Ari Aster and John Waters on the Art of Not Compromising
"He looks normal — but he's not!" John Waters said Saturday night, inviting Ari Aster to the stage. "Get on up here!"
So began a spellbinding conversation at the Provincetown International Film Festival between two of the most uncompromising film directors — Waters, the rule-breaking icon who serves as the Cape Cod festival's patron saint, and Aster, who came to Provincetown for the first time to accept the festival's Filmmakers on the Edge award, a month before the release of his latest, Eddington.
The two filmmakers — who first met years ago at a party at David Sedaris' house — were deeply complimentary of each other, while self-deprecatingly funny about themselves. Aster, for example, volunteered that none of his subsequent films have been as successful as his 2018 breakout Hereditary, which earned $80 million on a $10 million budget.
"It's just been a declension ever since," Aster laughed. He joked that when Hereditary was a huge hit, "I took it for granted. I was like, 'Well, that's how it's gonna be.'"
Waters countered by noting the intense critical praise for Hereditary, then shared one of his own reviews, Janet Maslin's takedown of his 1977 film Desperate Living: "You could look far and wide to find a more pointlessly ugly movie ... but why would you bother?"
From there, the two shared a series of amusing gripes about the state of movies, though their love of filmmaking shined through.
"The movie business, as I know it, is over," Waters said at one point, asking Aster if he felt the same.
"Well, you know, it's feeling bad," said Aster. "And I'm very lucky. I'm making the films I want to make. But just, you know, the culture at large is feeling just... it's horrible. I don't know. Everything feels bad."
In true artistic fashion, he's processing that frustration through storytelling. In Eddington, a Covid horror film set in 2020, Joaquin Phoenix's small-town New Mexico sheriff faces off with Pedro Pascal's mayor, as paranoia and conspiracy theories run rampant. The film addresses American distrust and division.
Waters said of Eddington: "There are no heroes. There's no one to root for. That's why I like this so much. The left and the right are both so horrible. Is it possible to have nostalgia for Covid?"
The audience roared, though Aster clarified, "I don't know how nostalgic it is."
Aster is perhaps the most revered genre filmmaker of recent years, and Waters is a patron saint not just of the Provincetown festival but of bold filmmakers everywhere: Best known for the 1988 hit Hairspray, he broke out in the 1970s with shocking films like 1972's Pink Flamingos and 1974's Female Trouble. He is loved both for his films and for freely speaking his mind.
In 2023, for example, after Aster's 179-minute, surrealistic tragicomedy Beau is Afraid failed at the box office and received divisive reviews, Waters delightedly named it the best film of the year.
Though Waters and Aster joked about their occasional bad reviews, Waters said he sort of misses the era when critics had more influence.
"It used to be, in the old days, if you had an art film and you got a ringing review in The New York Times, it was a hit, and if you got a bad review, it definitely failed," Waters said. "Now, a rave review doesn't make any difference, but if there's a bad review, it still fails. So I don't know. I miss the power of the critics in a way."
Waters and Aster shared amusement and frustration with all the forces pushing them toward compromise, including focus groups (which Waters calls "fuck-us groups," because of how their input can dilute a filmmaker's vision).
Waters noted that A24, which distributes Aster's films, is like a modern version of Harvey Weinstein's Miramax, without Weinstein's baggage. He also told Aster that Weinstein once offered to release his 1998 film Pecker — if he would change a key location.
"If it's not a gay bar and it's a titty bar, I'll do it," Waters quoted Weinstein telling him. (Waters passed.)
Aster, meanwhile, talked about studio executives who always ask him to shorten his films.
"That's always a big fight while I'm editing," he said.
"But how do you win?" asked Waters.
"It's just a long negotiation," said Aster. "I've never been pushed to in any way compromise the films at all. It's always just, get them shorter. Which, you know, if anybody were in the room hearing the arguments, they would not be on my side."
Asked if he'd ever had trouble with the ratings board, he noted that his 2019 film Midsommar briefly had an NC-17, before he ultimately got an R. Waters recalled that at one point, he was told he couldn't use the title Pecker: "I said, 'How about Shaft? How about Free Willy?"
The Q&A ended on a sincere note as Aster told Waters how much his films have meant to him.
"It's really an honor to receive this from you, John," Aster said as he accepted the Filmmaker on the Edge award. "You're one of my heroes, and when I was growing up, your films were a real North Star for me."
Main image: Ari Aster and John Waters. MovieMaker.
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