Ari Aster on how Federico Fellini influenced ‘Eddington’: “Is this a living thing?”
When looking at the work of Ari Aster, you might not immediately associate Federico Fellini with his style, with both directors having tonally opposite and very conflicting styles. After making a name for himself through A24 horror films like Midsommar and Hereditary, often focusing on fraught family dynamics and nightmarish storylines that include both supernatural elements and those that are grounded in real-life issues, the director then expanded his filmography to include more personal and less horror-based films, something that he has taken to a new level with his recent project, Eddington.
Despite having his roots in the horror genre, Aster has spoken about how he made those films as a way to build a name for himself and find creative freedom, now being able to make whatever he wants as a result of the success of his first two films. Now, he has turned his gaze towards more satirical and complex stories, with Eddington being his boldest venture to date.
The film follows a sheriff and mayor in a small town called Eddington who are both fighting for power, with their power struggle taking place in 2020 as people become increasingly divided after spending too much time in their own bubbles. No other director has attempted to tackle the events of that year, with Aster looking at the effects of the pandemic, the absurdity of online culture, performative activism and conspiracy theorists who peddle bizarre ideologies about the framework of our world.
Ultimately, the film bears no similarities to the work of Fellini, the great Italian director who created personal and biographical stories that often resembled his own life, whether it be 8½ or La Dolce Vita. However, at a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, Aster shared the surprising influence that the director had on his work.
When discussing this, Aster said, “I love Fellini. I was thinking about Fellini a lot on my last film. [From his films] I get the humour, the way he populates his films with eccentrics and characters and no matter how many people are in a frame, none of them are wasted. He loves people, he loves faces. Working with the camera and blocking, I’d go back to 8½ all the time, for the dance between the camera and the people. It’s so free. He’s one of the filmmakers I go to a lot as sort of a liberating influence, that you can do anything. He’s so idiosyncratic and personal and funny, and his films are alive. That’s what I look for. Is this a living thing?”
When framed in these terms, it is easy to see how Fellini has impacted his work, especially in a film like Eddington, which feels remarkably different from the rest of Aster’s films. The story world is populated by multiple moving parts, with different bubbles of people clashing out in the open and leading to a chaotic outburst in which all of these groups are fighting against each other, completely divided in a time in which they should be united.
The film is a wake-up call for our need to re-engage with each other, and this is the ultimate quality of Fellini’s films. The director reminds us of the power of human connection and our need for intimacy.
