In short
Ari Aster discusses Eddington, a surreal thriller horror set in a small New Mexico town during COVID, using the pandemic as backdrop to critique “the movie that Twitter wrote”: algorithm-driven media bubbles, hyper-individualism, and escalating paranoia/violence. He also addresses why he returned to COVID in 2020, how he researched social-media ecosystems, and his views on AI’s threat to video/audio evidence and filmmaking.
Guest background
Ari Aster is writer/director of horror hits Hereditary and Midsommar, and director of Beau Is Afraid. His new film Eddington stars Joaquin Phoenix (local sheriff) and Pedro Pascal (mayor running for re-election), with Emma Stone and Austin Butler (as a YouTube-style televangelist).
Key claims
media bubbles create “different realities” that become unreachable; COVID wasn’t fully metabolized culturally; AI will accelerate fraud and distrust; he was asked to direct Morbius but turned it down.
Notable examples
George Floyd-era social media activation; Twitter algorithm “profiles” and screenshots; montages of TikToks/Instagram reels; JFK as a model for capturing conspiracy “fever.”
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOReflections on COVID's Impact
1:12 to 1:52
Hosts reflect on the ongoing effects of COVID-19 on society and culture.
“So, Ben, previous listeners of Mixed Signals, longtime Mixed Signals heads, remember that there was another host of the show before I was here, Naima, who we love.”
Exploring Ari Aster's New Film 'Eddington'
1:52 to 6:50
Discussion about the themes and characters of Aster's new COVID-inspired film.
“I kind of wanted to move way beyond that.”
Ari Aster on the Genesis of 'Eddington'
6:50 to 10:46
Ari Aster shares insights on the development and themes of his film 'Eddington'.
“I wanted to kind of first start out by asking, you know, you decided to make a movie set during COVID, but you'd had the script lying around since years before that.”
Media and Individual Realities in 'Eddington'
10:46 to 14:00
Ari Aster discusses the role of media and individual perspectives in his film.
“I mean, you know, there's no, I think there's no cultural memory of the Spanish flu.”
Exploring Media Influence in Film
14:00 to 21:31
Ari Aster discusses how modern media and social platforms influenced his filmmaking process during the pandemic.
“I'm really curious, were you seeing a lot of this type of media at the time?”
Conspiracy Theories and Empathy in Storytelling
21:31 to 28:00
Ari Aster reflects on the impact of conspiracy theories and the importance of empathy in understanding diverse perspectives.
“I was reading a list that you did for GQ about the five movies that influenced the making of Eddington.”
The Dangers of AI and Media Distrust
28:00 to 29:20
Explore the implications of AI on truth and societal trust.
“You know, like this is the end of video audio evidence.”
Utopian vs. Dystopian Visions of the Internet
29:20 to 30:46
Discuss the evolution of the internet from a tool of liberation to a corporate tool.
“I mean, Ben, maybe you remember this, too, is because you were making your kind of career in media as this kind of moment was happening.”
Ari's Perspective on Hollywood Trends
30:46 to 33:06
Ari shares his thoughts on the current trends in Hollywood and filmmaking.
“And then Anthropic was, then they were going to be the ones who were policing OpenAI.”
Marvel Movie Offer
33:06 to 33:52
Ari reveals a surprising offer he received from Marvel.
“I can't believe they keep making those movies.”
Show all 12 chapters
Navigating Change in the Film Industry
33:52 to 36:28
Ari discusses adapting to the changing landscape of the film industry.
“You know, you started your career kind of during the streaming era at this moment of kind of peak disruption in Hollywood.”
Eddington: A Reflection of Society
36:28 to 37:09
Ari explains the thematic elements of his film 'Eddington' and its humor.
“And is there a way to like re-engage with each other because we are completely siloed off.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:08Welcome to Mixed Signals from Semaphore Media, where we are talking to the most important people who are shaping our new media age. I'm Max Tani, media editor here at Semaphore. And of course, with me as always is our editor-in-chief, Ben Smith. Hey, Max. Ben, you know, I'm thrilled to do every episode of this show. It's a real privilege to do it alongside you. But this week, I'm particularly excited because we have the writer and director Ari Aster on the show. He is the filmmaker behind the hit films Midsommar and Hereditary. And he has a new film out today called Eddington, which stars Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal.
