The Darkest Corner by Alyson Payne

The Ruin of Obsession in the Films of Darren Aronofsky

CONTENTS ABOUT

Speakers

Schedule

DIRECTOR & FILMS

Director

Filmography PI

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM

THE WRESTLER

BLACK SWAN

LOCATION & VENUE

Venue

Lodging

Sights

Conclusion

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GOING TO THE DARKEST CORNER Dark is defined as having very little light or no light. A dark room. To be radiating, admitting, or reflecting little light. A dark color. Approaching black in hue. Appearing gloomy, cheerless, dismal. It is sullen, frowning. A dark expression. Evil, iniquitous, and wicked. A dark plot. Corner is defined as the place at which two converging lines or surfaces meet. It is defined as a projecting angle, especially of a rectangular figure or object. It is an end, a margin, an edge. Any narrow or secluded place. It is a position from which escape is impossible.

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

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FOLLOWING AN OBSESSION Obsession is defined as a persistent idea or impulse that continually forces its way into consciousness, often associated with anxiety and mental illness. It is a persistent preoccupation, idea, or feeling. It is the act of obsessing or the state of being obsessed. It is the state of being obsessed. It is the act of obsessing. It is the action of obsessing. It is the domination of oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc. It is the state of being obsessed. It is the act of obsessing.

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

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A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

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A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

THE DARKEST CORNER FILM FESTIVAL Welcome. This year will mark the first annual event for aspiring filmmakers and enthusiasts alike, The Darkest Corner Film Festival. Darren Aronofsky along with St. Annâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Warehouse are proud to host this festival, and film lecture series that caters to those with an appreciation for the arts with a dark twist.

“This is the darkest corner. The bad decision you never should have made, a question that shouldn’t have been answered and a risk not worth the taking.”

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A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

THE RUIN OF OBSESSION

When watching a film by Darren Aronofsky you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help but wait for the inevitable and sometimes fatal fall of the protagonist. Each of his films chosen for this festival is marked by some type of obsession which brings the characters lives into a dark place from which they will not escape from. This is the darkest corner. The bad decision you never should have made, a question that shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have been answered and a risk not worth the taking. It is an adventure not worth seeking, a thirst that should not be quenched and a curiosity that should not be sought out but was. Our folly as humans is to lead ourselves down paths that will end at a crossroads with severe consequences. The films to be screened at this festival are the epitome of the havoc

that is wreaked in the lives of the characters. You will witness gut-wrenching devastation that is so artistically gripping, it’s impossible to pull away.

THE CLAIM TO FAME

Darren Aronofsky has exhibited not once but four times in his career as a filmmaker. This film festival will give those who attend an unprecedented opportunity to hear straight from Darren and his team about the inner workings of creating narrative film. The lectures provided by him, his film crew, and talented individuals which have formed long term relationships with Aronofsky will paint a picture of the creative steps and thought processes behind their incredibly successful film projects. Aronofsky’s is a number hard to come by. Yet for all his talk of telling stories only he can tell, of imbuing every film with life experience, of “connecting”. The issue, perhaps, is that his film making style is so present and so powerful in all his movies that it effectively commandeers the characters in them. Aronofsky is not running short of devotees. “The fans shift,” he says. “There are a lot of Pi fans out

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there, and there are a lot of Requiem fans who hated Pi. And there are a lot of Fountain fans who hated Requiem and Pi. The ones that stick with me—I’m psyched that they’re looking forward. For me, I’m just trying to tell stories that haven’t been told before, trying to do something that’s original, to tell them in original ways.” Originality is one trait Aronofsky’s films can hardly be accused of lacking. Pushing the envelope has become so definitively his stock in trade that to settle for something generic or something not uniquely of his voice and vision would be an egregious artistic offense against himself. “I think it’s important,” he says, “as someone working in the arts, to keep challenging yourself, and keep trying new things—different things.” The thing I always say is if you’re going to deal with all the pain of making a film and seeing it through, then it better be something you’re very passionate about. Don’t try to play to the middle. Play to what makes you special, tell the story that only you can tell. And then do the work.”

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

Broken glass in a rough neighborhood full of drugs and crime.

“His films always ask the audience to think as well as to feel, and to accept levels of paranoia and anguish that most films would steer clear of.” Northwestern assistant professor of English and Gender Studies Nick Davis is also a freelance film critic. He applauds him for being a true artist, for his finesse when dealing with heavy emotional themes, for making bold, unconventional decisions in his film making. “His films always ask the audience to think as well as to feel, and to accept levels of paranoia and anguish that most films would steer clear of.”

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INTRODUCING GUEST SPEAKERS The following people will be speaking in person at the festival. We have provided you with a short biography to get you up to speed on the achievements and knowledge of these men and a little bit on what to anticipate for the lives talks.

Aronofsky is the inspiration and muse behind this fi lm festival and no doubt only at the beginning of a very successful career.

DARREN ARONOFSKY DIRECTOR/FILMMAKER Lectures: The Future of Indie Film

Out director speaks about his journeys in independent filmmaking and what he anticipates for the future of this film genre. He will discuss the creative process behind his narrative filmmaking and share the ideas and creative process that went into his films from conception to development to post production. He will also discuss todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;sâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; large volume of inexpensive, high end digital film equipment available at the consumer level, the impact of the falling cost of technology and new editing software available for home computers. A must for all who are interested in becoming part of this field.

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Sean Gullette attended the American fi lm Institute with Aronofsky and has been a friend and collaborator since.

SEAN GULLETTE ACTOR

Lecture: The Making of Pi

A long time personal friend of Darren Aronofsky’s, Sean Gullette and he met when they both were attending film school. He co-wrote and starred in Aronofsky’s first big hit, Pi, and since has landed principal and supporting roles in some twenty films including Brad Anderson’s Happy Accidents (with Vincent D’Onofrio and Marisa Tomei) and Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (with Jennifer Connelly), the German film Toskana Karrussel. He will discuss the making of Pi, reveal extra footage never before seen from the film and discuss various theories in numerology and Judaism from the film.

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“ Without Dan Schrecker, Natalie Portman would have never become the black swan. And Darren Aronofsky would have never become a director.”

DAN SCHRECKER VISUAL EFFECTS ARTIST Lectures: Bringing Film to Life

Without Dan Schrecker, Natalie Portman would have never become the black swan. And Darren Aronofsky would have never become a director. It’s typical to see career-long pairings of director and actors, or directors and producers. It’s more rare to see a director cling to his effects man, as Aronofsky does with Schrecker, his friend since college who has done graphics, effects, title design, or postproduction work on all of Aronofsky’s films--Pi, which was filmed at Schrecker’s mother’s Upper West Side apartment, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, and now, Black Swan.

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

Matthew Libatique has been several times over now nominated for awards due to his strong visual skills in fi lm.

MATTHEW LIBATIQUE CINEMATOGRAPHER Lectures: Photography and Film

Having worked on the cinematography for Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, and Black Swan, Matthew Libatique knows the ins and out of some of the most inspiring imagery in Aronofskyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s films. Libatique served as director of photography for music videos and teamed with fellow AFI alumni Aronofsky for the short film Protozoa. The two have collaborated on the first three of Aronofskyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s feature films. He studied at the American Film Institute where he received his MFA in Cinematography. He was also member of the dramatic jury at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001 and 2002.

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EVENT SCHEDULE 3.1415

Opening Reception 10.00

Speaker Introductions 11.00–11.30

Brunch served with whiskey sours and bloody marys, welcoming statement from Darren Aronofsky. Members of Aronofsky’s film crew who will be speaking will give introductions and be available for a meet and greet.

Film Screenings Requiem for a Dream

Released in 2000, follow a journey into a druginduced dystopia.

The Wrestler

Released in 2008, follow a wrestler during the final downward spiral of his career.

12.00

2.30

Lectures Dan Schrecker

Bringing Film to Life

Matthew Libatique

Photography and Film

Sean Gullette

The Making of Pi

Darren Aronofsky

The Future of Indie Film

5.00–5.20

6.30–6.50

7.30–7.50

8.00–8.30

Film Screenings Black Swan

Released in 2010, follow a ballerina as she slowly destroys herself.

Released in 1998, follow a mathematician as he borders on genius and madness.

9.00

11.30

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

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A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

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A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

THE FILM MAKER AND HIS FINEST WORK We have selected the best work by Darren Aronofsky to be shown at this exclusive event. Though this merely represents the best work that currently exists, it is without a doubt that more inspiring and consuming pieces are still waiting to be developed.

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“ 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

Aronofsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1969 to a Jewish couple, Abraham and Charlotte Aronofsky. Abraham Aronofsky was a high school science teacher at Bushwick High School in Brooklyn. Darren’s parents would often bring him to Broadway theater performances, which sparked his keen interest in show business. During his youth he trained as a field biologist with The School for Field Studies in Kenya in 1985 and Alaska in 1986. Upon graduating from Edward R. Murrow High School in 1987, he entered Harvard University, where he took live action film, and animation courses, eventually majoring in social anthropology and graduated from Harvard in 1991 with honors. He became seriously interested in film while attending Harvard,

where he roomed with aspiring animator Dan Schrecker. After seeing his roommate’s assignments, Aronofsky considered pursuing a career in animation. His senior thesis film, Supermarket Sweep, was a finalist in the 1991 Student Academy Awards. In 1992, Aronofsky received his MFA degree in directing from the AFI Conservatory, where his classmates included Scott Silver, Doug Ellin, and Mark Waters. He also won the institute’s Franklin J. Schaffner Alumni Medal. He notes “La Dolce Vita” as one of his early influences in film.

