Exclusive: Watch How They Shot the Wild Final Act of Mother!

Photo: Paramount Pictures

Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! was one of the fall’s most-talked-about films, a bold provocation that sent you out into the parking lot asking questions like “Was it all one big metaphor?” and “Why wouldn’t they listen to her about that unbraced sink?” Both Aronofsky and his star Jennifer Lawrence have been discussing the film in more depth during this awards season, but now that the film is on digital HD, an intriguing behind-the-scenes look pulls the curtain back even further — and Vulture has the exclusive clip. This making-of featurette is fascinating because it tackles the hallucinatory, experiential third act of Mother!, a fever dream where the camera stays close to the disoriented Lawrence as her house transforms into a war zone. To step back and see how this sequence was put together, then, lets us regard it in a way that the film’s hurtling momentum allows little time for: The sets transform before our eyes, the lighting scheme changes abruptly in the middle of a take, and all the while, Aronofsky, Lawrence, and Javier Bardem conspire to get the choreography of the thing just right.

Exclusive: Watch How They Shot the Wild Final Act of Mother!