RadixJournal - mother!

00:00:00.000 So it's really on the nose and it's just corroborates everything.

00:00:04.380 REM theory, you know, it might be the most on the nose of all his films.

00:00:10.860 I mean, it's just like.

00:00:14.400 So you agree you're referring to Disney's Tarzan 1999 with music by Phil Collins.

00:00:23.460 Oh, that's the movie I watched.

00:00:26.600 Oh, is that right? Yeah.

00:00:27.680 um but you agree i mean the thing is unfortunately i watched mother actually but um yes well i i

00:00:37.560 think what i would say is that a bit like the fountain it's just a straight parable you know

00:00:45.820 the the the so yeah there's a lot of similarities to the fountain too yeah um and the the lead

00:00:53.580 characters are named him and her and then man and woman are the first people to enter the home

00:01:01.260 ed harris and michelle pfeiffer so he's just telling you to read this allegorically

00:01:09.820 um unlike some other movies you know you could watch the wrestler and just think oh this is a

00:01:14.940 fun sports film but um i i don't i i don't think you can do that here um i would be a little curious

00:01:24.240 i uh i did some uh just uh some minor research here of just like the new york times

00:01:31.820 um a.o scott review i i was wondering how this movie was received i did see one um

00:01:43.920 one interview of jaron aronofsky that i watched last night where he was saying

00:01:49.120 that uh oh you know mother is mother earth and she's very mistreated you know she's mistreated

00:01:56.000 by all of her children and so on and it's a kind of environmental metaphor and i i don't think that

00:02:04.000 that is totally alien to this film i do think she is mother earth she's erda or gaia um on some level

00:02:17.960 but i do think that he was engaging in a sort of uh exoteric alibi as as we say or misdirection or

00:02:27.160 red herring by saying that because i guess you could read this as just a she is mother earth

00:02:33.220 the house is her and um and they're abusing mother earth but she still loves them she still

00:02:42.120 wants to give she gives all she's got her heart her very heart her undying love um i do think that

00:02:49.960 that is a fair reading of the film but obviously that's overlooking the biblical metaphors that

00:02:57.880 are going on that are um as you say a bit on the nose yeah and it but it's engaged in the same sort

00:03:06.260 of insincere sympathy that we see in the wrestler and also i mean all the films that we've discussed 0.90

00:03:13.060 really the black swan the fountain it's the melancholy of the shit there's a kind of insincere 0.97

00:03:18.960 sympathy for a tragic figure essentially for his because that figure has to be sacrificed 0.98

00:03:24.960 for Yahweh to continue, to be fuel for Yahweh's fire.

00:03:30.320 But, I mean, all the, there's just so much here

00:03:33.480 that corroborates REM theory.

00:03:36.780 It's so funny that we are in this space 1.00

00:03:39.500 with just a bunch of morons 0.99

00:03:40.780 who are just kind of unfamiliar with the text material 0.99

00:03:43.560 that we're dealing with.

00:03:45.120 But when you watch a film like this,

00:03:46.820 it's just kind of laid out in a very obvious manner.

00:03:50.160 Yes.

00:03:50.880 It's not like he's admitting, essentially,

00:03:53.000 you know to your point yeah he that is a kind of exoteric alibi or it's a sort of insincere

00:03:59.880 framing of the movie because he could say yeah it's it's sympathetic to mother earth who's always

00:04:06.400 destroyed by this sort of masculine god because that the male character represents a god is made

00:04:12.160 explicit in the film in fact that he represents yahweh in particular is made explicit in the film

00:04:17.140 um in those closing scenes yes uh i am i yeah yeah i am that i am yahweh i mean there's no

00:04:25.320 confusion he represents yahweh so what does yahweh do he destroys the white house right

00:04:31.420 this is this big white house and he has this arian bride essentially who's even called goyim

00:04:37.580 at some point in the film she's called goyim i don't know if you i've missed did you miss that

00:04:42.520 scene i'm pretty sure that's uh they're in this sort of chaos some people are like checking her

00:04:49.100 teeth do you remember that i do remember that yeah probably chris knows this right no it was

00:04:54.560 it was something like different goyim different goyim but yes oh yeah and she's tainted they say