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

EARLY WORK

Aronofsky’s debut feature, Pi (also known as π), was shot in November 1997. The film was financed entirely from $100 donations from friends and family. In return, he promised to pay each back $150 if the film made money, and they would at least get screen credit if the film lost money. Producing the film with an initial budget of $60,000, Aronofsky premiered Pi at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, where he won the Best Director award. The film itself was nominated for a special Jury Award. Artisan Entertainment bought distribution rights for $1 million. The film was released to the public later that year to critical acclaim and grossed $3,221,152. Aronofsky followed his debut with Requiem for a Dream, a film based on Hubert Selby, Jr.’s novel of

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the same name. He was paid $50,000, and worked for three years with nearly the same production team as his previous film. Following the financial breakout of Pi, he was capable of hiring established stars, including Ellen Burstyn and Jared Leto, and received a budget of $3,500,000 to produce the film. Aronofsky filmed the movie in a year, and it was originally set for release in 2000, but it met with controversy in the United States, being rated NC-17 by the MPAA due to a nude sex scene. Aronofsky decided not to appeal the rating, so Artisan released the film unrated. The film eventually went on to gross $7,390,108 worldwide. As in his previous film, Aronofsky used montages of extremely short shots, sometimes termed a hip hop

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

Darren Aronofsky during the shooting of his fi rst big fi lm, Pi.

montage in film. While an average 100 minute film has 600 to 700 cuts Requiem features more than 2,000. Split-screen is used extensively, along with extremely tight closeups. Aronofsky received acclaim for his stylish direction, and was nominated for another Independent Spirit Award, this time for Best Director. The film itself was nominated for five awards in total, winning two, for Best Actress and Cinematography. Clint Mansell’s soundtrack for the film was also well-regarded, and since their first collaboration in 1996, Mansell has composed the music to every Aronofsky film. Ellen Burstyn was nominated for numerous awards, including for an Academy Award for Best Actress, and ultimately won the Independent Spirit Award.

In mid-2000, Warner Bros. hired Aronofsky to write and direct Batman: Year One, which was to be the fifth film in the Batman franchise. Aronofsky, who collaborated with Frank Miller on an unproduced script for Ronin, brought Miller to co-write Year One with him, intending to reboot the series. “It’s somewhat based on the comic book,” Aronofsky said. “Toss out everything you can imagine about Batman! Everything! We’re starting completely anew.” Regular Aronofsky collaborator Matthew Libatique was set as cinematographer, and Aronofsky had also approached Christian Bale for the role of Batman. Bale later would be cast in the role for Batman Begins. However, the studio abandoned Year One in favor of Batman vs. Superman.

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Aronofsky speaking with an interviewer about his work on Requiem for a Dream

BREAKTHROUGHS In 2007, Aronofsky hired writer Scott Silver to develop The Fighter with him. He had approached actor Christian Bale for the film, but Aronofsky dropped out because of its similarities to The Wrestler and to work on MGM’s RoboCop remake. In July 2010, MGM scrapped the project, which one film site said Aronofsky had left due to uncertainty over the financially distressed studio’s future. Aronofsky himself, when asked about the film, replied, “I think I’m still attached. I don’t know. I haven’t heard from anyone in a while.” Later during 2007, Aronofsky said he was planning to film a movie about Noah’s Ark. Aronofsky had the idea for The Wrestler for over a decade. He hired Robert D. Siegal to turn his idea

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

into a script. Actor Nicolas Cage entered negotiations in October 2007 to star as Randy, the film’s protagonist. The following month Cage left the project, and Mickey Rourke replaced him in the lead role. Cage pulled out of the movie because Aronofsky wanted Rourke to star, Aronofsky said, stating that Cage was “a complete gentleman, and he understood that my heart was with Mickey and he stepped aside. I have so much respect for Nic Cage as an actor and I think it really could have worked with Nic but, you know, Nic was incredibly supportive of Mickey and he is old friends with Mickey and really wanted to help with this opportunity, so he pulled himself out of the race.” The roughly 40 day shoot began in January 2008. The Wrestler premiered at the 65th Venice International Film Festival. Initially flying under the radar, the film wound up winning the Golden Lion, the highest award at the world’s oldest film festival. Aronofsky was only the third American director in history to win this prize. The Wrestler received great critical acclaim, and both Rourke and co-star Marisa Tomei received Academy Award, Golden Globe,

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SAG, and BAFTA nominations for their performances. Rourke won a Golden Globe, as did Bruce Springsteen for the original song the rock star wrote for the film. The Wrestler grossed $44,674,354 worldwide on a budget of $6,000,000 making it Aronofsky’s highest grossing film to that point. Aronofsky’s next film was Black Swan, which had been in development since 2001, a psychological thriller about a New York City ballerina. The film starred actress Natalie Portman, whom Aronofsky had known since 2000. She also introduced Aronofsky to Mila Kunis, who joined the cast in 2009. Aronofsky said Roman Polanski’s Repulsion and The Tenant were “big influences” on the style of the film. Black Swan had its world premiere as the opening film at the 67th Venice Film Festival on October 2010. It received a standing ovation whose length Variety said made it “one of the strongest Venice openers in recent memory”. Black Swan has received high praise from film critics, and received a record 12 Broadcast Film Critics Association nominations, four Independent Spirit Award nominations, four Golden Globe nominations,

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

“Black Swan had its world premiere as the opening film at the 67th Venice Film Festival on October 2010. It received a standing ovation whose length Variety said made it ‘one of the strongest Venice openers in recent memory’.” three SAG nominations, five Oscar Nominations and many more accolades. Aronofsky himself received a Golden Globe and Academy Award nomination for Best Director. The film broke limited-release boxoffice records and grossed an unexpectedly high $326,847,336. On January 25, 2011, the film was nominated for five Academy Awards; Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Cinematography as well as a nomination for Best Film Editing and won one for Portman’s performance. Aronofsky is serving on the 2011 Margaret Mead Film Festival’s Mead Filmmaker Award Jury. In April 2011, it was announced that he would be the Head of the Jury at the 68th Venice International Film Festival in September of that year. She also introduced Aronofsky to Mila Kunis, who joined the cast in 2009. Darren Aronofsky said Roman Polanski’s Repulsion and The Tenant were “big influences” on the style of the film.

DARREN ARONOFSKY SPEAKS

INTERVIEW: Concerning Darren Aronofsky’s “Requiem For A Dream” and “Pi”. Inview.Kqed.Org by B. Ruby Rich B. Ruby Rich (Ruby): I think you really put people into the space of, well, of somebody with a migraine headache. You know, how do you get there? Do you get migraines? Darren Aronofsky (DA): No, a friend of mine who was a really talented actress, her career was basically devastated by her migraines, and I never realized they were so debilitating and I started talking to her and she, I started seeing artwork that came from, that migraine sufferers drew of their migraine attacks and it was exactly the type of things we were talking about, like the hand of god reaching down and pulling out a chunk of brain.

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DA: What I really like about subjective filmmaking, and “Pi”, and why I was attracted to this is when you’re walking down the street, you’re not just walking down the street. You’re thinking about the conversation you had with your mom two hours ago or you’re thinking about the vacation you’re going to go on in two weeks with your friends. Your mind is all over the place and I love -- the great thing about filmmaking is that as filmmakers, we can show where a person’s mind goes, as opposed to theater, which is more to sit back and watch it. RR: You know, a lot of filmmakers seem to be either very literary-based or else very movie-based who just watch movies. You seem to really be developing this new visual style that suits each story. You know, how did you find this third road?

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

When approaching the darkest corner of your mind it is normal to feel fear or discomfort, but keep moving.

DA: It’s probably because I’m Godless. And so I’ve had to make my God, and my God is narrative filmmaking, which is— ultimately what my God becomes, which is what my mantra becomes, is the theme. RR: So it didn’t just come from growing up on Coney island? DA: If anything, it came from eight hours of TV a day. I was a TV junkie as a kid. I am the Sesame Street generation. 1969, I was born the year Sesame Street was launched and that was the year my mom plopped me in front of the TV and said, don’t cry anymore. And I think 17, 18 years later, after eight hours of TV a day, I think that’s the culture.

RR: I know that you studied animation early on and I was really struck with how the character’s inner thoughts and feelings really changed their physical surroundings in a very material way. DA: You know, it’s subjective filmmaking. It’s coming out of subjectivity, but definitely animation was a big influence. I mean, my business partner right now and also my college roommate, who was Dan Schrecker who got me into filmmaking, is an amazing animator and they have to live life 24 times as long as we do because, you know, they basically have to—every 24 frames of a second. They’re basically painting or drawing and being meticulous.

