Darren Aronofsky revealed at a masterclass during Egypt’s El Gouna Film Festival this weekend “My last visit to Egypt was in 1987, and I did not know how the film industry was. In New York and Los Angeles, there were not many filmmakers and directors, and there were no cameras or film shooting technology that exists now, and the cost was great then. Now, You can buy an iPhone with a high-quality camera to start making your own movie or start translating your ideas and passion into visual or cinematic content.
Darren said, “I was born and lived in Brooklyn and accidentally saw one of the Spike Lee movies, and it changed my view of cinema, which was different from Hollywood films, which drew me to this field. When I went to college, I managed to get the equipment and it was the first time I found myself passionate about something that much. “.
He added, “I wrote Pi, my first movie, and I remember that when I made it, resources were limited, and I found out that I needed to raise about $20,000, which was less expensive, given that the real cost of the film was to develop. Because of the high production cost, I realized for the first time the importance of finding An actor without pay. I went to him and presented the idea to him and we discussed the film and the ideas of the film began to be generated.One of the most important elements in the film was to introduce the audience into the hero’s head and present an objective cinema by moving the camera towards the things he is looking at, and knowing what he thinks, as we wanted to use the camera in an expressive way. Filming was done in black and white due to the high cost of color photography, and this is expressive cinema.”
Darren explained, “All these decisions were agreed to work with the available resources as we did not get additional resources. There are 4 characters in the film, which creates 4 points of view and using some techniques and colors to express the characters with the screen sharing into two sections expressing two points of view. We did not want a lot of tricks. In the film, we used them as tools to tell the story while creating new tools.”
And about the idea of sharing the screen, he said, “It has been applied in a number of films to express feelings, even if two people are not from the same world and give real feelings like the experience of taking drugs.”
Published October 18, 2021.
