MovieChat Forums > Mother! (2017) Discussion > Is the hatred disproportional?

Is the hatred disproportional?

posted 7 years ago by Renovatio (2990)
11 replies | jump to latest

Is the hatred for this movie disproportional?

Has been nominated for three Razzies!

Aronofsky for Director, Lawrence for Actress and Bardem for Supporting Actor.... Wrost!? What? Seriously?

Absurd... Say what you want about controversy, but this was one of the most ambitious films of the year... Lawrence nailed it, Bardem nailed it... Maybe Aronofsky's reach exceeds his grasp, but isn't that what we want from our artists?! Also, it's well made movie despite not being "perfect"... it works... 😎

These Razzies nominations seem to be more about the people and personalities rather than the actual work... it's hillarious! 😂

[–] Orestes97 (100) 7 years ago

I usually can’t stand J-Law but I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. I think the hatred comes from the fact that it had a wide release with an a-list star in the lead. If it was relegated to the art houses with someone like Brie Larson, Natalie Portman, Saorsie Ronan or whatever it wouldn’t be getting nearly as much hate. It’s kinda awesome that a major studio put a movie like this out to the masses.

[–] Kazak (2194) 7 years ago

Teeth gnashing and impetuous tantrums from unreflecting dunderheads who can't bear to face that we humans have fucked The Garden of Eden right in its virgin ass.

[–] Renovatio (2990) 7 years ago

Scoresese shared his thoughts on Mother! recently, he wrote...

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/martin-scorsese-rotten-tomatoes-box-office-obsession-why-mother-was-misjudged-guest-column-1047286

Before I actually saw mother!, I was extremely disturbed by all of the severe judgments of it. Many people seemed to want to define the film, box it in, find it wanting and condemn it. And many seemed to take joy in the fact that it received an F grade from Cinemascore. This actually became a news story — mother! had been "slapped" with the "dreaded" Cinemascore F rating, a terrible distinction that it shares with pictures directed by Robert Altman, Jane Campion, William Friedkin and Steven Soderbergh.

After I had a chance to see mother!, I was even more disturbed by this rush to judgment, and that's why I wanted to share my thoughts. People seemed to be out for blood, simply because the film couldn't be easily defined or interpreted or reduced to a two-word description. Is it a horror movie, or a dark comedy, or a biblical allegory, or a cautionary fable about moral and environmental devastation? Maybe a little of all of the above, but certainly not just any one of those neat categories.

Is it a picture that has to be explained? What about the experience of watching mother!? It was so tactile, so beautifully staged and acted — the subjective camera and the POV reverse angles, always in motion … the sound design, which comes at the viewer from around corners and leads you deeper and deeper into the nightmare … the unfolding of the story, which very gradually becomes more and more upsetting as the film goes forward. The horror, the dark comedy, the biblical elements, the cautionary fable — they're all there, but they're elements in the total experience, which engulfs the characters and the viewers along with them. Only a true, passionate filmmaker could have made this picture, which I'm still experiencing weeks after I saw it...

continued

[–] Renovatio (2990) 7 years ago

... continued from above...

Good films by real filmmakers aren't made to be decoded, consumed or instantly comprehended. They're not even made to be instantly liked. They're just made, because the person behind the camera had to make them. And as anyone familiar with the history of movies knows all too well, there is a very long list of titles — The Wizard of Oz, It's a Wonderful Life, Vertigo and Point Blank, to name just a few — that were rejected on first release and went on to become classics. Tomatometer ratings and Cinemascore grades will be gone soon enough. Maybe they'll be muscled out by something even worse.

Or maybe they'll fade away and dissolve in the light of a new spirit in film literacy. Meanwhile, passionately crafted pictures like mother! will continue to grow in our minds.

What do you guys think? I think his analysis is spot on... The rest of the article is critical of the Rotten Tomatoes and BoxOffice obssessed culture of current film criticism and, to be honest, some audiences... Interesting read...

It seems Scoresese "gets it" and appreciates what Aronofsky has done with Mother!

[–] MagneticMonopole (286) 7 years ago

I noticed that article when it was first published and thought it was great. Critics may not understand Aronofsky for the most part, but fellow artists (mostly!) do.

[–] Frogarama (12942) 7 years ago

People seemed to be out for blood, simply because the film couldn't be easily defined or interpreted or reduced to a two-word description. Is it a horror movie, or a dark comedy, or a biblical allegory, or a cautionary fable about moral and environmental devastation? Maybe a little of all of the above, but certainly not just any one of those neat categories.

Prometheus got a similar reaction, and those genres listed also all apply to it.

[–] Renovatio (2990) 7 years ago

Good point...

Prometheus is underrated as well, as Ridley's attempt to transcend the brainless family action of Cameron's Aliens met with some fanboy hate... but I think Mother! is far more controversial and less compromising in terms of being close to the sensibility of a filmmaker... Ridley was probably handicapped by the need to tie into the franchise, to placate the fanbase and by commercial studio concerns...

Aronofsky was unshackled here and expresses his ideas fully unlike the arguably budget compromised The Fountain... Also underrated and appears to be reevaluated by successive audiences...

[–] Frogarama (12942) 7 years ago

"Ridley was probably handicapped by the need to tie into the franchise, to placate the fanbase and by commercial studio concerns..."

True, and considering Del Toro cancelled his "At the Mountains of Madness" adaptation after seeing Prometheus, it seems Ridley was going more for the Lovecraft fan base, not necessarily the Alien fan base (I like both, of course).

[–] Frogarama (12942) 7 years ago

Probably not. Aronofsky can make some real crap. Also this is his first movie since Noah... Two weird religious-themed movies in a row.

[–] Renovatio (2990) 7 years ago

Well.. With Mother! it's arguable that the religious allegory is just a way to structure the film so he can explore other themes, which are more his focus...

Also... "Weird" can be applied to nearly every Aronofsky film 😉

[–] Frogarama (12942) 7 years ago

I'm pretty much at 50/50 with the Aronofsky movies I've seen, but haven't seen this one yet.

I want to see Mother and will do so soon, but I haven't gotten my hopes up. My mind is open to it.