RR: You’ve pioneered a lot of ingenious special effects, some of them low-budget, different kinds of camera work, way beyond a steady cam. What’s a vibra cam? What’s a snorry cam? DA: Those are just, you know, marketing teams trying to add a little, you know, terms to our stuff. But vibra cam was a camera, you know, it was just a technique, a film technique we started in “Pi,” which is whenever Max Cohen had his headaches, the frame would shake. And how we did it back then, we just literally put the camera on a long lens and just shook it, because that was about what we could afford. And in “Requiem” we got to sort of master it. Snorry cam is basically a rig that attaches the camera to the actor’s body. I call it the utmost in subjective filmmaking because the character is frozen in the sense of the frame while the background is moving. RR: You rely a lot on special effects in your films. And yet I think what saves the films from being a sort of MTV razzle dazzle experience are these moments of quiet intensity, of emotional connection between the characters.

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“It’s probably because I’m Godless. And so I’ve had to make my God, and my God is narrative filmmaking.” DA: Well, whenever there’s not intensity, emotional intensity, I just light up the fireworks. You know, because I think that’s what it’s about. I think the biggest crime is to bore an audience. Really, I can’t stand being bored. If anyone sleeps in my film, I’ll kill ya because I just don’t -- I just want to get people their money’s worth. RR: To what extent do you anticipate audience’s reactions from the material? DA: It’s hard to really know where an audience is at. You just -- you know, it’s one of those gut things; when you’re watching it happen, you’re

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

hoping it’s working. And then, if it’s not working, you hope you can save it in editing. And if you can’t save it in editing, you hope that Ellen Burstyn is in the scene, and it will be okay, because whenever Ellen’s on the screen, it works. RR: Ellen Burstyn is brilliant in this film. DA: Thank you, well, actually I shouldn’t be thanking you because I had nothing to do with it. It was purely was Ellen. Here’s a 67 year old actress that lets the camera one millimeter from her face. She was wearing makeup, no makeup and sometimes makeup that made her look worse. And, you know, just complete no vanity, complete surrender to the world, complete surrender to the material. And that’s what it’s about. You know, I think it’s a modern horror film. We always saw this as a monster movie except that the monster was invisible. The creature was invisible. It was addiction, living in the character’s head and the only other difference is that the creature wins.

A barred door signals lack of escape or alternate route

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A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

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A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

SELECTED FILMS FOR THE DARKEST CORNER Four films were chosen to be a part of this special event. They most aptly represented the tone of the festival and the supported the idea of going to the darkest corner. These films are Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, and Black Swan. They also represent a collection of films form the breadth of Aronofskyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s entire career thus far.

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Character Maximillian Cohen examines a metal coil.

Max is a genius mathematician whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s built a supercomputer at home that provides something that can be understood as a key for understanding all existence. Representatives both from a Hasidic cabalistic sect and high-powered Wall Street firm hear of that secret and attempt to seduce him. The film is about a mathematical genius, Maximillian Cohen, who narrates much of the movie. Max, a number theorist, theorizes that everything in nature can be understood through numbers, and that if you graph the numbers properly patterns will emerge. He is working on finding patterns within the stock market, using its billions upon billions of variables as his data set with the assistance of his homemade supercomputer, Euclid.

The film opens with Max narrating a time when he was very young and tried to stare directly at the sun, despite his motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s warnings not to. His eyes were terribly damaged, and his doctors were not sure if they would ever heal. They did, but immediately thereafter he began to be plagued with headaches. The headaches are severe enough to drive him to the brink of madness, and he often passes out from the pain. He also suffers from extreme paranoia, manifested in menacing hallucinations, and social anxiety disorder. Throughout the film, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate what is real and what is imagined. In the course of his work, Max begins making stock predictions based on Euclidâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s calculations. In

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

the middle of printing out the picks, Euclid suddenly crashes, but first spits out a 216-digit number that appears to be nothing more than a random string. Disgusted, Max tosses out the printout of the number. The next morning, Max checks the financial pages and sees that the few picks Euclid made before crashing were accurate. He searches desperately for the printout but cannot find it. Driven to the brink of madness, Max experiences another headache and resists the urge to take his pain medication. Believing that the number and the headaches are linked, Max tries to concentrate on the number through the pain. After passing out, Max has a vision of himself standing in a white void and repeating the digits of the number. Maxâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s neighbors

discover him unconscious and revive him, breaking his vision. Giving up, Max trepans himself in the right temple, where he believes his mathematical genius is located. Whether this actually occurs is left ambiguous. Later, Max sits on a park bench and reveals that he is no longer able to perform complex mental calculation. He observes the trees blowing in the breeze, at peace.

AN INTERVIEW WITH DARREN ARONOFSKY AND SEAN GULLETTE OF “PI” INTERVIEW: The Making of “Requiem for a Dream”. Red Carpet Reviews. by Heather Wadowski With a standing ovation after their second screening and industry electricity surrounding this metaphysical portrait of man’s nature and numerology, “Pi” is one of the more talked about films in this year’s Sundance dramatic competition. Inspired by the Japanese surreal, sci-fi film “Tetsuo” and influenced by Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone” and Frank Miller’s comic book “Sin City,” writer-director Aronofsky, a Harvard and then AFI grad, came to Sundance two years ago “very lost,” but now returns with this visually enticing, paranoiac flick. More than just a constant 3.14 to find the circumference of a circle, “pi” is a cinematic experience that follows Maximillian Cohen, a repressed, young mathematician, searching for a numerical pattern in the chaos of the stock market. With “offers on the table,” Aronofsky is confident that the film will be distributed, “it’s going to be a company that wants to do business with me. It’s going to be a company

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that makes films. I’m ready to go.” He assures me, “We’ll get theatrical.” With Sundance more than half-way through, we’ll likely see very soon. Darren Aronofsky: The idea behind “pi” was to make a fully subjective movie -- meaning never to cut away to the bad guys going “We’re going to control the stock market” so we made up all these bogus rules, me and the D.P., Matty Libatique, so we can only shoot over Sean’s shoulder, so that we are in Sean’s story. We can shoot the other actors almost P.O.V., almost straight-on, but Sean was almost always shot in profile, so he was more of an objective and the audience was seeing his point of view more subjectively. That was the intent, at least, we tried to stick to that from the music to the lighting. . . The one thing we got out of the American Film Institute was the Art of the Story. I had a great teacher there Stuart Rosenberg, who did “Cool Hand Luke” and some of the original Twilight Zones. And Rod Serling is clearly the patron saint of the movie. So, the Art of the Story, was basically a shot doesn’t mean shit unless it’s inspired by the story. Every little gimmick we did we tried to have a reason for.

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The crew working on the set of Pi in Max Cohen’s bathroom.

IW: But the themes you are dealing with are not exactly cinematic. You take certain philosophical, epistemological questions in this movie and I would think it would have been a hard sell, but it seems to have been successful. DA: I think we tried to visualize it as much as possible and trying to not make it esoteric. People seem to be responding that they get it. People who hate math are like, “it’s not a math movie, it’s a mystical movie.” It’s pop math, really, everyone bought “Chaos,” that chaos book that everyone first the first three pages and then it became a doorstop or something. That’s what the film is. It’s like the first three pages of those cool math books. SG: It is also a character piece. There’s layers. There’s the Kabbahl layer, there’s the number theory layer, there’s the mysticism layer, but beneath all that, there’s a layer of the lonely, alienated character. DA: The mad scientist, the Faust story. . . SG: There’s the knowledge layer too. But I think the bottom most layer there is a real emotional character -- a lonely guy who thinks if he discovers this, it’ll fix everything that’s wrong with his sad life.

IW: There’s also the engaging visual element. Even if you don’t follow the theory or you don’t get into the character, you are responding viscerally to that black and white photography. DA: Matty was brave enough to take on Reversal film, which many of us shot in film school, and its black and white Reversal, extremely hard film stock to expose. We were inspired by “Sin City” by Frank Miller —he just does white scratches into black ink. Matty was a master of exposure. . . I can’t tell you, we did three hundred feet of test. That’s all we could afford. Three hundred feet of 16mm test, on a Bolex, which is absurd. We shot most of it on an Aaton. But then, Matty just nailed it, there was some reshooting, but I’d say 90% of his exposures were nailed, which is amazed.

IW: Did you do a lot of post-production sound? DA: Tremendous amount. I think a lot of independent films fail because of bad sound. Finally, that’s getting around. Because if you don’t spend the money on sound, even if it’s a great movie, there’s something missing, there’s this weird claustrophobia and I don’t think the audience knows what it is, but there’s something wrong. . . IW: Well, you can’t hear. DA: We were very, very detailed. We knew we were going to have this really abstract imagery and the only way to get the audience in was really layering sounds. We had this incredible composer, Clint Mansell, he has been around, hibernating creative energy just building, and it just burst on the screen for us. He wrote 70 minutes of original music for us. The rest of the soundtrack was filled out by a Who’s Who of electronic music from Orbital to Electric Sky Church. And the sound design was done by this guy named Brian Emrich, who is a bassist for Fetus and Brian is good friends with Clint, so they were able to collaborate on those headache scenes, exchanging

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sounds, so the landscapes, sound design and the score could totally intertwine. IW: It’s not an easy film. It’s a bold, brave film. Lot of people are still making cliche, formula stuff. . . DA: The great thing about Sundance is that I had been trying to set up a film in New York for a long time. You can imagine what “pi” looked like on paper. I came to Sundance and I really saw the films they were praising were really great films made by directors who were really doing their films. Here are these bad-ass people who went out, made out their own projects and Sundance is praising them. If you go out, you do what you want to do, if you’re not a copycat and you just do it, you’ll get recognized. That’s the only way to do it well. IW: You had a lot of producers on your film, didn’t you? DA: That’s the only way to get it done. A film to the producer to the first A.C. are all equal profit sharers in the film. There’s a pool of 50% of the film which all of us share equally. That’s the way to do it. That’s how we got their passion.

