mother!

Started by Shughes, August 09, 2017, 07:56:15 AM

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©brad


BB

Finally caught up with this. Really quite enjoyed it. Then I read Aronofsky's statement and enjoyed it a little less.

Still, might be my favourite of his films so far. Managed to evoke very specific feelings I've experienced in dreams but not in waking life, which was fun.

ElPandaRoyal

Quote from: ©brad on October 04, 2017, 01:09:31 PM
Still haven't seen this yet but ARONOFSKY AND JLAW ARE NOW DATING?!

To be fair, he has been working on it for a long time.

Si

©brad

^hah!

Apparently they broke up because he wouldn't stop reading and complaining about Mother! reviews (no joke).


Something Spanish

on the WTF interview Aronofsky claims mother! is the best thing he's ever done.

©brad

Quote from: Something Spanish on December 21, 2017, 05:51:35 PM
on the WTF interview Aronofsky claims mother! is the best thing he's ever done.

I think he said it was the ending of Mother! that was the best thing he's ever done.

Jeremy Blackman

Rewatched mother! and oh boy does it hold up. I feel even more strongly about it now. Every moment of this film is so perfectly crafted—each word, each camera movement, every delicious morsel of sound design.

This is J-Law's best performance, Aronofsky's best work, and one of the best films of the decade.

SPOILERS

I hate to say this, but Get Out feels very one-trick by comparison. With mother!, there are so many fun things to discover. Countless little jokes (verbal and visual) and lots of dark clever delights. (Example: at 44:53, we very briefly see that the ground is still smoldering from the last conflagration.)

But most of all, there is a bounty of achingly beautiful metaphors. And I'm not talking about the biblical ones. When everyone was discussing this movie, I somehow bought into the consensus that its themes were very heavy-handed once you caught on. But that's really not true at all. This movie is so thematically dense. It actually strongly reminds me of Dogville in the way every other line kind of knocks you out with its incisiveness and impishness.

And it's so ridiculously precise in the way it renders the introvert's nightmare. A lot of that actually comes from J-Law's performance—she carries the film far more than I had realized.

Side note, this is a great read: Mother! is even more harrowing when you watch it with your pregnant wife

jenkins

you understand, jb, that this movie is a goldmine for me, because it towers the others and yet it's sitting around unnoticed in meme land. people don't even know what to do with it, which reinforces my concept that people are clueless

sorry, I don't want to shittalk normies, I want to focus on appreciating this movie. it will never not hold up because it's colossally good and essentially flawless. it's not literally flawless, in terms of the bozo idea of starting with its worst shot. "she's on fire but wait: she cries." and this inclusion later reinforces the concept of a circular narrative but god, the things you do to hold the audience's hand. sure. what I'm saying is Lowery talked about innumerable interpretations of interpretable narratives, but here's what one-and-done looks like. what the fuck are you going to alter about this landscape while retaining its excellence? please. this sucker is check marked

I don't know much about introverts or the idea of introverts I guess, so I don't think of it that way at all. in the documentary special feature Aronofsky describes it as emotionally true. Bardem calls it an emotional journey of the world itself. and some producer or whatever says "I think these themes are, like, how emotion works." you can really excel at art when you realize you can do anything emotionally believable. with movies specifically, if the character believes in it the audience will too. oh, this is what reality looks like? it does feel like it. that offers a lot of possibilities. you, jb, highlighted J-Law, and she's the foundation of the movie, absolutely. this movie couldn't exist without her. please refer to jb's post in terms of crucial points worthy of further agreement. though I want to highlight J-Bard, who flowered through Almodóvar. I've semi-recently stated that Bardem's performance in Live Flesh is the best performance of the 90s. specifically, I said it is better than the shitfest that is David Thewlis's role in Naked. show me more of life or why bother. show me the feelings I struggle to find or what have you accomplished. now, J-Bard is appreciated in meme land through No Country for Old Men, because he kills it there, and because of the Coen bros, but most importantly because J-Bard can bring it. he's a real deal and well, that's why Aronofsky hired him. he doesn't have a botched line the entire movie. yes: his acting lifts the movie. his acting is an essential part of the movie. J-Law is being mistreated left/right but J-Bard is never the bad guy: he has this whole partner/host dilemma

Michelle Pfeiffer and Ed Harris: also flawless. it's wildly commendable how perfectly conceived the characters are. god: when I saw the swat team entire again. that was: so fun again. when the molotov cocktail or other incendiary gets thrown on the cop shield: so good. I've expressed my point to an amount I consider sufficient enough to end writing this post

I recommend this movie, personally

Jeremy Blackman

Nice. Always good to see people appreciate this movie. It's become one of my all-time faves.

Re: the introvert's nightmare. What mother! renders so accurately is that cycle of invasions. An onslaught of social obligations and absurdly presumptuous and unexpected impositions that seems to increase in frequency forever. It's also about the violation of private space. About being caught with your nightgown unbuttoned a little too much. And separately, it's about the destruction of peaceful, structured space. Some people work really hard to achieve that, then someone jumps on your sink and everything starts breaking down.