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Tag: Darren Aronofsky

  • Emma Watson: ‘Noah’ Star Talks Film and Spirituality

    Emma Watson is just one of the stars in the new film Noah that premiered this weekend in theaters across the country. During one of her interviews touting the film she talked about the liberties director Darren Aronofsky took in translating the Bible story for telling on the big screen.

    ‘‘Darren does these very dark, very intense, very gritty, very real films,’’ Watson explained. ‘‘And then Noah is kind of — you see this guy with the long beard and there’s the animals. … You can’t really picture it.’’

    Then she read the script.

    ‘‘I think it’s a really original take on a genre, on a story, on an idea,’’ she said.

    Emma Watson’s role is that of Noah’s adopted daughter Ila. Is she a particularly religious woman in real life?

    “I already had the sense that I was someone who was more spiritual than specifically religious. … I’m really interested in those things that are more far-reaching than culture, nationality, race, religion,” she said.

    Darren Aronofsky has come under considerable fire from several Christian groups who have accused him of taking way too many liberties with the biblical text. Watson weighed in on that as well.

    “If we had gone with exactly the original story, Noah doesn’t say anything until he steps off the ark. You would have been watching a silent film. None of the women are really spoken about in the biblical story. There wouldn’t have been any women in it. He had to adapt it for the screen,” she said.

    And that makes perfect sense, too. Anyone who has read the Old Testament account of Noah knows that the entire tale is summed up in very few passages. There is no way to extract a film’s worth of story line from the biblical account.

    In addition to Emma Watson, Noah also stars Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly. The hype about this film alone may draw viewers to the box office. The special effects are said to be second to none as well.

    Noah appears to have what it takes to dictate many people’s weekend plans. Emma Watson seems to have played a role in drawing in at least a fair portion of the film’s soon-to-be fans.

    Image via Twitter

  • “Noah” Reviews Are Out Ahead of March 28th Release

    The reviews are in for hesitant movie goers wanting details about Paramount’s recent cinematic interpretation of Noah in advance of the March 28th opening date. The 138-minute movie is a creation of Darren Aronofsky who brought the world Pi and Black Swan. The movie has an impressive cast lineup including: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Watson, Logan Lerman, Douglas Booth, Mark Margolis, and Kevin Durand. Recently released mixed reviews have proven to be insightful.

    The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy recently wrote, “Whereas for a century most Hollywood filmmakers have tread carefully and respectfully when tackling biblical topics in big-budget epics aimed at a mass audience, [Darren] Aronofsky has been daring, digging deep to develop a bold interpretation of a tale which, in the original, offers a lot of room for speculation and invention.”

    Screendaily’s Tim Grierson shared the following:

    “Intrigued by the Noah story since childhood, Aronofsky has clearly poured his soul into this big-budget undertaking, using the clout of his commercial and critical hit Black Swan to make a movie that’s far more introspective and despairing than the usual popcorn epic. And yet, Noah mostly proves frustratingly ponderous, an anomaly in Aronofsky’s career that has been marked by films full of bravura flourishes and imaginative storytelling. To be fair, Aronofsky and co-writer Ari Handel have greatly expanded the Noah narrative, not just focusing on the preamble to the ark’s construction but also the aftereffects of the Great Flood, but they fail to come up with characters or scenarios that are all that captivating.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR2raSZihOM

    According to Variety’s Chief Film Critic Scott Foundas, Noah could be classified as a risky endeavor for present film studios. In a recent review, Foundas wrote:

    “Whatever comes of “Noah” (which opens this weekend in several foreign markets, including Mexico, a week ahead of its March 28 domestic launch), the film certainly ranks alongside “The Great Gatsby” and “Gravity” as one of the riskiest director-driven passion projects to be gambled on by today’s ever more cautious major studios.. If Aronofsky’s $130 million, 137-minute movie ultimately feels compromised at all, it’s less by studio interference than by its director’s own desire to make a metaphysical head movie that is also an accessible action blockbuster. “Noah” does not always sit easily astride those competing impulses, but it is never less than fascinating, and sometimes dazzling, in its ambitions.”

    Foundas went on to add that, “Noah rarely disappoints, commencing with the building of the ark itself. Designed by production designer Mark Friedberg (and built, to the actual dimensions specified by the Bible, on a New York soundstage), it is an awesome thing.”

    Image Via Wikimedia Commons

  • J-Lo, Darren Aronofsky Team Up For Non-Bizarre Kohl’s Ad

    In 2010, Darren Aronofsky directed one of the best films of the year – Black Swan. It won Natalie Portman an Oscar and was itself nominated for best picture. And it was deserving of all its acclaim in book, even if you take out some of Mila Kunis’ more erotic scenes…

    Anyway, that was simply said in order to get the point across that Aronofsky has some experience with putting dance on the screen. In all honesty though, calling Black Swan a dance film is like calling Silence of the Lambs a movie about entomology.

    However dance-centric you classify Black Swan, the point is that Aronofsky’s new project deals with the fun side of dance as opposed to the finger-peeling, schizophrenic side of it. According to MediaBistro, Aronofsky is the director behind the newest Kohl’s ad featuring Jennifer Lopez. You see, J-Lo has a clothing line at Kohl’s, and she’s appeared in numerous commercials for the brand over the past year or so. This time, she’s got the music in her.

    Check it out below:

    Kohl’s “Classic. Remixed” from H.K. McCANN on Vimeo.

    Pretty hard to tell it has the Aronofsky touch, isn’t it? I guess everyone just needs a paycheck now and again.

    The last time we saw Aronofsky at work with advertisements, he was the brain behind a series of anti-meth ads that definitely bear his mark:

    ER from Organic Inc. on Vimeo.

    What do you think? Can you spot the Aronofsky in that J-Lo ad? Are you, like me, waiting for someone to remix that ad with the Requiem fior a Dream music? Let us know in the comments.