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

The subway station was an environment that constant leading Max to have severe hallucinations.

“ There’s layers. There’s the Kabbahl layer, there’s the number theory layer, there’s the mysticism layer, but beneath all that, there’s a layer of the lonely, alienated character.” SG: It is the way to do it and that fucking Republican Vinny Gallo (who also has a nice ass) was saying, “Oh, you hippie, commie, pinko, faggots, oh, you’re always talking about making your films as a labor of love and everybody’s working for free and all so gay and left.” I don’t want to dispute that, but if you’re not already a movie star, it’s an important business model that the people who are working on the film think it’s their film. Period.

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Jared Leto and his on-screen girlfriend, Jennifer Connelly.

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM

Drugs. They consume mind, body and soul. Once you’re hooked, you’re hooked. Four lives. Four addicts. Four failures. Despite their aspirations of greatness, they succumb to their addictions. Watching the addicts spiral out of control, we bear witness to the dirtiest, ugliest portions of the underworld addicts reside in. It is shocking and eye-opening but demands to be seen by both addicts and non-addicts alike. Requiem for a Dream is a movie about several people whose lives change dramatically because of their particular addictions. Harry (Jared Leto) and Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) are two friends who live in Brooklyn, New York. They decide to make money by reselling heroin on the street so that they can get away from their dead-end lives. Eventually, they make a

fair amount of money. They talk about buying a large amount of extremely pure heroin so that they can make the money they feel they need to “make it”. Marion (Jennifer Connelly), who is Harry’s girlfriend, has a distant relationship with her parents, who we never see on the screen, but sometimes goes out with Arnold (Sean Gullette), her psychiatrist, in order to appease them. She, along with Harry and Tyrone, snort and shoot heroin, drop speed, and talk a lot about their dreams for a better future. Sara receives a mysterious call from someone who claims that she has been selected to appear on a TV show. She wants to wear a particular red dress, but is too over-weight to fit into it. She hears about a way to lose a lot of weight by taking pills.

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As the film progresses, so does the debilitating effects of the drugs that Harry, Tyrone, Marion, and Sara use. The money that was made by Harry and Tyrone is spent on several things. Harry purchases a large entertainment set for his mother. Tyrone lands in jail and needs to be bailed out. Eventually, they run out of heroin and find that they cannot buy any more for lack of money. Harry convinces Marion to sleep with Arnold so that she can get enough money for Harry to make a purchase. At the place where the drug deal is to be made, a scuffle breaks out and the supplier drives away, leaving several people— Harry included—without drugs. Sara’s mind begins to fall apart as she continues taking the medication to lose weight. When Harry

goes to visit her, we learn that the medication she is taking are “uppers”, or “speed”. She experiences hallucinations involving her refrigerator. They get more and more intense. At one point, Sara has a grand hallucination wherein she finds herself as a guest of honor in an infomercial that is a recurring theme throughout the movie. Harry’s relationship with Marion hits rough spots when the need for drugs starts to overcome their sensibilities. Marion blames Harry for their bad situation. Harry also discovers a black spot on his arm where he injects the heroin. Harry and Tyrone cannot find any heroin in the city, so they decide to drive to Florida to make a purchase. Marion prostitutes herself so that she can

obtain the drug she needs. The black spot on Harry’s arm grows to an alarming size and he begins complaining about the pain. Tyrone drives Harry to a hospital in an unknown location. The two are arrested and sent to jail. While there, the problem with Harry’s arm becomes too much to bear and he is sent to the prison infirmary, where the doctors apparently have no choice but to cut off Harry’s arm to save him. Sara’s hallucinations with the refrigerator reach a climax. The refrigerator lurches through the kitchen and opens a wide toothy mouth. Sara runs from her apartment in fear. She wanders as though she were insane and ends up at a television station. Sara is eventually apprehended and sent to a mental hospital. She refuses treatment and is then subjected to electroshock therapy. Her friends visit her, but she is only a shell of her former self. The movie closes with each character curling up in a fetal position, Marion on her couch after prostituting herself, Harry in the hospital bed with his arm amputated, Tyrone on a cot in prison, and Sara in a bed in at the mental hospital.

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“ We were robbed at gunpoint, I saw a girl OD in front of me and end up in a coma... it was horrifying, but I wanted to experience what my character did and saw...”

JARED LETO AND THE MAKING OF REQUIEM FOR A DREAM INTERVIEW: The Making of “Requiem for a Dream”. Red Carpet Reviews. by Heather Wadowski In Darren Aronofsky’s ‘Requiem for a Dream,’ once teen-heartthrob Jared Leto plays Harry Goldfarb, a heroin addict with a goal—to become one of the best drug dealers in town in order to make the money he and his girlfriend (‘The Street’s Jennifer Connelly) need to start up their own business. However, burdened by the fact that his mother is becoming addicted to drugs herself and his girlfriend is prostituting herself for drugs, Goldfarb soon realizes the consequences drugs can have on everyone— including himself. Although Leto was once known as the teen heart throb Jordan Catalano in the critically acclaimed ABC series ‘My So-Called Life,’ Leto says that he never intended, nor desired, to be a teen star. “I was never interested in ‘Teen Beat’ like roles,” Leto said. “I just wanted to work. I had no idea how ‘My So-Called Life’ would be perceived by audiences, not along me and my character.” Leto is grateful for his role on “My So-Called Life,” though. The role of Jordan Catalano opened up the doors for Leto to star in and work with some of the most talked about films and directors of our time at a very young stage in his career. Amongst the list, Jocelyn Moorhouse of ‘How to Make an American Quilt,’ David Fincher of ‘Fight Club’ and Terrence Malik

of ‘The Thin Red Line.’ Most recently audiences caught Leto in James Mangold’s Girl, Interrupted’ and Mary Harron’s ‘American Psycho.’ “Working with those directors and being in those films was great,” Leto said. “Working with Darren though was incredible. He supported me and kept me from going off the deep end while working ‘Requiem for a Dream.’ I didn’t experience the things I went through alone— we experienced them together.” While most actors get a hands-on feel for the roles they are playing, Leto obviously couldn’t do a lot of heroin to get a feel for the role of a heroin addict. Instead, Leto and Aronofsky decided to go to New York’s streets and live with junkies for awhile to feel what they feel and experience what the experience on an everyday basis. “We were robbed at gunpoint, I saw a girl OD in front of me and end up in a coma... it was horrifying, but I wanted to experience what my character did and saw,” Leto recalls. “It is difficult to look at the truth, but it is an important part of art.” To furthermore prepare himself for the role of Harry, Leto lost 25 pounds for the look of a skinny, worn-out, drug addict. “I was starving everyday,” he said. “I was craving food non-stop.” Although ‘Requiem for a Dream’ contains very mature themes, Leto said it didn’t even occur to him that the film could be rated the way it was— NC-17. In fact, to Leto the film wasn’t just about addiction, but escapism as well.“The MPAA is very moralistic, but their morals are somewhat twisted,” Leto said. “I never understood how extreme violence was okay for films, but sex was too taboo. It just proves that hypocrisy in politics is very much alive and well.” Despite the NC-17 rating, Leto wasn’t discouraged in any way from taking part in the film. According to Leto, it was a great story right from the beginning

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and nothing could change that or the pride he took in the film. “I was drawn to this story not only for the story, but also my character,” he said. “Harry is an amazing character; he’s really strong and it was a challenging and honest role I wanted to do. I am proud of this film and how it effected me, and still does, twenty four hours a day. It was like reading a big novel—it was tedious to get through, but at the end you are rewarded by the knowledge you gained and the fact you completed it.”

Jared Leto as Harry Goldfarb.

“ We got a winner, I said we got a winner, we got a winner! Our next winner is that delightful personality, straight from Brighton beach Brooklyn, please give a juicy welcome to Mrs. Sarah Goldfarb!” —Tappy Tibbons

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Jared Leto as Harry Goldfarb.

