Hey folks, Harry here with our magical friend that popped up to listen to Aronofsky and paid rapt attention to the Q&A and Mandrake fills us in with this report that he pulled from his hat... Oh this is all going to get very very fascinating... Aronofsky and Miller.... BATMAN... It's gotta be really different... doesn't mean it'll be good.. but it does mean it won't be something we've seen out of the character on the big screen thus far... here we go...
Once upon a time (yesterday, to be exact), an art-house theater close to that tourist trap known as Independence Mall had an advance screening of Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream". Mr. Aronofsky was kind enough to attend and have a short Q&A with the audience.
Before the film started, a critic for one of the local weeklies introduced it. Because he assumed that most of us "Gen-X slacker" types wouldn't know who the actors were, he told everyone where we might have seen them before. He especially went on explaining who Ellen Burstyn is. "The Exorcist" was the number two movie this week, but we still wouldn't know who Ellen Burstyn was. He could probably hear my eyes roll.
Anyway, he shut up and the film started.
A quick, non-spoiler review: Fantastic cinematography, an incredible score, a pretty darn-good performance from Marlon Wayans, Jared Leto with a bad haircut and an even worse accent, and a heart-breaking performance by the aforementioned Ellen Burstyn.
As the film ended, Mr. Aronofsky came up and started his Q&A. I was the second one to get a question in. I said that I debated whether I should ask him a "Batman: Year One" question. Instead, I asked him how he got te Kronos Quartet to work on the score. He said it was the first one they ever did. (Note: This is not true... they worked with Philip Glass on the film "Mishima" and on the video re-release of Tod Browning's "Dracula".)
I don't know if you're familiar with the Kronos Quartet. Having read in Moriarty's Rumblings about his musical tastes, I'm certain that he could hook you up with some of their stuff. They're one of the best ensembles in the world.
Well, Aronofsky and Clint Mansell, the film's scorer, agree. He said that Clint was working on adding synthesized strings into the score, but it just sounded cheesy. They contemplated getting an orchestra to work on it, and decided that if they were going to do that that they should go all-out and aim for the best...
One of the guys from KQ saw the film and cut their rates drastically to work on it. The score is infinitely more powerful and disturbing because of it.
Another person then asked him about "Batman: Year One". He said that he was surprised how word could travel so fast about it... Internet fanboys strike again!! All he said was that both him and Frank Miller had started working together on the script, and stressed that the project still hasn't been officially green-lit. However, he did also mention that he's been working the last ten months on an original sci-fi script. He said that either one of these two could be his next project, and that they're both grander in scope than "Requiem".
He answered a few more inane questions ("Why didn't you shoot this in black and white like 'Pi'? It would've been so much cooler in black and white..." "What was it like to work with Louise Lasser?") and ended it. A couple of people, myself included, asked him a couple of more questions on the way up the aisle.
I asked him about the editing. He said that the company didn't want the expenses of optically reprinting certain shots over and over again for some sequences. Instead, each of those pieces was filmed over and over again so there was enough to work with in the editing phase. I know this last bit sounds cryptic, but when you see the film, you'll understand what I'm talking about.
Don't know how much any of this helps. I've got to run, but I'll be in touch later.
Mandrake