0:46We went to my high school, by the way. And Emma Stone, among others. We'll talk to him about why, after it feels like we finally left the pandemic behind, he decided to make a movie about it. how his experience being on Twitter influenced his new movie and why he decided to turn down a chance to make a Marvel film.
1:04Ben Smith:Yeah, Chris, to me, he's made a lot of horror, and this one is kind of a horror movie about the media. Oh, my God, the scariest yet. Well, we'll be right back with Ari Aster and a lot more right after the break.
1:26So, Ben, previous listeners of Mixed Signals, longtime Mixed Signals heads, remember that there was another host of the show before I was here, Naima, who we love. And one of the things that Naima was really interested in was COVID-19. But she was interested in exploring it in a way that it was still kind of rippling through people's lives, which is not something that I really wanted to think much about when we were starting to launch the show. We're more denial, guys, I think.
1:53Ben Smith:Yeah, exactly. I kind of wanted to move way beyond that. But I actually think that that was something that she was right about the fact that COVID was still continuing to impact our lives and had changed society and culture and our politics in some pretty profound ways. And, you know, one of the things that I was thinking after last week's episode with Dr. Mike, which was a lot about COVID and preparing for this episode, was, you know, it is true that we all went through this profoundly interesting and kind of traumatic global experience together, something that none of us had ever been through.
2:26and we kind of spent our time fumbling around through that. And the episode today is in some ways related to that because we have on the director Ari Aster, who has a new film set during COVID called Eddington. It is a Western sort of surreal thriller horror movie starring Joaquin Phoenix as a local sheriff, Pedro Pascal as a mayor running for re-election, and then also in kind of more minor but definitely interesting roles. Emma Stone plays Joaquin Phoenix's somewhat unhappy wife and Austin Butler is in it as well as this kind of televangelist for the digital media age, kind of a Alex Jones meets some sort of Hillsong preacher for YouTube.
3:16Did I kind of get that right? Does that sound right? You nailed it. So Ben, we both watched this new movie by Ari Aster, fantastic filmmaker who made Midsommar, who made Bo is Afraid, who made the horror movie Hereditary, which I'm too scared to see. But what did you think about this new movie that's coming out that actually drops today, the day that this episode is publishing about COVID? What'd you think of it?
3:40Ben Smith:Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, fascinating film. I guess, you know, I think it raises two big questions that listeners of this show are gonna be interested. One is, is anybody gonna wanna consume a piece of art about COVID? Like, you know, I think it's noticeable. Like there are no TV shows where the people are wearing masks, right? But the second and more relevant here is essentially like, which is worse, COVID-19 or the media? Like, those are the two really bad things in Eddington. You know, the pandemic, which is the backdrop. And then this new media scourge that is its own kind of pandemic and really kind of destroys the characters in the film.
4:15Yeah, you know, it's funny. Ari Aster is known for making kind of these horror thriller movies about the various evils of humanity and these kind of dark, scary monsters. And the thing that I was thinking is that the true horror of this movie is like Instagram reels and how YouTube warps your mind. Like the media is the real evil corroding society. And that's actually one of the reasons why we wanted to have Ari on the show and why I lobbied so hard for this guest. Because, you know, the movie is set during COVID, But I think the movie is using COVID as the backdrop to explore something that actually existed before and has kind of evolved, which is the ways in which fragmentation and the information that we get, the different information silos that we live in now, are changing the ways that we interact with our neighbors and other people in our community.
5:10It creates this really interesting dynamic where people are all living in their own little realities, existing in this small town together. But the realities they're living in are very, very different.