THE WRESTLER

Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson is an aging professional wrestler, decades past his prime, who now barely gets by working small wrestling shows in VFW halls and as a part-time grocery store employee. As he faces health problems that will end his wrestling career for good he attempts to come to terms with his life outside the ring. He begins working full time at the grocery store, tries to reconcile with the daughter he abandoned in childhood and form a closer bond with a stripper he has romantic feelings for. He struggles with his new life and is offered the chance for a high-profile rematch with his 1980s arch-nemesis, The Ayatollah, which he believes could be his ticket back to stardom. Over the credits, we see numerous magazines and newspaper articles from the 80’s, all of which feature Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke),

a major file match could help him get back to the top. Professional wrestling star. We then flash forward twenty years, where Randy “The Ram” is getting ready for a match in a small, local auditorium on the underground circuit. He interacts with the other wrestlers backstage, most of whom are much younger than he is (Randy is acknowledged to be in his 50’s). Ironically, though they are foes inside the ring, outside the wrestlers are all friendly, discussing with each other how they want to perform the “act” that night, and after the show go drinking together. Randy preps for the match and it’s obvious his age has caught up with him; his joints are cracking as he stretches and becomes short-winded easily. After he stretches he puts a small piece of a razor blade in

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his wrist bandages, in which later he uses to cut himself on the forehead to draw blood, making the match more dramatic for the fans. Afterward, Randy is given a meager payday, as the promoter claims the audience was smaller than expected. Randy’s manager then poses a 20th anniversary rematch with his most notable opponent, the Ayatollah, which sold out Madison Square garden in the 80’s. Randy agrees, hoping this kind of high-profile match will relaunch his career. Randy goes home to find he has been locked out of his trailer for not paying his rent. He takes pain medication with a beer and falls asleep in the back of his van. The next day he goes to work to load boxes at a supermarket where he asks his boss if he

could have more hours. His boss is very rude to him and makes a snide comment about the cost of tights going up being the reason he needs more hours. Randy laughs it off and continues to ask his boss for more hours but “not on the weekends”. Again his boss makes a snide comment about his other ‘profession’ being the reason he can’t work weekends. That night after work goes to a strip club to visit a stripper named Cassidy (Marisa Tomei). Like Randy, Cassidy is older than her coworkers. She’s only 43 and still very good looking, but her coworkers are under 25 and dance to updated music versus outdated 80’s rock. Randy overhears in another room a few obnoxious young guys calling her an old hag and Randy steps in and pushes them around.

The next morning we see Randy going through his training rituals. First stop is getting his hair bleached blond at a salon, then going to a tanning salon. Going to a Dollar Store to buy a few items for his upcoming match and then we see him sitting in a locker room at a gym buying $900 worth of steroids and injecting it into his backside before and afterwards he begins to work out feverishly. After the gym we see him talking to wrestler Dylan Summers, (a.k.a. Necro Butcher) who is explaining to him that the match is going to be particularly brutal “hardcore”, in which Randy and his opponent use various weapons on each other, including thumbtacks, staple guns, barbed wire and glass. We cut to the match and it is exactly as described. Randy suffers numerous gashes, includes a deep cut on his chest from the barbed wire, but wins the match by smashing a glass door over his opponents head. After the match Randy stumbles backstage and is seated in a chair where doctors fervently sew him up and remove the staples. The pain is excruciating and Randy gags a few times from the pain. After the doctors are finished and he is alone in his

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dressing room, he walks over to his locker, but before he can even open it he stares intently at his left arm, vomits twice and passes out. Randy wakes up in a hospital to learn that he had a heart attack that necessitated a bypass operation. His doctor warns Randy that unless he cuts out the drugs and stops wrestling, his life could be in danger. While signing out of the hospital an envelope is given to him containing his pay for the match. Randy goes to the pharmacy to have his prescriptions from the hospital filled and is very embarrassed to pick them up. Then he goes to pay his back rent and the trailer park manager takes the padlock off his door and says “Welcome Home”. Randy immediately falls asleep. The next day, following the doctor’s advice, he takes it easy. Randy tries to go for a jog and half way has to lean on a tree from exhaustion and starts to cry from the pain in his chest and realizing how alone in life he is. Later we see Randy going through his routine of bleaching his hair from a box and spray tanning himself, then packing up his trailer with all of his belongings for a wrestling match. Cassidy arrives

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as Randy is leaving and apologizes, saying there is something between them but she was afraid to let him get close. Randy seems to have resigned himself to the fact that he is meant to be alone, and drives off, passing her a flyer for the match. Randy drives to the arena and greets the Ayatollah (actually a used car salesman named Bob). They catch up and prepare for the match. As Randy is getting ready to walk out to the ring with the crowd chanting his name, Cassidy arrives. She warns him that his heart could give out if he wrestles, but he shrugs it off. Randy says that the real world doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care about him, and the only place he belongs is in the ring. Cassidy tells him she wants to be with him, but Randy heads to the ring as his music blares. Before the match, Randy gives a speech thanking the fans, telling them how heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lived his life burning the candle from both ends. But even though people told him heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d never wrestle again, here he is. The match begins, and the crowd is into it. But as it progresses, Randy starts to deviate from the planned match. Concerned, Ayatollah asks if he alright. We realize that Randy is doing this on purpose, that he

Darren Aronofsky talks to Randy the Ram on the set of The Wrestler.

wants his heart to give out. Randy goes so far as to steal one of the Ayatollah’s signature moves. As the match winds down, Randy feels his heart giving out, and he can barely stand. Bob/Ayatollah realizes this and tries to end the match to save Randy’s life, but Randy refuses to stop. Randy looks into the crowd, but cannot see Cassidy. Finally Randy climbs to the top rope to deliver his signature “Ram Jam” finisher, his heart ready to burst, Randy salutes the fans, his face covered in tears and sweat. He then leaps off the top rope, and the screen fades to black.

‘I’VE BEEN TO HELL. I’M NOT GOING BACK THERE’

INTERVIEW: Mickey Rourke and The Wrestler. The Observer. by Carole Cadwalladr It’s five minutes into The Wrestler before it dawns on me that I’ve seen Randy ‘the Ram’ Robinson somewhere before. He’s a pro-wrestler with a torso that looks as if it’s been inflated with an air pump and a head of flowing platinum blond locks straight out of Spinal Tap. He’s also Mickey Rourke.

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Even then, this realization comes only because I know Rourke is the leading man in the film and Randy the Ram is, indisputably, the leading man. Where’s the pretty boy with the sardonic smile? The last time I paid attention to Rourke’s career, in the late Eighties, he was the pin-up of my sixthform common room, the star of Rumble Fish and Angel Heart and, most infamously, of 9½ Weeks. He was an Ur-Brad Pitt, only with a crucial difference: he could act. Critic Pauline Kael first saw him in Barry Levinson’s Diner in 1982 and put her finger on it: ‘He has an edge and a magnetism and a pure, sweet smile that surprises you.’ Randy, on the other hand, has the face of a ravaged, old-time bruiser who’s done too many cheap steroids; his eyes are puffy, his skin coarse, his fingers are slow-moving tubes of gristle, his biceps so massive his arms don’t even hang straight. Viewed from a certain angle, wearing a certain expression, it’s still possible, just, to see the flicker of the Rourke who once was, but it’s only a flicker. If his physical appearance is one sort of shock, the film is another. The Wrestler is his first leading

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

Randy the Ram takes a hard hit in the ring.

man role in almost two decades and it’s a genuinely affecting story of a once-successful professional wrestler who is now at the end of the road. Randy Robinson has lost practically everything there is to lose. In places, it’s almost too excruciating to watch and not just for the chairs-over-the-head, staple-gunin-the-chest horrors of the wrestling scenes; it’s the sheer, awful hopelessness of Randy’s life: his soulsapping job in a supermarket, his squalid trailer, the daughter he let down too many times, the fall from success, the man who once headlined at Madison Square Garden reduced to fighting bouts in smalltown, high-school gyms. It’s a story so close to Rourke’s own that in many crucial ways Rourke is Randy Robinson. He’s suffered one of the most spectacular falls from grace that Hollywood has ever seen, has lived for years with its spirit-crushing consequences. When I meet him, there, on a piece of leather around his neck, is Randy’s talisman, the pendant he wears before every fight: a stylized set of ram’s horns. Rourke had the same jeweller make it for him in jade and he’s

worn it ever since. He can’t help seeing himself in Randy, only he’s been granted what feels like a last chance. ‘Abso-fucking-lutely. Randy’s living in a state of shame. Living in a state of disgrace. The humiliation that I’ve lived with for five, six, seven, eight, nine, 15 years. That I brought upon myself. I lost everything, the wife, the house, my friends, my name in the business. I was paying $500 a month for an apartment with my dogs. Nobody really knew how broke I was. A friend used to give me a couple of hundred of dollars a month to buy something to eat. And I’d be calling up my ex-wife and crying like a baby and trying to get her back. I was desperate. And I was all alone. And this went on for years, for years.’ He’s gone from being the up-and-coming young talent, talked of in the same breath as Brando, to being a Hollywood hellraiser tooling around town in a white Rolls-Royce with a fully paid-up entourage of Cubans in gold chains, to the actor who threw it all away. In 1991, he decided he’d had enough of films and became a professional boxer. Before meeting him, I had honestly no idea what to expect; in the

When you live hard and you play hard and burn the candle at both ends... in this life, you can lose everything you love, everything that loves you. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Randy the Ram

event, he’s the kind of interviewee you wish for but almost never get: he’s just so happy to talk and he’s so refreshingly un-up-himself that it makes you think that all Hollywood actors could do with a bracing 15 years in the wilderness. ‘You know, many years have gone by when no one wanted to sit in a room and ask me questions.... so now I’m grateful. I’m thankful for it. It’s been a long, long time.’ He’s transformed, physically, again. He’s lost the 30 pounds he gained for the role, his face, though still odd - he’s had four lots of reconstructive surgery on it from his fighting days - has de-puffed and he’s wearing glasses and a stylish pinstripe suit. He didn’t write the film (although he did, with director

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Darren Aronofsky’s consent, rewrite the dialogue for all his scenes) or come up with the concept, but it’s still the most autobiographical film you will see this year. The poignancy of Randy’s situation is that he was once somebody. Does it make it worse than if you’d never made it? ‘It’s way, way worse. It’s so much worse. Especially if you’re living in a shithole town like LA, a town that’s based on envy, you were once somebody and you fuck it up. For me, it was over a 15-year period. And you are reminded of it every single day. And I behaved and misbehaved so terribly that they let you know it in a real nasty way. But the thing is I caused all my own misery.’

