RadixJournal - Aronofsky’s flawed but symbolically revealing Noah (2014)

00:00:00.000 I remember there was the typical Christian reaction about how you got these things wrong, 0.99

00:00:06.980 even though he gets remarkably so many things right.

00:00:12.700 It was not a atheistic, you know, telling of the flood story, although it is weird.

00:00:22.940 And the movie actually did well.

00:00:26.080 I had never seen it.

00:00:27.080 i did not see it in theaters until last night when i watched it for the first time it was sort

00:00:32.360 of muted even though it was actually a financial success i think it made 350 million dollars

00:00:38.680 on a 100 million dollar budget so it made money um but i don't think it's also left a big impact

00:00:47.240 i'm not sure a lot of people talk about 2014's aronofsky's noah and i did find the film

00:00:57.080 the the pacing's very uneven i guess the tone is pretty consistent but then you'll have these

00:01:05.640 scenes with the watchers who are these rock monsters that to be frank resemble 0.99

00:01:11.240 other cgi creatures of that era the transformers and they're like wiping away mankind 0.99

00:01:20.980 it seemed like the movie sometimes wanted to be anachronistic or sort of dystopian sci-fi but 0.99

00:01:30.820 then it sometimes wanted to be rooted and anthropological and what it was like in prehistory

00:01:37.660 and I did ultimately like it but I guess I'm sticking with my thesis that Darren Aronofsky's

00:01:46.020 best film was his first film the lowest budget he made the best film uh just very uneven and i'm

00:01:56.020 not sure i really want to like re-watch this but those are just my sort of initial superficial

00:02:03.620 impressions the wrestler was pretty good he's made some decent films the wrestler is good yeah

00:02:09.740 yeah i don't think it's a great film i think pie is perfect in the sense of the way i think you

00:02:16.280 judge a film is what is it setting out to accomplish and what it accomplishes so you know

00:02:23.200 2001 can be a great film but then i don't know like a kids movie like i the never-ending story

00:02:32.520 for instance i that's a great film and it's going for less but it does you know what it says

00:02:39.500 what it's trying to go for you know i think there are some comedies that are just perfect you know

00:02:44.700 you don't want to add anything you don't want to subtract anything and they're sort of as great as

00:02:49.580 other films i feel like where i start to dislike a film is this unevenness i'm not sure what

00:02:56.300 they're going for and i do think this film suffers from some bad taste to be honest

00:03:03.340 particularly with the cgi and you know glowing letters and at the beginning in the beginning

00:03:10.140 there was nothing and it's like glowing am i supposed to take that sarcastically or is it

00:03:14.220 i don't know i i just uh i think this film had a lot of problems just as a film not not in terms

00:03:21.020 of his messaging which we'll discuss but just as a film i thought this is not great not really

00:03:26.700 well done but that's just my opinion yeah i i don't think it's a great film but um

00:03:36.460 yeah yeah well um let's let's just jump into i think he's probably a little out of his element

00:03:49.180 because he wants to be an epic on some level but it's not dynamic enough to be an epic

00:03:53.580 it wants to be a hollywood blockbuster also on some level particularly with like the music 0.95

00:03:59.480 choices and these cgi scenes of like rock monsters mowing down human beings it wants to be like lord 0.98

00:04:06.300 of the rings or something but yeah i think he's just kind of a limited filmmaker generally i would

00:04:12.300 say right even though i think erie astor for example learns from him i think erie astor is a

00:04:18.540 better filmmaker and yaranovsky we can appreciate him because he is a symbolist and i think he does

00:04:25.380 give up a lot of the game which is good so he's useful and probably with the fountain is his most

00:04:30.980 useful film it's the rosetta stone if you will but uh i i think this has interesting stuff too

00:04:37.260 but i i think that this film is kind of simple in its symbolism i don't think that there's that

00:04:42.560 much to decipher or at least from our perspective since we're pretty advanced students of rem but

00:04:48.520 actually alicia said what is your take on the film and i was like i'm not even sure i have a take

00:04:53.680 because it's sort of a like raw gem in a way with like caught stealing and it's funny because

00:05:03.640 neither of us even talked we didn't talk about the film until we just started the podcast but

00:05:08.780 we both had the same conclusion that this is esau's victory basically and and so you're but

00:05:16.700 we're reading into it i mean the the way you could take that movie it's it's a fun action

00:05:21.580 adventure movie or something but no we we went into it but with noah it's maybe just like giving

