Interview conducted by Allen White from Screenwriting.about.com concerning Darren Aronofsky's "Requiem For A Dream", and "Batman: Year One." (Part 3)

AW: Really?

DA: Yeah. And we had a great collaboration, and I figured, you know, Frank re-invented "Batman" two times in the ‘80s, and now he’s writing "Dark Knight Returns: Part II." I don’t know if you know that.

AW: No.

DA: Yeah, yeah. It’s very exciting, and it’s gonna be awesome. He’s given me a little hint of what’s in it, and it sounds bugged out. And Frank was excited to work again with me and on "Batman," so hopefully it’ll work out, and we’ll be able to do something different and cool.

AW: What was the "Ronin" adaptation exactly?

DA: We got New Line to help us to adapt a screenplay out of "Ronin" [another great Frank Miller graphic novel]. We never really quite nailed it, and it’s right now sort of in limbo, but hopefully we’ll get it back on track at some point. But now we’re working on other things, so we’ll see.

AW: He needs to have his day in the sun. Because "Robocop 2" didn’t cut it. Because he’s somebody who’s also a great storyteller with a great visual sense, and it seems like a perfect match with you.

DA: The whole look of "Pi" was kind of stolen from "Sin City" [a brilliant black-and-white neo-noir graphic novel series written and illustrated by Miller]. Yeah, I remember showing "Sin City" when it first came out to my DP and going, " I love the contrast, and I want to try and do something with ‘Pi’"

AW: You often utilize extreme cinematic exaggeration like speeding up and slowing down the action, and manifesting hallucinations, making them come to life. In the best possible way, this reminds me of cartoon aesthetic. Did you watch a lot of cartoons—

DA: It’s funny, you know that music that goes crazy when Sara comes out of the TV and she’s dancing around [in "Requiem"], you know, that crazy conga music? I don’t know if you remember, when she’s circling the chair? Actually the guy who did that music was Brian Emrich — it’s the only cue that’s not by Clint [Mansell, composer] and Kronos, it’s by Brian Emrich the sound designer. I told Brian, "You know when Bugs Bunny dances on Elmer Fudd’s head? (does a conga riff) Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, DANT! Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, DANT! You know what I’m talking about. I was like, "That’s the type of music I want." You know, I’m that generation -- you’re my age? How old are you, thirty-one? How old are you?

AW: Thirty-three.

DA: Thirty-three. So we grew up on tons and tons and tons of cartoons. You know, Bugs Bunny, and Woody Woodpecker, and all that crazy Chuck Jones, Hanna-Barbera crap, which is great. But it’s amazing how it invades your subconscious. But definitely animation is a big influence on me.

AW: What, then, are the positive and negative sides to growing up watching tons of television as far as being a filmmaker?

DA: From watching eight hours of TV a day as a kid, I’ve just watched enough of those formulas there’s somewhere deep in my head of how to sort of deliver visual information to an audience. And maybe that’s what I got out of it. I don’t know if I was born with that, or if I just, or if I, you know, just from too much TV. But it’s probably a combination of something. I think everything’s learned, I don’t think you’re born with much.

AW: How did going to film school help you be a better filmmaker?

DA: I think film school let me make a lot of mistakes. I really sort of treated film school as like, I wanted to make good film but I was like, "You know, I’m going to take chances and risks because now’s the time to fuck up." And I remember I was scared of having a lead actress, the lead of a project. One of my projects in film school, I said, "Okay, I’m going to do a project with an actress." And now I got to work with Ellen Burstyn. So think dealing with those fears in film school probably helped me.

AW: How do you direct someone like Ellen Burstyn, who’s such a powerhouse?

DA: You know, not much. You sort of stand back and let it happen. Maybe add some water and some sunlight and let it blossom. I mean, she is, you know, what can I say, she’s unbelievable. And the one thing I think that hopefully that audiences will get is that they’ll feel robbed by Hollywood which has not hired this woman for twenty years. And it’s almost a crime on the world, because, you know, just her abilities — it’s just unbelievable. And it should be mandatory that you have to get two films of Ellen Burstyn a year.

AW: "Requiem" is stylistically and thematically a very logical progression from "Pi." How much of this process is intentional, and how much is it your personality manifesting itself in the process?

DA: It all comes out of my personality, probably, but we had a lot of limitations on "Pi." And I didn’t really feel like I had finished exploring a lot of the visual ideas I had. And part of the reason I was attracted to "Requiem" was because it was going to allow me to do some similar stuff I did in "Pi," but on a different scale. I think on the next film you’re going to see something totally different, hopefully.

AW: So, for example, where do you want to go on the next film?

DA: It depends on the story. The story dictates the film grammar. And so hopefully there’ll be a really cool story that we come up with and something cool will come out of it. Right now, outside of "Batman," I’ve been working for eleven months on a new science fiction project that’s probably back in the direction of "Pi" as far as thematics but on a much more ambitious scale.

AW: Something you wrote yourself?

DA: I’m writing myself, yeah. It’s pretty damn cool. It’s a post-"Matrix" metaphysical science fiction film.

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