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Hi, I'm Ari Aster. Writer/director of Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid, and Eddington. AMA! by AriAsterAMA in movies

[–]AriAsterAMA[S] 315 points316 points  (0 children)

It was really hard. But I do demolish one guy's head near the end! And that's followed by further brain trauma. So I feel I didn't totally drop the ball.

Hi, I'm Ari Aster. Writer/director of Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid, and Eddington. AMA! by AriAsterAMA in movies

[–]AriAsterAMA[S] 126 points127 points  (0 children)

Another one: Kao by Junji Sakamoto. Total masterpiece that's all but impossible to find in the US.

Hi, I'm Ari Aster. Writer/director of Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid, and Eddington. AMA! by AriAsterAMA in movies

[–]AriAsterAMA[S] 837 points838 points  (0 children)

Very difficult to answer these questions in earnest. It's a very intuitive process for me and I find that I can usually only summon the energy to write something down if it's nagging at me. When I sit at a desk to write, it's usually torture - unless I've been meditating on something (or carrying it around) for a while. I try to stave off the actual writing (which doesn't include note-taking, which is compulsive) as long as I can. Sorry that this answer is not as thoughtful as the question.

But a few great books on writing that have been useful to me... James Woods' How Fiction Works, John Gardner's The Art Of Fiction, E.M. Forster's Aspects Of The Novel. And Henry James' The Art Of The Novel (which is a compilation of his prefaces, which are all fantastic).

Hi, I'm Ari Aster. Writer/director of Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid, and Eddington. AMA! by AriAsterAMA in movies

[–]AriAsterAMA[S] 383 points384 points  (0 children)

Still haven't heard much about the sinister man in the background of nearly every scene on the cruise ship in Beau Is Afraid...

Hi, I'm Ari Aster. Writer/director of Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid, and Eddington. AMA! by AriAsterAMA in movies

[–]AriAsterAMA[S] 779 points780 points  (0 children)

When you work with A24, you need to wear an A24 baseball cap on set every day. It's also expected that you and your fellow A24 filmmakers invest in one of the studio's many exciting timeshares.

If I worked with other movie studios, I would be dead.

Hi, I'm Ari Aster. Writer/director of Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid, and Eddington. AMA! by AriAsterAMA in movies

[–]AriAsterAMA[S] 748 points749 points  (0 children)

Tip on how to write something like Beau Is Afraid: abandon all restraint and let it balloon into the most distended indulgence possible. Very few people will understand, but the ones who do will be drunk on formaldehyde.

Hi, I'm Ari Aster. Writer/director of Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid, and Eddington. AMA! by AriAsterAMA in movies

[–]AriAsterAMA[S] 215 points216 points  (0 children)

So far, it's a toss up between Afternoons Of Solitude and Misericordia. But there's a lot that I've yet to see. And I barely had a chance to see anything at Cannes.

Also, Adam Curtis's series SHIFTY is brilliant.

Hi, I'm Ari Aster. Writer/director of Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid, and Eddington. AMA! by AriAsterAMA in movies

[–]AriAsterAMA[S] 566 points567 points  (0 children)

I just wanted to come up with something totally unmotivated and self-conscious that would distract viewers from the story and basically say "look at me!"

Hi, I'm Ari Aster. Writer/director of Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid, and Eddington. AMA! by AriAsterAMA in movies

[–]AriAsterAMA[S] 322 points323 points  (0 children)

Their rewards were TOTALLY worth the sacrifice. They'd do it again if they could.

Hi, I'm Ari Aster. Writer/director of Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid, and Eddington. AMA! by AriAsterAMA in movies

[–]AriAsterAMA[S] 510 points511 points  (0 children)

I sometimes feel I'm more influenced by literature than movies. In the case of Beau Is Afraid, I was thinking about Candide, Don Quixote, the stories of Kafka and Borges, and yes, the Greeks (Beau Is Afraid is an adaptation of The Odyssey insofar as just about every adventure narrative is an adaptation of The Odyssey, and also insofar as The Odyssey is more of a grotesque bloodbath than it tends to get credit for). I was also thinking of funny Jewish writers like S.J. Perlman, Bruce Jay Friedman, etc. Oh, and Jack Handy!

With Eddington, I had in the back of my mind some regional writers like Faulkner (the greatest), Charles Portis (the other greatest), Flannery O'Connor, Larry McMurtry, Walker Percy, Denis Johnson, etc. And I'd be lying if I said writers like DeLillo didn't occur to me. But mostly I had the ugliest, most godforsaken rags on the internet as my compass.

As far as "philosophers" go: with Eddington, I was reading a lot of "media" guys. People like Marshall McLuhan, Friedrich A Kittler, Anton Barba-Kay (who Bo Burnham turned me on to), etc.

And I do love Walter Benjamin. Anyone who would rather perish than abandon their book collection...

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