In May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and mayor (Pedro Pascal) sparks a powder keg as neighbour is pitted against neighbour in Eddington, New Mexico.
Writer and director of Hereditary, Midsommar and Beau Is Afraid, Ari Aster, is back with another bold cinematic swing, this time using the Western genre to tell the story of America during COVID. As the film prepares to release in Australian cinemas on August 21, Nick L’Barrow spoke with Ari Aster about recreating the pandemonium of the pandemic on screen, and the rabbit holes people my go down after watching the film.
Nick: Ari, it’s such a pleasure to meet you! How are you today?
Ari Aster: I’m doing well, thanks. How are you?
Nick: I’m doing very well, thanks. I’m excited to chat with you because I’m truly a fan of your work.
Nick shows Ari his Bluray copies of Hereditary, Midsommar, and Beau Is Afraid.
Ari Aster: I’m glad to see Beau is Afraid in there!
Nick: I’m a defender, man. You take bold cinematic swings, and as an audience member, I appreciate it a lot. And I have a million questions about Eddington – the first being a sort of ‘chicken or the egg’ question. I’m curious to know whether the structure and style of the Western genre was something you moulded into this tale, or whether you started with the idea of making a Western and finding that this contemporary story fit well into that styling?
Ari Aster: Well, you know, I’m from New Mexico. I grew up there, and I’ve always wanted to make a film set in New Mexico because I know that region so well. The South-West is just a very interesting, strange place. The terrain lends itself naturally to a Western, but the Western also felt applicable to me right now when I was deciding to make a film about this moment, about this environment that we’re all living in. To make a film that is inflected like a truly modern realism, which is another way of saying the characters live on the internet! I didn’t want to have that being a background issue, but be something that has changed these people, and is changing these people. That felt important to me.
So, the one reason the Western felt interesting to me is because it’s the national genre. It’s the genre that’s about American history. It’s contending with American history. It’s also contending with the heroic myth of America. While at the same time, at its best, ruminating on the reality of America. It’s about love versus lawlessness, and forging new societies and borders. It feels like we’re living through the collapse of something big, and it feels like we’re also on the cusp of something like a new frontier. So, what better genre than the Western for that?
Nick: The internet plays a giant role in this film. The characters are consuming so much information, and so much is happening in their lives, that it’s truly overwhelming. And the film itself really captures this overwhelming feeling just from an experience point of view. What was that something you were always intending when making this film? To have the experience of watching it feel like what the characters are also going through?
Ari Aster: Well, it’s tricky, right? Because part of what I’m trying to do is pull back as far as I can, and describe the structure of reality in that moment. Of which nobody can agree on what is happening. So, I’m trying to include as many voices in this cacophony as possible without neglecting to tell a story or be coherent, even though the movies about incoherent miasma.
For me, what was important was to understand who these people are, how they got into their silos, how they’ve essentially curated a world of information that they’re living in, and to take them seriously and not condescend to any of them. The film is satirical, so in many ways, it’s taking on sacred cows and pointing out hypocrises, or things that I maybe find frustrating on one side or catastrophic on another.
But, the minute I start talking down to any of these people, the movie becomes just totally uninteresting.
Nick: Is there also a sort of onus that has to be put on the audience when it comes to exploring these themes? I mean, it’s no secret that people will just bring their preconceived ideas and notions with them into a story like this…
Ari Aster: Yeah, I mean, it’s a story where as I was writing it, there were plenty of things I started to include, and every time something came up in my body saying, “Ari, don’t do it!” Well, that’s proof that I should, right? If something’s making me uncomfortable, there’s no excuse for not going there.
I think the one reason people may bump on it is because it’s going after their identities. Identity is becoming more and more important in all of our lives.
Nick: I think the character of Brian is very much a representation of that. But, perhaps that’s also me bringing my preconceived ideas of a generation younger than me to the film too.
Ari Aster: He’s somebody who is sort of a chameleon figure. He’s somebody who doesn’t really have any conviction about anything. He’s just looking for a community, and then you have other people in his sphere that do really care. And maybe they cross lines without seeing it, or noticing.
But there are people in his story that are gripped by real conviction, you know? They’re flawed. Specifically the girl he is going after. She’s flawed, but she cares. She’s not cynical. She’s just not fully self aware yet. But, at the same time, so many characters aren’t self-aware, they’re paralysed by self consciousness.
Nick: I’m a big fan of Tim Heidecker, and I watched your apperance on Office Hours Live recently. Side note – anyone who is also a big fan of DJ Douggpound is alright with me!
Ari Aster: [laughs]
Nick: But, I found the conversation you had with him about audiences getting mad that you didn’t make the art they wanted to see very interesting. Does an element of humanity like that also bleed into the characters of Eddington? Just people being mad are their lack of control?
Ari Aster: Well, we all lived through COVID. And, you know, none of us have really metabolised what happened there, because we’re kind of still living in it. It’s not really over, whatever that process was that started there. The virus is one thing. I mean, we’re not locked down anymore. But everybody lived through something tricky, because we’re all looking for our movie. I think that is inevitable.
It’s easy to get lost in the arguments of characters and the ideological grounds that all these characters are warring on. But, I would say this – for anybody who is thinking about the movie like that, don’t get too lost in those themes, because the movie is really about a data centre being built in this town. And people get caught in the trap of killing each other when something bigger like that is happening right over their heads.
Nick: So, I went down the ‘solidgoldmagikarp’ rabbit hole because I knew that wasn’t just a throwaway name you were using for the data centre. I was very intrigued reading about how AI was “filling in gaps” and creating answers for things that weren’t prompted by users. And I couldn’t help but feel that the idea of “creating scenarios” is very parallel to anxiety, and how we as people also think of scenarios that have had no prompts to them. Was that something you were consciously thinking about when creating this film?
Ari Aster: I think the way you put it was really nice. I don’t know how much I want to add to that. But… yes, absolutely. I’m glad you went down that ‘solidgoldmagikarp’ rabbit hole.
Thank you so much to Ari for his time, and to Universal Pictures for organising the interview. Eddington is in Australian cinemas August 21.
