In just five films, he's delivered a sci-fi thriller ("Pi"), an anti-drug drama ("Requiem for a Dream"), an eternal romance ("The Fountain"), a gritty sports flick ("The Wrestler") and a horror ballet that should have won him Best Director ("Black Swan").
Now, in his sixth feature, the mad genius attempts arguably his toughest genre yet: the Biblical epic.
We all know the story: The Creator decides to send a great flood to wash the world clean and start over, commanding Noah to build a giant ship to preserve two of each animal species that will then repopulate the world after the waters subside. The story inspired Aronofsky to write a poem that won an award from the United Nations when he was just 13 years old. Ever since, it's been his lifelong ambition to make the film and a 10-year struggle in Hollywood to get it made. Such blinding pet projects can be treacherous waters for filmmakers.
Video Review:
"Noah" has 4-star masterpiece written all over it: an ambitious, visionary, risk- taking, finely-crafted cinematic vessel, except for a single, glaring Achilles heel that rips a large hole in its hull, taking on so much water that it threatens to sink the entire ship.
I'm talking about a controversial group of characters known as The Watchers, a collection of CGI rock creatures that look like the talking-tree Ents from "The Lord of the Rings" and move like the title bots from "Transformers." Yes, they are loosely based in the Nephilim (Hebrew for "giants"), which are briefly mentioned in Genesis. And yes, their journey from fallen angels to redemptive servants is an admirable arc (no pun intended). But as the clunky rock creatures help Noah build the ark, then fend off an army invasion from the descendents of Cain, most viewers will be completely taken out of the movie.
How do you look your filmmaking idol in the face, the man you believe is the most daring and exciting filmmaker today, and humbly say, "What were you thinking?"
Aronofsky himself knew this would be a problem during the editing phase, repeatedly going to Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) because he was unhappy with the look of The Watchers. By this point, however, they were baked into the cake. This is the danger of CGI, folks, a lesson Aronofsky should have learned when Portman's CGI legs snapped backward like a swan -- the sole directing misstep in all of "Black Swan."
In the case of "Noah," there was plenty of room for measured CGI, from the animals to the ark to the floods. All of these are pulled off brilliantly, particularly the shooting geysers that burst through the arid earth. But while the massive CGI battles between humans and earthly objects were effective in Peter Jackson's "LOTR: The Two Towers," they feel out of place here.
This is not to say Aronofsky should have held steadfast to a strict, literal recount of the Genesis story. On the contrary, it's refreshing to see him deviate with such artistic license and moral complexity.
In doing so, he offers creative answers to questions that have puzzled many of us since Sunday school: Why didn't Adam prevent Eve from biting the forbidden fruit? Easy -- he was distracted by a snakeskin shed by the very serpent that tempted his wife. How on earth did Noah round up all those animals? Easy -- they came to him. How did all those animals not devour each other in a cramped space for 40 days and 40 nights? Easy -- they all went into a divine hibernation.
Bible literalists may despise such deviations. This is no doubt the reason for Paramount's timid release strategy, shutting out critics in many cities until the very last minute, and why the studio has been running this disclaimer during various promotions: "The film is inspired by the story of Noah. While artistic license has been taken, we believe that this film is true to the essence, values and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide. The biblical story of Noah can be found in the Book of Genesis."
Make no mistake -- this isn't your shiny Biblical epic like "The Ten Commandments" (1956), "Ben-Hur" (1959) or "The Bible" (1966), which John Huston directed, narrated and starred in as Noah. Even then, the darkness wasn't far away. Eight years after playing Noah, Huston played the corrupt, incestuous villain Noah Cross in "Chinatown" (1974), Roman Polanski's first hit since "Rosemary's Baby" (1968) due to his pregnant wife's murder by the Manson Family in the "helter skelter" summer swelter of 1969.
Aronofsky's "Noah" is the type of world Noah Cross would like. It isn't a lush paradise, nor should it be. It's a bleak, desolate world with muted colors and an apocalyptic atmosphere. All this is necessary to portray a time when wickedness was supposedly so strong that it needed to be destroyed.
This entire premise is framed by a centuries old struggle between good and evil, where Noah (Russell Crowe) represents the descendants of Adam's virtuous son Seth, while Tubal-cain (Ray Winstone) represents the descendants of Adam's wicked son Cain, who killed Abel in the Bible's first murder.
Noah and Tubal-cain may be hero and villain, respectively, but Aronofsky realizes they're two sides of the same coin. Tubal-cain believes in God, but feels God has long since forsaken humanity. He says, "I'm not afraid of miracles" and shouts toward the heavens, "Why won't you speak to me?" It's Lieutenant Dan shouting in the storm, daring God to drown him, only this time it's Biblical.
Noah is no less tormented than his ancestral foe. Rather than a saintly, pure, righteous protagonist, he is instead haunted by visions of the flood and confused at his Creator's divine directives, doubting whether or not he has really carried out God's will. Even after surviving the storm, he finds himself face first in the sand, naked and drunk. As he tells his sons, "The wickedness is not just in them. It's in all of us."
