Everything We Learned From Ari Aster’s AMA

In an era saturated with franchise horror and reboots or remakes, Ari Aster has emerged as a powerful, singular voice, redefining the genre’s boundaries.

The guy just knows how to write and direct a movie, and how to bend genre to his will.

He burst onto the scene with his 2018 debut Hereditary, and followed it with 2019’s Midsommar, a “folk horror” masterpiece that traded darkness for blinding sunlight.

 Aster’s films are dense, layered, and relentlessly bleak, challenging audiences to confront uncomfortable truths about humanity.

His most recent film, Eddington, is a masterpiece, and it is the film that will come to define our decade.

That’s why I was so pumped to see Aster doing an AMA on Reddit. Let’s dive into what he talked about and look at some key quotes.

  – YouTubewww.youtube.com

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Where Ari Aster Gets His Ideas

When you’re talking to an accomplished director like Aster, you might want to figure out where he gets his ideas and how he learned to write.

Aster pointed to a few books that have guided him in the process, saying, “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).”

Of course, as an avid reader, Aster talks about how books influence him more than movies. He said of the works that have had the greatest effect on him, “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…”

  – YouTubewww.youtube.com

Aster on Craft

No AMA is complete without talking about craft.

His Shooting Process

And as Aster digs deep into his films, he does so with a pretty defined shot list.

He said of his shooting process, “For the important emotional scenes that rely on performance, I wait to devise my shot list until I’ve had the chance to rehearse with the actors (preferably in the space). Joaquin likes rehearsal a lot (in fact, he relies on it), and I never impose blocking on him before seeing what his instincts are. For the smaller scenes, I will shot list early on. Same with action scenes or big complicated set pieces, as the crew requires those long in advance.”

Writing

If you want to write like Aster, especially like his film Beau is Afraid, he has some solid advice on that, too.

Aster said, “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.”

Summing It All Up

What I love about an AMA is that Aste gets to pick and choose which questions to answer and which ones to go into detail on, or just leave us with witty gems. His work is so deeply personal and singular, I loved seeing what influences him, and I definitely want to check out some of the books he recommended.

What did you like most about this conversation?

Let me know what you think in the comments.