00:05:00.720 she's tainted she's yes right right and i managed to catch that unfortunately because that was a

00:05:05.920 point where i had closed captioning on it's like a hard time hearing the dialogue yeah the goyim

00:05:09.740 is definitely in there wow yeah so she's goyim and she's clearly identified as going in the film

00:05:16.680 he's identified as yahweh so this is a clear bride gathering motif and she's the resource 0.97

00:05:23.160 of the fire that is yahweh the fuck have i been saying the whole time and this is this is a kind 0.94

00:05:28.960 of like important motif throughout gem essentially he's the consuming fire that's yahweh and he also 0.99

00:05:36.360 promotes this sort of a universalist egalitarian multiracialism and that's how the white house 0.51

00:05:42.280 that becomes a symbol of the aryan civilization is destroyed i mean it's all there yeah and he's

00:05:48.180 kind of like he's presenting it as a tragedy but he's it's also it's also an esoteric boast or

00:05:54.340 gloating it's like yahweh is just going to destroy the film is similar to many of his earlier films

00:06:01.060 including the fountain it's also similar to some of Kaufman's films so it'll be very interesting

00:06:07.540 to look at Charlie Kaufman's films uh because I think Kaufman uses a similar metaphor the house

00:06:12.880 for example becomes a metaphor of her just like the tree becomes a metaphor for the female

00:06:19.140 character in the fountain in any case I let's not get too far afield I think you want to do you want

00:06:23.860 to just sort of uh lay the table let's let's do the rundown just so we're all on the same page so

00:06:29.320 we are talking about mother written and directed by darren aronofsky in 2017 lowercase m mother

00:06:38.600 with an explanation mark um we can talk about the significance of these things

00:06:45.080 to the extent that there are any i i i was a little bit reminded of christopher hitchens book

00:06:53.340 god is not great even though god was the first word in the title so lowercase g i don't know

00:07:02.240 if there was something in the air regarding that um but the exclamation mark also adds

00:07:07.540 uh this movie was pretty poorly received uh it divided critics and then had a shockingly low

00:07:17.940 audience score uh of an f which you rarely see um i do think that there are some redeemable acts

00:07:30.300 of violence you know if uh if if someone was a criminal who shot a man in memphis just to watch

00:07:38.440 him die or something maybe there's a oh he could get better he's good at heart he was running with

00:07:44.000 the wrong crowd or he was taken by drink or whatever um the ultimate taboo is child murder

00:07:52.300 i mean you just i mean i'm sorry i'm laughing but i i guess the only thing to do is laugh

00:07:58.900 uh because it is so morbid but you sort of can't come back from that and of all the things i guess

00:08:07.720 Darren Aronofsky just couldn't help himself but he wants to depict this of all things on screen

00:08:13.600 and uh I I definitely understand the audience reaction to this movie um it I I think on a

00:08:22.380 budget of 30 million made 44 million or something like that so it definitely lost money but maybe

00:08:27.340 wasn't the uh utter and complete bomb that I was making it out to be but it's not a successful film

00:08:33.160 interesting it's starring Javier Bardem who does a great job as him and it was also starting

00:08:42.580 starring Jennifer Lawrence and this was maybe the height of her fame and she was the girlfriend of

00:08:50.520 Darren Aronofsky and I do think in terms of what we're going to talk about going forward

00:08:55.440 going forward there's a bit of a meta thing going on here where you know he hires his girlfriend

00:09:03.100 is the starring in the starring role and he is abusing her you know in fact the the the characters

00:09:12.760 are kicking her in the face calling her the c word and so on uh so let's just say it's not

00:09:20.840 too surprising that they broke up and uh perhaps Darren Aronofsky was doing a little bride

00:09:26.340 gathering of his own um with this young starlet um this so the basic plot is very simple there's

00:09:36.020 actually one set you never really leave the house i guess there's some exterior shots

00:09:41.100 of the house it's an old victorian white house in um octagonal uh in its design

00:09:48.780 and it pretty much has three floors i think this is also no doubt significant

00:09:55.440 there is a basement where laundry can be done and there is a massive gas canister

00:10:01.340 there is a the the main floor with the entrance hall and then there is a study up above

00:10:09.860 being that this movie is so symbolic and parabolic I think it is a microcosm of the