00:05:29.660 you the source code it's it's like the raw wheat that hasn't been turned into whiskey or what is

00:05:39.580 whiskey made out of corn it's you that's bourbon you get my point the raw material that hasn't been

00:05:46.980 fermented into a a distilled beverage and i feel like we're getting that here i mean the opening

00:05:54.420 scene with the teflon they're connecting that with the say the serpent maybe the serpent from

00:06:00.600 the garden of eden that they're wrapping that is your birthright i mean they're just sort of like

00:06:06.500 explaining things to you in a way he directly explains a genealogy which is very interesting

00:06:13.100 where the good guys noah though he's a bit of a bad guy in this movie but the good ultimately a

00:06:18.880 good guy noah is from the line of seth which is also very interesting um but i don't know where

00:06:28.220 where should we start i i did find there's an interesting clip on the creation story

00:06:33.260 that we could play um and i i actually have the uh the text of the film

00:06:40.620 that noah's father lamech tells him um i could read that and then we could even play

00:06:49.800 basically the the creation story that noah tells to his family while they're on the ark but

00:06:56.620 maybe i'll just start here um in the beginning there was nothing so we we're used to in the

00:07:04.420 beginning god created the heavens and the earth this is a much starker version of genesis 1

00:07:12.960 uh temptation led to sin here we're telling the adam and eve story cast out of eden adam and eve

00:07:24.260 had three sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth.

00:07:30.160 They first had Cain and Abel.

00:07:32.760 It's very interesting, but I guess everything's being condensed here.

00:07:36.980 Cain killed Abel and fled to the east,

00:07:40.700 where he was sheltered by a band of fallen angels, the Watchers.

00:07:44.520 These Watchers helped Cain's descendants build a great industrial civilization.

00:07:50.980 Cain's city spread wickedness, devouring the world.

00:07:55.820 Only the descendants of Seth defend and protect what is left of creation.

00:08:01.600 Today, the last of Seth's line becomes a man.

00:08:06.140 He's the last man.

00:08:07.460 This is an interesting motif that will come up.

00:08:11.480 And then Lamech says,

00:08:12.220 from Adam to Seth, from Seth to Enosh, Enosh to Kenan, Kenan to Mahalalel, to my father,

00:08:19.700 Methuselah, who we'll meet later, and to me. Today, the birthright passes to you, Noah, my son.

00:08:30.800 Do you want to talk about any of this? I mean, Cain, Abel, and Seth seem to be very important

00:08:40.780 here yeah yeah so it's those are all the the bad guys of course the descendants of cain

00:08:49.480 i think what's clear in the film and this just sort of corroborates theory but basically the

00:08:56.160 son the sons of cain are gentiles they're very gentile coded but it's also it's a kind of

00:09:02.440 critique of civilization itself so it's making civilization something evil effectively it's

00:09:07.140 demonizing civilization and what cain is known for in the bible is that he is the the founder

00:09:13.220 ultimately of cities enoch his son is the first one to found a city um so basically the contrast

00:09:21.140 is being drawn is between the followers of yahweh ultimately and the builders of civilization 0.93

00:09:27.300 the builders of civilization are equal and ultimately yahweh destroys civilization with 0.78

00:09:32.780 flood. So these are all kind of themes that are repeated in the Hebrew Bible. I think it also 0.89

00:09:39.040 reminds us of Exodus as well. The scene of the parting of the Red Sea and the drowning of the

00:09:44.880 Egyptians and so forth. Both stories represent a kind of Exodus and an escape essentially from

00:09:53.020 a corrupt civilization or an evil civilization. And so I think that they share that similarity.

00:09:59.760 They repeat this story of Jews or, you know, Noah is not a Jew. 0.80

00:10:05.480 I think Noah is actually very kind of Gentile coded.

00:10:08.100 He's sort of the righteous Gentile, essentially. 0.77

00:10:12.480 But it represents the followers of Yahweh as refugees and escapees, essentially. 0.92

00:10:21.300 And they're ultimately the ones who survive, whereas the civilization is destroyed while they escape, essentially.

00:10:27.380 But the other thing to point out here is that Yahweh is the one who destroys the civilization, but he allows his followers to escape. 0.75

00:10:37.780 So I think that that's a kind of interesting repetition that we see with Exodus as well. 0.95

RadixJournal - September 09, 2026

Aronofsky’s flawed but symbolically revealing Noah (2014)

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