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The film has had its first major outing at the Venice Film Festival only a couple of weeks before I meet him. It won the Golden Lion for best film and Wim Wenders, the president of the jury, said: ‘This is for a film with a truly heartbreaking performance in every sense of the word. And if I say heartbreaking, you know I mean Mickey Rourke.’ It is. And it’s made Rourke this year’s unlikeliest Oscar contender, the one nobody saw coming. The personal redemption narrative, the physical transformation, the macho fight scenes - it’s got Academy Award written all over it. If that sounds disparaging, it’s not meant unkindly, because having now met Mickey Rourke, there’s no one I’d like to see win an Oscar more.

His story of personal redemption beats even Randy’s and an Oscar would be its epiphanic climax. He’d almost certainly take his geriatric chihuahua, Loki, whom he calls his ‘best friend’ up on stage; she spends the interview perched on his sofa in a cashmere jumper and a diamante collar being handfed bacon pieces and Evian water. And he’ll surely weep, as he does at one point during our interview. He gets so choked up at his failures and even more so at his success which has come after so, so long that he still can’t quite believe it’s happening. It nearly didn’t. Nobody would bankroll a film with Rourke as a leading man. Aronofsky fought for him and turned it from a big-budget epic into a no-budget Indie just to have him. And in doing so, he inspired in Rourke the kind of devotion that has produced the performance of his career. ‘For so many years, I’d sit and talk to the dog, and say, I’m not coming back, it’s over.’ You’d accepted that, had you? ‘Not totally.’ You never quit? ‘I was never going to quit. That’s not in me. But I thought, I’ve fucked it up. I didn’t think I’d come back to this level ever again. I hoped I would but I thought too much time had gone by.’ But is there not a danger of doing a Randy? Of messing it all up again? ‘Never. Not as hard as I’ve worked to change. No. I’ve been to hell, I’m not going back there. I’ve been to hell. And I had to stay there for so long, it was like, no, no way. I was talking to my priest because I was saying I’m scared, it’s such a nice feeling to feel proud again, not to be living in shame.

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“If his physical appearance is one sort of shock, the film is another... In places, it’s almost too excruciating to watch and not just for the chairs-over-the-head, staple-gun-in-the-chest horrors of the wrestling scenes; it’s the sheer, awful hopelessness of Randy’s life...”

It’s taken him years and years of therapy to get to this point. He says it saved his life, it’s because he didn’t even have a language for it before, to articulate the problem at the root of all his problems: the violent abuse he was subjected to as a child at the hands of his stepfather. “She [Rourke’s mother] was supposed to be responsible for me and Joe [Rourke’s brother]. She didn’t. She let it happen. And it happened for a decade. And it was easier to just get mad than to deal with feeling so small and abandoned. But I was kind of 50-50 about her until Joe died, two and a half, three years ago. Because he was still upset. And so when he died, I stopped talking to her. Completely. And then about three months ago, she got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. So now I’m kind of OK with her because she doesn’t remember what happened at all. ‘My grandmother was the one I really loved and who took care of me and Joe. We stayed with her at weekends and other times and when I had to leave and go back to the other house, it was terrifying. And she died, last month, aged 99. A week before she

went, she said to my half sister, “If I’ve got to lay in this goddamn bed another day, at least I could have a good-looking man next to me.”’ Rourke’s escape from his miserable home life was boxing. By 16, he was sparring with Luis Rodriguez, the number one ranked middleweight, ahead of Rodriguez’s world title fight. Two severe concussions put paid to his hopes of turning pro and he fell into acting almost by accident. A friend at the University of Miami told him about a play he was directing, Deathwatch by Jean Genet, and how the man playing the role of Green Eyes had dropped out. Rourke got the part and was hooked almost instantly. He gave up boxing, borrowed $400 from his sister and went to New York. Rourke still rhapsodises about his time there. He got noticed enough to land a tiny part in Body Heat in 1981 and that really was that. He was on screen for only a few minutes but it led to bigger and better parts, among them the cult classics Diner, with Barry Levinson, and Rumble Fish with Francis Ford Coppola and the brilliant noirish thriller Angel Heart in which he played opposite Robert De Niro. Most

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

The failures of Mickey Rourke’s life closely parallel that of Randy Ramzinksi’s.

notoriously and explicitly, there was the 1986 erotic thriller 9½ Weeks with Kim Basinger. It was roundly panned by the critics but it cemented his sex-symbol reputation. For a period of time, he was perhaps the most lusted-after man on the planet. And from there it all started falling apart. His great love was acting, but it was all the rest he simply couldn’t deal with. Adrian Lyne, the director of 9½ Weeks, says that if he’d died after making Angel Heart, he’d be James Dean. Instead, he became ‘difficult’. He fought with directors, with producers. He did the undoable and badmouthed Sam Goldwyn Jr. When Dustin Hoffman called to offer him Tom Cruise’s part in Rain Man, he forgot to call him back. He made terrible choice after terrible choice, turning down Kevin Costner’s part in The Untouchables, roles in Platoon and Silence of the Lambs and, years later, John Travolta’s part in Pulp Fiction. ‘I won’t compromise. Carré was thunder and lightning. If I can’t have thunder and lighting then I won’t have anything. It’ll be a one-night stand here and there, but I’m not going to compromise can’t.’ His personal life was messy, his professional life

is messier. He did a series of terrible films just for the money, lost all respect for himself and decided the only way out of it all was to go back to boxing. ‘It was something that I loved to do and that I enjoyed; that was very therapeutic for me. It’s very pure, there’s no grey. I was able to just let out and get away from that acting crap. Because I had lost the passion and the desire and the respect for the acting and it really maybe wasn’t the acting, it was that I really lost all of those things from myself.’ He was good, too, undefeated in eight fights, earning $1m a year, three fights away from a cruiserweight title fight, until he was forced to retire for neurological reasons. His equilibrium still suffers if he’s tired or drunk, but it’s his face that paid the biggest price. His nose was rebuilt with cartilage from his ear and a series of operations altered his looks for ever. But in a way, it maybe suits him better. He never felt handsome. And when he became a pin-up, he hated it. Now, he looks more like the way he feels these days. ‘You know the song, “I fought the law and the law won”? Well I fought the system and it kicked the living shit out of me. I said to my psychiatrist one day, “Sean Penn, Al Pacino, none of these guys has been through this.” And he said, “None of those guys would know how to fall as far as you have; only you could fall this far.”’ He’s watched only his wrestling scenes from the film so far. ‘I’m proud of some of the moves I did. I trained real hard.’ One of the money-saving devices was to put on real wrestling matches and simply have Rourke come in and do his stuff in the middle of it. But he can’t even talk about the scene in which Randy goes to work in a supermarket deli. Aronofsky

“ You know the song, ‘I fought the law and the law won’? Well I fought the system and it kicked the living shit out of me.”

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says: ‘He just felt the shame of Randy the Ram.’ But then, there are at least two elements in it which seem to have come directly from Rourke’s life: the crushing humiliation of being recognized as somebody who used to be somebody, which has happened intermittently to Rourke for years, and the moment when Randy, in a moment of sheer emotional torture, thrusts his hand into a sausage slicing machine. A few years ago, Rourke described to a journalist how he deliberately sliced the top of his little finger off (and had hours of microsurgery to sew it back on).Worse, he tells me: ‘Loki’s father, Beau Jack, is probably responsible for keeping me here. I remember sitting in the closet one day, and thinking, I’m not going through this any more, and I looked down and her dad went like this. He looked at me and it meant who’s going to take care of him, if I’m not here.’ You were on the verge of... doing something silly? ‘Well, you know, I actually had already done a few times and I was thrown back, luckily. I mean, I’m very fortunate to be here.’ ‘That’s what my priest says. He gave me a book and circled the word “forgiveness”. But you know I was the one who fucked up, only me.’ But then that’s not entirely true...because as a child you were a victim. ‘But I don’t want to carry that. I don’t want that fucking label. I don’t want to be a victim. I wish there was another fucking word. I’m not having that define me.’ Except it does. You’ll be hard pushed to meet somebody as broken as Mickey Rourke. His emotions are so close to the surface. And when he starts telling me about how he held his brother Joe in his arms as he lay dying of cancer, he starts to cry. I don’t know what to do. There’s a coffee table between us. Should I give him a hug? But I can’t hug Mickey Rourke, it’s ridiculous. He sobs quietly on the sofa, stroking his ageing chihuahua with the cashmere jumper and the diamante collar and it’s hard not to sob with him. But then he’s a great actor, not that I think he’s putting it on, but when he feels emotion, somehow it’s as if you feel it too. Go and see The Wrestler and you’ll see what I mean. I watched it with a bunch of hard-boiled film critics who all looked slightly red around the eyes at the end. If you knew what you’d have to go through to get to this point, would you go through it all again? ‘You mean the 15 years? Of penance and shame? Maybe not.’ But maybe you wouldn’t be the actor you are today?

