History will ultimately determine the merits of Darren Aronofsky‘s divisive “mother!,” but among the many things it will be remembered for, is being one of only 19 movies in history receive an F-grade CinemaScore. Determined by exit polls of moviegoers’ opinions of films on opening night, the movies that have been deemed as failures include terrific pictures like William Friedkin‘s “Bug” and Andrew Dominik‘s “Killing Them Softly,” and interesting efforts like Steven Soderbergh‘s “Solaris.” But yes, there is also trash on there too like the Lindsay Lohan flick “I Know Who Killed Me” and the parody flick “Disaster Movie.” However, Aronofsky believes there’s no way his “mother!” could’ve received any other score.
Speaking with The Frame, the director reacts to the dubious honor, calling his concoction a “punk movie” that’s designed to provoke. Here’s what he had to say:
READ MORE: “I Wouldn’t Be Able To Do It Again”: Jennifer Lawrence Talks Making ‘mother!’
What’s interesting about that is, like, how if you walk out of this movie are you not going to give it an “F?” It’s a punch. It’s a total punch. And I realize that we were excited by that. We wanted to make a punk movie and come at you. And the reason I wanted to come is because I was very sad and I had a lot of anguish and I wanted to express it. Filmmaking is such a hard journey. People are constantly saying no to you. And to wake up every morning and get out of bed and to face all those no’s, you have to be willing to really believe in something. And that’s what I look for in my collaborators and what I pitched the actors I said, Look, this isn’t going to be a popularity contest. We’re basically holding up a mirror to what’s going on. All of us are doing this. But that final chapter hasn’t been written and hopefully things can change. And, to go back, the fact that it’s going down right now and things are really falling apart in a way that is really scary.
It’s scary when you talk to the people who are studying this and thinking about this and then you have other people who basically believe in the power of a iPhone that they can communicate to 35 million people in a blink of an eye, yet they don’t believe in science in other ways. You know, which is as proven as gravity at this point, really. It has as many people believe in it as believe in gravity. And it scares me and it’s time to start screaming. So I wanted to howl. And this was my howl. And some people are not going to want to listen to it. That’s cool.
It doesn’t look like the chatter around “mother!” is going to slow down anytime soon. Listen to the full chat with Aronofsky below.