Ari Aster thinks it’s ‘lazy’ to compare him to other directors

Ari Aster thinks it’s “lazy” to compare his work to other filmmakers’ movies.

The 36-year-old’s new horror drama ‘Beau is Afraid’ has drawn comparisons to ‘Blue Velvet’ filmmaker David Lynch’s work due to its surreal sequences, but Ari said he dislikes people drawing similarities between his and other directors’ projects.

He told NME: “I think that some of (the comparisons) have felt, to me, lazy.”

Ari added about also disliking being compared to two other directors, who he refused to name: “There are two others that I’ve seen that I’d rather not say. They’re artists who are drawing from the same well, but they weren’t in my mind.

“They struck me as a little bit obvious, even though I didn’t see (the similarities) myself… it’s not a defensive answer… but I feel that we end up metabolising the art that we love. It becomes just a part of our vocabulary.”

The ‘Hereditary’ and ‘Midsommar’ director’s three-hour ‘Beau’ epic stars Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix, 48, as an anxiety-addled man whose journey to see his mum leads to encounters with GBH, home invasion and a 16-foot penis monster.

Ari said about the disturbing opening moments of the film, shot from the point of view of a baby being born: “The idea is to thrust you into the character’s overwhelming experience of the world, to do something that is jarring.”

The director also praised Joaquin’s work ethic on set, saying he turned up heavily prepared with a huge list of questions about the script.

He added: “I had the feeling that everything was going to be spontaneous. That he’d only be able to do things once – and that he wouldn’t even know what he was gonna do.

“We often worked through the scene a lot before we shot it… he had a very strong idea of what he would do.

“Joaquin has such an intense work ethic that you don’t need to come up with these ideas… he’s already in a place of deep investigation.”