credit: @darrenaronofsky
Darren Aronofsky is well-known in Hollywood for his dark themes and his insightful approach to his work. His movies are infamous, and they include some of the most provocative themes imaginable. He is the director, screenwriter, and producer who is behind movies such as Black Swan and The Whale, and each of these movies is beyond the limits of what most people dare to imagine when they think of life. This director approaches things from a different perspective, and he’s never been afraid to see the dark and the unapproachable in a subject. This allows him to make almost painful movies, but his fans cannot look away when they watch. Here’s what you need to know about Darren Aronofsky.
1. He’s Dated High-Profile Women
At the moment, we believe he is very single. However, he spent years dating the lovely actress Rachel Weisz. They even share a son. They continue to parent their son, who was born in 2006, together, but they have not had a romantic relationship since prior to 2010. He later dated the very famous Jennifer Lawrence for approximately one year. They ended things in 2017.
2. Aronofsky’s Noah is Fraught with Controversy
The 2014 film Noah is one of the most controversial that Darren Aronofsky’s made yet. The actors, the actresses, and many others have come forward about working conditions and more, and it’s not painting the film positively. Actress Emma Watson spoke about being so ill she couldn’t function correctly during filming one day, and Aronofsky told her to use her illness in the scene and to make it work. She also spoke of an older actor who was becoming quite sick from the conditions they were shooting in – the stagnant heat – and the director did not care.
Credit: @darrenaronofsky
3. Many Are Unhappy with the Use of A Fat Suit in The Whale
Brendan Fraser is a remarkable actor, and he does a remarkable job in this film. However, many people criticize the film for various reasons. One such is the fat suit and the makeup Fraser wears. Other issues are from fellow actors and movie industry types who don’t like the fact that the fat suit seems to be a metaphor for gay people and sadness.
Daniel Franzese starred in the movie Mean Girls, and he said, “I guess you can go ahead and wear a fat suit and do what you got to do and get your Oscar. We’ll just sit here, waiting,” he said of his feelings of the movie. His issue is the fact that Aronofsky cast a straight man in a fat suit to play the role of a large gay man when there are plenty of large, gay men who could have taken on this role.
4. There is Some Question about Dancing in Black Swan
We mentioned earlier that Darren Aronofsky is a man who is accustomed to controversy. He knew there was no way he’d make a movie like Black Swan without the help of actress Natalie Portman – who was phenomenal and earned that Oscar. She nearly killed herself losing weight, training, and becoming a ballerina when she made that movie, and it was, of course, met with controversy. Many claimed that she did not do the dancing in the film and was criticized for using a professional dancer as a double dancer.
Professional ballerina Sarah Lane said that Natalie Portman did only five percent of the dancing in the full body shots in the film. This could have jeopardized Portman’s ability to become nominated for an Oscar, and Aronofsky was not having it. He made an obvious public statement to the contrary, stating that by his calculations, 111 of the dancing scenes in the movie are of Portman, while only 28 of the 139 dance shots are of Lane. He estimates that is around 85 percent Portman, and he is not having that.
credit: @darrenaronofsky
5. Black Swan is All About Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Did you think this movie was about ballet? The issue with OCD is that it manifests in many ways. The common misconception is that people with OCD are the type of people who wash their hands repeatedly or do things a certain number of times, or they like things neat and orderly at all times and cannot have one thing out of place by even a millimeter. The truth is that it’s a form of psychosis that shows up in so many ways other than this. In the movie, Natalie Portman’s character suffers from OCD in a much darker manner. There is an absolute level of perfectionism that goes into being a ballerina without suffering from OCD. Portman’s character takes that level of perfectionism into a new realm, and she has many compulsions.
This is one of the much darker themes that Aronofsky has worked with throughout his years in Hollywood, and it often speaks to many people. Mental health issues are far more prevalent than people imagine, and living with even a small version of them is something many people do not understand. Many people with mental health issues will never know they have them, but they are everywhere.
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