5:19Ben Smith:Yeah, and the film takes the viewer from this kind of down-home story of this small New Mexico town dealing with its local problems and saying, and at one point the sheriff, the main character, notes that all these big national problems, they're not problems here. These are far away. And then takes you to a point where the town becomes consumed with them. And I think one of the characters says that we're living in history now. And I think that's, you know, this kind of familiar experience. And it's interesting to me, too, because it's in one way, the movie is it's playing in this old kind of trope of the Hollywood Western, which is you use the simple format of a Western to tell a bigger story about America.
5:58right? Like that was like a theme of something like The Searchers or some of these other, you know, classic Hollywood movies like High Noon, which was, you know, an allegory for other things going on in the country. But in many ways, I found a lot of the scenes to be, even though they exist in this kind of fantastic big universe, I found them to be a very, very close to home. You know, I was remembering the tension of, you know, having to line up six feet apart and some Some people are clearly more freaked out about things in COVID than other people. And reliving that in kind of granular, painful detail was really an experience.
6:37I don't know if it's going to be bringing out the, you know, making the big summer box office dollars. But that's also something, of course, that we want to ask him about.
6:45Ben Smith:That's right. Let's bring Ari on. Ari, thank you so much for doing this. I wanted to kind of first start out by asking, you know, you decided to make a movie set during COVID, but you'd had the script lying around since years before that. What was the genesis of this idea, and why did you feel like it was important to return to now? And also, obviously, the pandemic hadn't happened at that point. What changed in the script?
7:14Ari Aster:Well, you know, it's kind of not right to say that the script existed really before 2020. I had written a script that was set in New Mexico, which is where I'm from. I grew up there. My family still lives there. And it was, you know, something of a contemporary Western that revolved around like a feud between two people. And one of them was a sheriff. That's it. So in, you know, May, June 2020, I was living in hell like the rest of us. And I thought I ought to make a movie about this. And it was really just the framework of a Western that suddenly felt like, oh, this is, I could really hang all of the stuff on that.
7:59Ari Aster:And so, yeah, that was the genesis of it was, you know, me just kind of feeling something in the air that was familiar, but also distinct. Like, you know, it's like I'm living in the same world, but it's gotten worse and it's gotten more intense. and I feel like whatever link I had to hold on to, you know, whatever like old worlds there was before we all started living in the internet, which I guess began whenever we, you know, were able to start carrying the internet on our person, it felt like that had been cut permanently that year.
8:41Ben Smith:You know, I think we mostly do want to talk about living inside the internet, but you say you sort of had this impulse basically to make art about COVID. And, you know, you say that like it's normal, but actually that's almost nobody else has. Most people ran away from that. Yeah, and I mean, kind of imagining when you come to A24 with this idea and you say it's set during COVID, do they not just run the other way? Like, I can't think of another show produced in which the characters wear masks.
9:07Ari Aster:Well, I guess I'm surprised that so few people have done this. I kind of figured that I was one of many while I was doing it, especially when I first started writing it. I think, I mean, I remember everybody talking about like, geez, like it's gonna be, Hollywood is gonna be lousy with nightmare COVID projects. Like, you know, it's gonna be terrible. And so, you know, I would say for me, this moment is so weird, right? It is like, everything is so strange. And the human capacity for adaptation is amazing. So it all becomes kind of normalized, you know, as it becomes wallpaper. you know and like ambient but i guess part of the project is just to kind of keep reminding the viewer like this is fucking weird right and um the film is kind of about a bunch of like burgeoning cyborgs you know what i mean like it's all yeah it's also about an ai data center being built just out of outside of town and there's another way of looking at the film as you know i mean all of the stories and all of the characters in Eddington are really just from one perspective training data the movie Eddington is training data and you know it's um and so you know it's a film about people navigating a crisis while another crisis incubates over here but then just just to go back to your question you know why are there not more movies about COVID or this moment I think I think that that is because we haven't metabolized what happened in 2020.
10:45Ari Aster:And I think that's because we're still living through it.
10:48Ben Smith:I guess. I mean, you know, there's no, I think there's no cultural memory of the Spanish flu. It might just be denial wins. I don't know. We'll see.
10:56Ari Aster:Or distraction wins.
