Ari Aster talks about finding comfort from divisive reactions to his movies, Beau is Afraid & Eddington, by watching Mr. Scorsese documentary
The upcoming in-depth documentary, Mr. Scorsese, reflects on the life and career of the acclaimed filmmaker Martin Scorsese and our Alex Maidy found it to be very engaging. He says in his review, “Taken as a five-hour documentary, Mr. Scorsese is reverential of the director while still giving attention to his vices and the lows of his career. Hearing contemporaries tell stories about working with Scorsese and what he was like during the various phases of his career provides a unique insight into how he has evolved as an artist. Scorsese himself is not shy about the mistakes he has made, nor is he apologetic about the decisions he has made on his films. Mr. Scorsese is one of the most fascinating portraits of a filmmaker I have seen.”
One person who the documentary really resonated with was director Ari Aster. Deadline reports that the filmmaker talked at a roundtable discussion about the film, and he revealed that he found comfort in watching it. Particularly, it helped him deal with divisive responses to his last two films, Beau is Afraid and Eddington. Aster explained,
As somebody who has made a couple films that were divisive. It’s helpful to remember, oh, right, The King of Comedy wasn’t well received. Like, what? The Age of Innocence was disappointing? And even New York, New York, to me is such a f-king exciting, playful, experimental, beautiful film. It’s so, so much more valuable than some perfect little trinket.”
Aster points out how his first two films, Hereditary and Midsommar, “were better received than my second two,” which was Beau is Afraid and Eddington, “And I think part of why that is because I kind of didn’t like the reception of the first two somehow. Now, I really don’t like the reception the second two. But I was watching this yesterday, and it was, like, really soothing to me.” He expounded, “It’s heartbreaking to release a film. It’s heartbreaking when it goes well, because it’s not yours anymore, and even the way people talk about it, it’s like you don’t recognize it. There’s something very alienating about it. It’s very lonely. And then there’s something really devastating when [the response] it’s not quite what you were hoping for.”
The director would come to the realization, “So many of [Scorsese’s] films were like lightning bolts … especially the ones that were okay with alienating the audience. It’s ‘what does the movie need?’ There’s nothing calculated about his films. And that’s the thing that was instructive to me growing up. It’s something I kind of go back to, to remind myself, like, yeah, that’s right.”
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