00:10:17.740 human mind and the Freudian imagination of a super ego where he goes and does his writing

00:10:23.880 um the main floor the ego and then the sort of subterranean and infernal uh id uh there's

00:10:34.200 that is also going on in the film but the plot is rather simple uh they have bought this house

00:10:42.220 it's his house that is him or him's house i guess we should say and uh she is doing most of the work

00:10:49.920 in terms of repairing it she is a devoted fan and she wants him to write he's suffering from

00:10:55.180 writer's block they're visited by two str one stranger at the beginning man uh and later on

00:11:05.480 woman will appear i think you might be getting a hint of what's to come and then their offspring

00:11:11.900 come to the house and there is a murder and so here we have a genesis being retold uh it finally 0.85

00:11:21.580 uh her she kicks all these people out of the house and after a fight she makes love with him 0.51

00:11:32.120 passionately and she knows right from the jump that she is she's pregnant and she will bear him

00:11:40.020 a son and during that nine month gestation of the boy him starts to write again he is inspired by

00:11:50.680 the pain of this family and he writes his new work he's called a poet many times in this day

00:11:59.580 and age poets aren't writing bestsellers but maybe he's an exception he could be anything

00:12:06.480 It could be a – he could be a novelist.

00:12:09.920 He could write nonfiction, self-help guru, quasi-philosophy.

00:12:16.080 Who knows what he's doing exactly, but –

00:12:18.080 The film is surreal in tone, so, you know.

00:12:20.580 Yes.

00:12:20.920 When he finishes, we see one page, so maybe it's a poem that's on one page.

00:12:25.280 It's one role, right?

00:12:26.160 Yeah.

00:12:26.880 I'll let you continue that.

00:12:28.060 Yes.

00:12:29.340 And then we – all his fans come, including a herald is the character name, played by Kristen Wiig from SNL.

00:12:36.480 uh back in the day and uh more and more fans come he begins uh anointing them in a way uh putting

00:12:45.920 black marks on their forehead and face and all of these fans come and he needs the attention and

00:12:52.720 they have no respect for her home and they begin to have a dance party and a dance party leads to

00:12:59.920 chaos and chaos leads to outright war and uh him uh saves her at the last minute she has her child

00:13:10.720 and she gives birth to her child due to the chaos and trauma that's occurring and she is she

00:13:21.140 distrusts him she doesn't want to give the child to him but then falls asleep and he just has to

00:13:28.400 He has to bring his child out to his adoring fans, and they eventually take the child, and they are adoring it.

00:13:37.620 They, I mean, in one of the most shocking, gratuitous scenes ever put to film, the child is torn limb from limb, in effect.

00:13:50.920 and then they begin eating the child

00:13:53.840 in a version of communion

00:13:57.320 that we never want to see

00:13:59.140 it is egregious is the word

00:14:03.060 that comes to mind

00:14:04.540 grotesque 1.00

00:14:06.400 and she starts to lash out 1.00

00:14:11.700 at her husband

00:14:12.960 but also everyone there

00:14:15.200 with a pane of glass

00:14:16.600 and eventually she is so

00:14:20.920 heartbroken by this and angry by this whole event that she goes down to the basement

00:14:26.380 pours out the fuel the gas or oil or whatever is fueling the home lights it ablaze and just

00:14:35.860 destroys the whole thing and uh at the end him is eternal he seems unscathed in fact by this

00:14:44.500 explosion that kills all of all of humanity let's say uh and he wants one thing from her and that

00:14:53.120 is her heart and he brings out her broken damaged burned heart and crushes it and it becomes a

00:15:00.360 crystal and this takes us back I actually after I finished the film I went back to the beginning

00:15:05.600 in the movie and it's all set up you see the house go from burnt shards to new again and he

00:15:14.840 places a crystal in um in his office where he does his writing and then he has a new woman who says

00:15:22.100 baby which is an interesting comment baby and um uh and the whole cycle just keeps going again

00:15:30.880 there's some other things that i i should mention just so we can make sure that we uh talk about

00:15:37.180 them the the crystal i think is very important there is the beating heart that she perceives

00:15:43.340 within the walls of the home the home scene

RadixJournal - October 27, 2026

mother!

Episode Stats

Transcript