Re: Ok, Darren and FOX have really pissed me off enough to suggest

We liked Darren Aronofsky when he was the scrappy young filmmaker from Brooklyn (via Harvard) who financed his debut, "Pi," in 1998 with $100-loans from friends and relatives, and relied on promotion that consisted of tagging Tokyo's streets with the film's logo.

We liked him when he cited photos by Nobuyoshi Araki and Hiromix as an influence on the look of his downbeat junkie flick "Requiem For A Dream" (2000), and also the sheer insanity of making a film with something like 3,000 cuts.

...What's striking is that Aronofsky has a major hit on his hands without having compromised his style in any way....

...Aronofsky has since faced the rather ironic situation that having made a film about a double who tries to sabotage a star's career, real life has wound up in a similar place. Portman's dance double, Sarah Lane, contends that she — not the film's star — danced most of the scenes.

Aronofsky can laugh at the irony, but quickly got serious: "When you have a lot of success, you suddenly get people who try to clamor for credit that really don't deserve it. The double made a minimal contribution to the film and was rewarded very handsomely, and then basically realized, hey, this could mean a lot for my career, so she went out there and said a lot of very untrue things. The problem is, the news agencies enjoyed the controversy and tried to make a story out of it."

The original script for "Black Swan," by Andres Heinz, wasn't even about ballet, but Aronofsky was keen to take it in that direction. The director cites his sister's ballet lessons when he was growing up, calling it "kind of the background noise of my youth." Adapting the script took some time — the director was talking to Portman about the project nearly a decade ago — and getting some inside help from the ballet world also proved challenging....

Nina's descent into paranoia (and repressed sexuality) clearly betrays an influence from Roman Polanski's 1965 classic, "Repulsion"; Aronofsky confirmed that "Polanski's films have taught me so much. I think he's the first master of subjective filmmaking; he was able to get into the head of a character, and use the camera and sound and effects to bring the interior of a character out onto the screen. I definitely studied his work."...

....Aronofsky noted that "we were also playing with the mirror scare shot, which is one of the biggest cliches in horror, and how we could use digital effects to take it to another level. We knew we needed mirrors because the film was really about reflection and doubles and so on."

When asked about his own personal favorite cinematic scare shot, Aronofsky cites M. Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense" (1999), noting "I remember going to a mid-afternoon screening in Times Square on the opening weekend of 'The Sixth Sense,' and people were just screaming — I barely heard half the movie."

When it comes to horror, though, Aronofsky is left cold by all the torture-porn stuff. "I can't say I'm a huge horror fan — I'm not a gore fan by any means — but a good jolt to the system is always a lot of fun. We didn't even want to use the term horror, because we felt people would be scared away, think it's a gore film. So we called it a 'psychological thriller.' But the great horror films can just scare you without making your stomach sick. Although I can't say my films are totally devoid of that! (Laughs.)"