronofsky understanding directors thinking I think video games and that stuff should be as violent as possible, but age-appropriate. It should be realistic. When it's not realistic you run into kids running around shooting people and not realizing the consequences. Darren Aronofsky running kids thinking You can't look at the Noah story and not see some kind of environmental connection. The Creator wants to start over. He wants creation to be given a shot at survival, and the true enemy is the wickedness of men. Darren Aronofsky starting-over survival men I think I came to film-making through writing. I started to write, and people, teachers, responded to my writing. Darren Aronofsky writing teacher thinking I don't think I make genre films. I think studios try to sell films as genres because they know how to do that. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't know what I make. It's sort of a pot roast, all my films. Darren Aronofsky film trying thinking