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‘That’s true too. But I didn’t think it was going to take 15 years. I thought maybe I could come in two or three and things would fall into place. But I wasn’t a little bad. I was real bad. And you pay the price for what you do in this life.’ But he has, surely, by now, hasn’t he? Bruce Springsteen wrote a song for the movie, also called ‘The Wrestler’, as a favour to Rourke with whom he goes way back. It includes the line: ‘Have you ever seen a one-legged dog making its way down the street?/ If you’ve ever seen a one-legged dog, then you’ve seen me.’ And it’s true. Of Rourke and Randy both. I’m just crossing my fingers that he doesn’t screw up this, his last and final leg.

Marissa Tomei in character during the fi lming of the Wrestler

BLACK SWAN

Thomas Leroy, the director of a New York City ballet company, is mounting Swan Lake as the next production. No one wants the role more than Nina Sayers, who wants to be the perfect ballerina. Nina lives with her overbearing mother, a former ballerina who now lives vicariously through her daughter. She is a technically proficient and hard working dancer who can easily capture the essence of the innocent white swan, but Thomas doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe she has the dark passion required to portray the black swan. An unexpected move by Nina convinces him to give her the lead and he will do anything to get that passion out of her. Nina feels that her new place in the company is threatened by a ballerina newly arrived into the company from San Francisco. Lily, who is looser in every aspect of her life than Nina, encompasses the essence of the black swan. Nina, in doing whatever it takes to be perfect as both the white swan and the black swan, descends into madness.

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The movie opens as Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), a young ballerina in her mid twenties, is dancing the prologue to Swan Lake. Swan Lake is a ballet in which a princess is turned into the White Swan and can only be turned back if a man swears eternal fidelity to her. In the ballet, she is betrayed by the Black Swan, the evil magicianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s daughter whom the magician has transformed to look exactly like the princess in order to trick the prince who has fallen in love with her. In the end, the princess commits suicide because the Princeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s infidelity has doomed her to remain a swan forever. As Nina dances in the role of the Princess, the magician appears and places the curse on the Princess. Nina then wakes up in her apartment, the dance sequence having been a dream.

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dream. She begins her daily ballet stretching; telling her mother about her dream as her mother unintentionally ignores her. Nina mentions that the director, Thomas Leroy (pronounced Tomahs; the name is French), of her ballet company has promised to feature her more this season and her mother agrees that she’s been there long enough. Nina goes to the ballet studio only to learn that Beth (Winona Ryder), the lead principal dancer, is being put out to pasture due to her age of being over 40. As a result, Thomas (Vincent Cassel) is looking for a new face to be the lead. Thomas announces to the company that the first performance of the season will be are working of Swan Lake. He walks among the dancers as they’re practicing nonchalantly

tapping several girls on the shoulder as he talks. He then tells those he tapped to attend their regular rehearsals; those he didn’t tap are to meet with him later in the principal studio. Nina sees Beth having an emotional meltdown in her private dressing room, throwing things and breaking the full length mirror. After Beth leaves, Nina decides to take a peek inside. She sits down in Beth’s chair and stares at herself in a mirror surrounded by globe lights. She begins to go through Beth’s things and stashes several items in her pocket, specifically perfume, diamond earrings, a nail file and tube of lipstick.

“ I had the craziest dream last night about a girl who has turned into a swan, but her prince falls for the wrong girl and she kills herself.” —Nina Sayers

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NATALIE PORTMAN TALKS BLACK SWAN INTERVIEW: Natalie Portman Discusses Her Role. Film.com by Cole Haddon

Natalie Portman has been a busy girl of late, appearing in a litany of film projects that include the upcoming superhero actioner Thor and the medieval stoner comedy Your Highness. Before those movies drop, however, she’ll hit big screens — just in time for awards season — in the considerably less commercial psychological thriller Black Swan. Directed by Darren Aronofsky, Swan sees Portman play an obsessed, overly ambitious ballerina just chosen to star in a new production of the ballet Swan Lake. The role is actually one of split identity: the lovely White Swan and the dark and haunted Black Swan. Portman’s character begins to experience a similar divergence, struggling with identity and reality. It’s a beautiful, magnificent allegory for the artistic struggle that, yes, sounds very highbrow, but, trust me, is far scarier than you might ever expect a “ballet thriller” to be. I sat down with Portman recently to A) pant, and B) ask her a few questions about making the movie and all the attention it’s receiving. Cole Haddon: This must be a bit of a dream role for you. It’s not every day that parts this complex, this rich for an actress to play, are actually allowed to reach the screen. Natalie Portman: Well, I had danced when I was younger, until I was about 12 and I guess always sort of idealized it, as most young girls do, as the most beautiful art, this expression without words. I always wanted to do a film related to dance. So when Darren had this incredible idea that was not just related to the dance world, but also had this really complicated character, two characters to go into, it was just an opportunity, and especially with Darren who is a director that I would do anything for—it was just something completely exciting. CH: Now this is a movie about transformation, exemplified by the use of the ballet Swan Lake. It also required you to achieve a physical transformation yourself, to prepare your body for the part. Can you talk about how you approach something like that? NP: Well, it was a great challenge and I had really, really amazing support. I mean, all the teachers and coaches and the choreographer, obviously, and the director first and foremost were shaping and pushing along the way. But I started with my ballet teacher a year ahead of time, Mary Helen Bowers, and she started very basically with me, but we would do two hours a day for six months. That was really just sort of strengthening and getting me ready to do more so that I wouldn’t get injured, and then at about six months we started doing five hours a day where we added in swimming. So I was swimming a mile a day, toning, and then doing three hours

of ballet class a day. And then two months before we added the choreography. So we were probably doing eight hours a day, and the physical discipline of it really helped for the emotional side of the character because you get the sense of the sort of monastic lifestyle of only working out that is a ballet dancer’s life. You don’t drink. You don’t go out with your friends. You don’t have much food. You are constantly putting your body through extreme pain, and you really get that understanding of the self-flagellation of a ballet dancer. CH: There’s already Oscar buzz aplenty around your performance. How do you feel about being in those shoes? NP: The best thing that you can hope for when you make a movie and you put your soul into it like all of us did, is that people respond to it well, and the fact that audiences have come away moved and excited and entertained and stimulated by this film is extraordinarily flattering. So it’s a great, great honor. CH: Speaking of shoes, what was it like wearing pointe shoes in Black Swan? NP: Pointe shoes are torture devices. I mean, ballerinas get used to it and so it was definitely a case of it being a new experience for me, but they feel very medieval.

“ You are constantly putting your body through extreme pain, and you really get that understanding of the self-flagellation of a ballet dancer.” CH: You have a degree in psychology from Harvard. What would your professional diagnosis of your character Nina be? NP: Well, this was actually a case where something that I did learn in school did translate into something practical which is very, very rare. But it was absolutely a case of obsessive compulsive behavior. The scratching. The bulimia, obviously. Anorexia and bulimia are forms of OCD and ballet really lends itself to that because there’s such a sense of ritual — the wrapping of the shoes everyday and the preparing of new shoes for every performance. It’s such a process. It’s almost religious

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

Mother strokes her daughter’s hair as she goes to sleep

in nature. It’s almost like Jews putting on their tefillin or Catholics with their rosary beads, and then they have this sort of godlike character in their director. It really is a devotional, ritualistic, religious art which you can relate to as an actor, too, because, when you do a film, you submit to your director in that way. Your director is your everything, and you devote yourself to them, and you want to help create their vision. So all of that, I think the sort of religious obsession compulsion would have to be my professional diagnosis. CH: Well, as you just put it, so much of this movie is about obsession with a character. How do you pull yourself out of that as an actress? What keeps you from spiraling?

NP: Well, pulling out of it, I’m very much like, as soon as I finish a scene I’m back to being me. As soon as I finish shooting I want to be myself again. I’m not someone who likes to stay in character. This clearly had a kind of discipline that lent itself to me being probably more like my character while we were shooting than past experiences.

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A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

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A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

THE VENUE AND THE CITY OF BROOKLYN This guide will give you the low down on where to stay as well as places and neighborhoods to check out that include filming locations and the area where Darren Aronofsky spent his childhood, for the truest of the die-hard fans.

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A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

The iconic Brooklyn Bridge

BROOKLYN, NY Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City’s five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, after New York County (Manhattan). It is also the western most county on Long Island. Brooklyn has played a major role in different aspects of American culture including literature, cinema and theater. It has the world-renowned Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Philharmonic and the second largest public art collection in the United States, housed in the Brooklyn Museum. In the late 1980s Brooklyn achieved a new cultural prominence[citation needed] with the films of Spike Lee, whose She’s Gotta Have It and Do The Right Thing were shot there. In Darren Aronofsky’s 2000 film, Requiem for a Dream, the character Sara Goldfarb (played by Ellen Burstyn) lives in an apartment on Brighton 6th Street. Bargemusic and St. Ann’s Warehouse are located on the other side of Downtown Brooklyn in the DUMBO arts district. Brooklyn Technical High School has the second-largest auditorium in New York City (after Radio City Music Hall), with a seating capacity of over 3,000.