In this way, Aronofsky goes the route of Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988) rather than the recent gloss of "Son of God" (2014). And like John Wayne's Ethan Edwards at the end of "The Searchers" (1956), Noah must face his own choice of whether to kill or love in an Abraham-Isaac sacrificial dilemma.
All this is fertile ground for Crowe, who's had a series of stinker performances over the past several years, from "Robin Hood" (2010) to "Les Miserables" (2012). "Noah" reminds us of Crowe at his best, whether it's detectives in the streets like "L.A. Confidential" (1997) and "American Gangster" (2007), or warriors in the arena like "Cinderella Man" (2005) and "Gladiator" (2000). As he pays visits to the 900-year-old Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins) in a remote cave, we'll recall Crowe's Jor-El father figure in "Man of Steel" (2013). And when Noah turns to Tubal-cain to say, "I am Noah, the son of Lamech," it's spoken with such Maximus command that we expect him to follow it with, "And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next."
But the best performance does not come from the title character at all. That honor belongs to Jennifer Connelly, who steals the show as Noah's wife, Naameh, by delivering the film's biggest heaving-chest moments. The Crowe-Connelly pairing is not only an effective reunion from "A Beautiful Mind" (2001); it's a love story not unlike Jack and Rose aboard the "Titanic" (1997) -- two hearts jostled by the waves. In the face of Crowe's internal conflict, it is Connelly who must serve as the film's moral conscience and the glue of the family that includes their sons Ham (Logan Lerman), Shem (Douglas Booth) and Japeth (Leo McHugh Carroll), and their future daughters-in-law (Emma Watson, Madison Davenport).
Aronofsky's ability to get strong performances from his cast should be no secret. He directed Natalie Portman to an Oscar as ballerina Nina Sayers in "Black Swan," and should have done the same for Mickey Rourke as Randy "The Ram" Robinson in "The Wrestler." What's more, he helped put Connelly on the map in "Requiem for a Dream," alongside a young Jared Leto, Marlon Wayans and Ellen Burstyn, who found her best role since "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (1974).
But Aronofsky's ability to find good performances is just half of his directorial power. He also has an unrivaled visual mind for the cinematic language:
- Aronofsky sets his tone early with an almost storybook opening of "In the beginning," where a cartoonish snake, apple and Cain murder rock become a three-beat montage that recurs throughout the film.
- He offers creative use of time-lapse photography, the best attempt since Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" (2011) at showing the formation of the earth and the evolution of all its organisms.
- Noah's visions of flooding are justifiably horrific. They are not depicted as a booming voiceover from God, but rather a visceral nightmare of mankind and animals drowning underwater.
- The first rain drop of the impending flood is brilliant, appearing as if the camera is attached to the rain drop, starting from a bird's-eye view that plummets toward earth and lands on Noah's cheek, like a teardrop.
- Rather than his camera following closely behind heads (i.e. "The Wrestler," "Black Swan") or attached to torsos that characters can't escape ("Requiem for a Dream"), Aronofsky constantly cranes away from his characters in "Noah," reminding us of the Creator above.
- Finally, his use of sound is extremely effective, going nearly silent with aquatic echoes as we plunge underwater, then erupting again as we reemerge. Once again, Aronofsky gets a powerhouse score from Clint Mansell, whose harrowing scores for "Requiem" and "Black Swan" are truly iPod- worthy.
Beyond any of this, Aronofsky masters his pacing, keeping our attention for nearly 2 1/2 hours. Perhaps this is because for each depiction of desolation, there's another glimmer of hope. The earth's demise is not depicted so much as destruction, but as rebirth. As Noah says, "Fire consumes. Water cleanses."
Let's hope the film has a similar cleansing effect on Aronofsky's career. A "Waterworld" flop it is not, but one has to wonder whether the $130 million spectacle finally compromised Aronofsky's better angels -- ironically with fallen angels turned rock creatures. Or, perhaps there's a holy trinity, a rule of threes, at work, where Aronofsky is in the zone for two films, then pushes things too far on the third. "Pi" and "Requiem" were followed by the head-scratching "Fountain." Now, the cycle has repeated itself, following two gems in "The Wrestler" and "Black Swan" with another head-scratcher.
Okay, Mr. Aronfosky; you've gotten your pet project out of the way. Now let's get back to the intimate stories you're so good at telling. In the meantime, thanks for the same lesson that Noah himself learns: all humans are flawed, even great filmmakers.
★ ★ ★
The above rating is based on a 4-star scale. See where this film ranks in Jason's 2013 Movie Guide. Follow WTOP Film Critic Jason Fraley on Twitter @JFrayWTOP, read his blog The Film Spectrum or listen Friday mornings on 103.5 FM.
© 2014 WTOP. All Rights Reserved.
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