The Creator in Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!
The Creator in Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!

Summary/Abstract: This paper relies on Darren Aronofsky’s motion picture Mother! shown in 2017 inVenice, and shortly after in the U.S., as an allegory of the Bible and an environmentalist movie. It starts from the assumption introduced to the press following the release that the central male figure, Him (played by Javier Bardem),is the symbol of the absolute God and Creator, using Mother (the character played by Jennifer Lawrence) as the environment or space where creation can be enacted,only to progressively deconstruct it up to reversing their roles, portraying her as the divine principle and him as a secondary figure. After the Introduction that sets the scene, the second part describes the vision of the biblical parallelisms and,then, that of the movie as an alarm signal for the need to direct our attention to the damage we do to the environment. The third part looks into the incongruities between the female protagonist’s nature and qualities and considering her as subservient to Him. It uncovers the hints to an alternative interpretation, which get supported by a fallen-from-grace male creator depicted in part four. The conclusions pinpoint this subterranean interpretation of the film and sum up the arguments that have led us to it.

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