ST. ANN”S WAREHOUSE St. Ann’s Warehouse is celebrating its 32nd season. For 32 years, St. Ann’s Warehouse has commissioned, produced, and presented a unique and eclectic body of innovative theatre and concert presentations that meet at the intersection of theatre and rock and roll. Since 2000, the organization has helped vitalize the Brooklyn Waterfront in DUMBO, where St. Ann’s Warehouse has become one of New York City’s most important and compelling live performance destinations and first choise for the festival. Through its signature multi-artist concerts and ground-breaking music and theatre collaborations, St. Ann’s continues to celebrate the panoramic traditions of American and world cultures, with forays into a variety of contemporary forms, including new

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commissions and multi-disciplinary theatrical preproductions include Lou Reed and John Cale’s Songs for Drella, Marianne Faithfull’s Seven Deadly Sins, Artistic Director Susan Feldman’s Band in Berlin, Charlie Kaufman and the Coen Brothers’ Theater of the New Ear, The Royal Court Theatre’s 4:48 Psychosis, The Wooster Group’s Hamlet, The Emperor Jones, House/Lights, To You, The Birdie! (Phèdre), The Globe Theatre’s Measure for Measure, Daniel Kramer’s Woyzeck, Antony’s Turning, Mabou Mines’ Dollhouse, Lou Reed’s Berlin, Cynthia Hopkins’ Accidental Trilogy, Les Freres Corbusier’s Hell House, Druid’s The Walworth Farce and The New Electric Ballroom, TR Warszawa’s Macbeth, The National Theatre of

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In 2004, founding Artistic Director Susan Feldman and St. Ann’s Warehouse were awarded the Ross Wetzsteon Award for the development of new work and for “inviting artists to treat their cavernous DUMBO space as both an inspiring laboratory and a sleek venue where its super informed audience charges the atmosphere with hip vitality.”

The outdoor performance area is the ideal for presenting the Darkest Corner under the night sky of Brooklyn

GETTING THERE St. Annâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Warehouse is located in DUMBO, Brooklyn between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges at 38 Water Street at the corner of Water Street and Dock Street, opposite the entrance to Fulton Ferry State Park. Getting here is easier than you think.

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A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

Ma nh at t an Br i dg e

yn Br id ge

Water Street

Br oo kl yn Q ue en s Ex py

L ow er Ro a dw ay

BY CAR Exit right from the Brooklyn Bridge to Cadman Plaza West; bear right at the bottom of exit ramp. Follow Old Fulton Street, curving left, down to Front Street. Make a hard right on Front Street, then a left on Main Street. Turn left again at Water Street to the Warehouse entrance, which is between Main and Dock Streets.

ON FOOT If you have time, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s great fun to walk to St. Annâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Warehouse from lower Manhattan. Take the footpath over the Brooklyn Bridge. The walkway feeds into Washington Street. Walk toward the river on Washington Street down to Water Street. Turn left on Water Street and continue past Main Street; the Warehouse entrance is between Main and Dock Streets.

BY BUS Take the B25 to the corner of Water Street and Main Street. Walk half a block along Water Street towards the Brooklyn Bridge; the Warehouse entrance is on Water Street between Main and Dock Streets.

BY SUBWAY F to York Street Make a right when exiting the train station. Make a left onto York Street, walk 3 blocks to Washington Street. Turn right on Washington Street and walk 2 blocks to Water Street. Turn left on Water Street and continue past Main Street; the Warehouse entrance is between Main and Dock Streets. A/C to High Street If you are coming from Manhattan, exit at the rear of the train. Walk downhill toward the bridge on Cadman Plaza West to Old Fulton Street. Bear left on Old Fulton Street and follow it until it ends at the pier. Make a right on Water Street and walk one block (under the Brooklyn Bridge); the Warehouse entrance is between Main and Dock Streets on the right side. 2/3 to Clark Street Exit the station and make a left onto Henry Street. Turn left on Old Fulton Street and follow it until it ends at the pier. Make a right on Water Street and walk one block (under the Brooklyn Bridge); the Warehouse entrance is between Main and Dock Streets on the right side.

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WHERE TO CRASH THE BROOKLYN HOTEL Over the years The Brooklyn Hotel has been an institution set against the back drop of this thriving City of Sydney. Only some weeks ago (the beginning of July this year) the Brooklyn was taken over by Fraser Short of famed establishments such as Cargo Bar, The Loft, Winery and Gazebo to name a few. The food at the Brooklyn Hotel is now approachable, fast, upmarket gastro pub style with dishes like Spice Fried Squid with Kick Arse Mayo, beautiful Rump steaks only $10 Monday - Wednesday and a lovely fresh King Prawn Linguini to name a few, all ordered at the bar and delivered to you and your friends in no time.

Now open and trading and ready to serve, please wander in, join our mailing list and let us get to know each other. This exciting development project consists of 186 hotel rooms complimented by a beautiful indoor and outdoor bar & lounge space, as well as over 3,500 square feet of bi-level retail space in this 27 story tower. In respecting our culture, history, surroundings and community V3 Hotels will ensure that 237 Duffield Street will be one of the premier lodging destinations in all of New York.

A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

This historical hotel in Brooklyn has the grit of age with some modern refurbishments.

PLACES TO VISIT BRIGHTON BEACH In Darren Aronofsky’s 2000 film, Requiem for a Dream, the character Sara Goldfarb (played by Ellen Burstyn) lives in an apartment on Brighton 6th Street. Brighton Beach was dubbed “Little Odessa” by the local populace due to many of its residents having come from Odessa, a city of Ukraine. The proximity of Brighton Beach to the city’s beaches (Brighton Beach Avenue runs parallel to the Coney Island beach and boardwalk) and the fact the neighborhood is directly served by a subway station makes it a popular summer weekend destination for New York City residents.

CONEY ISLAND Another filming location for Requiem for a Dream. Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill. Coney Island is possibly best known as the site of amusement parks and a major resort that reached their peak during the first half of the 20th century. The beach is groomed and replenished on a regular basis by the city. The position of the beach and lack of significant obstructions means virtually the entire beach is in sunlight all day. The beach is open to all without restriction, and there is no charge for use. The beach area is divided into “bays”, areas of beach delineated by rock jetties, which moderate erosion and the force of ocean waves

THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM One of multiple filming locations for Black Swan, the Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City’s second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works. Founded in 1895, the Beaux-Arts building, designed by McKim, Mead and White, was planned to be the largest art museum in the world. Artists represented in the collection include Mark Rothko, Edward Hopper, Norman Rockwell, Winslow Homer, Edgar Degas, Georgia O’Keefe, and Max Weber. The museum also has a “Memorial Sculpture Garden” which features salvaged architectural elements from throughout New York City.

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A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

The oudoor performance area is the ideal for presenting the Darkest Corner under the night sky of Brooklyn

PLACES TO EAT & DRINK

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NATHAN”S FAMOUS HOTDOGS

THE VELVET ROPE LOUNGE

After a fairly long subway ride, I made to Coney Island and the first thing I saw coming out from the subway station was Nathan’s. The hot dog was honestly everything I’d imagined; juicy and full of flavor and I could not wait for the next bite. Basically, the thing was gone in 5 bites in a matter of 2 minutes. And the cheesy fries were delicious of course. Sure the line is long and it’s hard to find a table, but grab your hot dog and head over to the beach where you can enjoy it while listening to the calm Atlantic waves crash.

Just like the seedy bars we find our film characters falling into, this place isn’t trying to be more than what it is....It’s a Russian lounge with very good priced drinks and the food isn’t bad ( particularly the chicken Caesar salad). The music can be repetitive and old, but once you’re drunk enough you end up dancing to it and not even caring. It’s about time Brighton had a place like this...

DUFF’S First: This place has cheap drinks. I’m a weekend warrior, so I rarely get to experience happy hour specials. Anyhow, I rolled in here at 10:30 and drinks seemed to get cheaper as the night progressed. At some point I paid 7 dollars for a Stella and Jameson shot. The bartenders were freaking incredible (one is the guitarist from God Forbid), friendly and fast slinging the drinks. Second: the atmosphere. Despite our grizzled and frightening appearance, metalheads are probably the friendliest people you’ll ever meet. Music was roaring, people were talking. There is 70’s porn playing on some TVs and tons of memorabilia of metal bands and classic horror movies.

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Left: Nathan’s, above: Velvet Rope, below: Duff’s

THE JOURNEY DOWN

This is the darkest corner. The bad decision you never should have made, a question that shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have been answered and a risk not worth the taking. It is an adventure not worth seeking, a thirst that should not be quenched and a curiosity that should not be sought out but was. Our folly as humans is to lead ourselves down paths of destruction and end up at a crossroads with severe consequences. 3.14,15. The journey begins.

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A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival

â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is the darkest corner. It is a thirst that should not be quenched and a curiosity that should not be sought out.â&#x20AC;?

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A Darren Aronofsky Film Festival