10:58Ben Smith:Yeah. Yeah. But it's really interesting, you know, COVID is really kind of the setting for what's happening and kind of like the genesis of a lot of this stuff. But it feels to me, like, as I was watching the movie, one of the bigger themes and one of the things that we're still living with and we're continuing to kind of move deeper into is the fact that you have all of these characters who are bouncing off each other, who are all living in their phones and who are getting a very distinct experience through their phone that is very different than their neighbors or, you know, the other people who they're engaging with because, you know, their algorithm is different.
11:30You have a character who is getting just Black Lives Matter content. You You have somebody else who is getting weird conspiracy, right-wing online Alex Jones-y type of stuff. Everybody's algorithm is so different. You have Fox News. You have some Tucker Carlson that's in there, you know, as well. As you were creating this media atmosphere, you know, you mentioned that, and you said this to Bill Hader as well on the A24 podcast, that you wanted to create the experience of living in the internet. I'm really curious, you know, what do you think the role is that media plays in this film?
12:02Ari Aster:Well, you know, the film is about a bunch of people who are kind of fortressed off, right? And I was trying to kind of capture the environment of like this, you know, hyper individualism. And ultimately, every character in this film is somebody who really cares about the world and knows deep down in their bones that something is really wrong. They just all are living in different realities, and they disagree on what that thing is. And they're unreachable to each other. It's about what happens when, you know, these people who are in different bubbles of certainty start bumping up against each other, and how that creates this new logic that grows and kind of comes to possess them all and pushes them deeper into their convictions and into their paranoia.
12:53Ari Aster:And, you know, and how that leads to violence because there's nothing in the air to hold them together anymore. And so that's the idea.
13:01Ben Smith:A lot of your world and our world, the Hollywood media worlds, were like fully in one of those bubbles, which was the Black Lives Matter protests. Did you experience, how did you experience that? Did you think I'm in an insane social media bubble or did you think I should get out there into the streets?
13:17Ari Aster:Well, you know, it's complicated. I see myself in the kids in this movie, right? I saw the video of what happened to George Floyd, his murder, and I was activated and disgusted. But then at the same time, there was this intense pressure to be very visible in my response. I found that, that kind of, the dissonance there, right? To be very interesting. and just, you know, the whole movie is about kind of tribalism in that sense as well, you know, and, but absolutely that I was very much a part of that and, and was, you know, navigating it and trying to do it right, you know. Part of the movie, there's a lot of stuff about characters looking at their phones and engaging with that kind of content, watching videos on their phones, whatever, and it's integrated pretty seamlessly into a lot of the scenes.
14:18But then you have kind of these, what feel to me like comedic moments where you have just these montages of types of media, and I don't want to spoil anything, but you have these montages of TikToks being kind of scrolled or Instagram reels being played. I'm really curious, were you seeing a lot of this type of media at the time? Did you go back and watch some of it? Talk a little bit about the process of putting together that world. I mean, a lot of it, too, is like, some of it is on the left, but a lot of it is kind of this right-wing media ecosystem as well. Walk us through that.
14:47Ari Aster:Well, you know, this is basically the movie that Twitter wrote. Oh, God.
14:52Ben Smith:You shouldn't go telling people that.
14:54Ari Aster:Look, I'm off now, but I was living on Twitter in 2020. I wasn't posting, but I was addicted. I didn't realize how agitated I was by it. It was driving me insane. And I think at some point I did realize it, and that's probably, you know, that was like a large part of the impetus for this film. you know i was getting ready to make beau is afraid so that was my that was you know what was front of mind but when i realized in late may early june 2020 like i i want to make a movie about this and i i like need to like grab this now because i it's going to be a period piece and it's going to be set right now um and i knew that that was almost the only way to make something that's like inflected by this like modern realism and is like about right now is you you had to just take a week and then like that's it right so so whatever else happens and whatever the headlines are going forward like it doesn't matter it's like it's set during this week so i i spent a good amount of that time just like slapping everything down on paper you know scrolling a lot and taking screenshots of things that felt like yeah this represents whatever this moment is or like whatever this culture feels like you know which is horrible just like just total garbage And then I went to, I created different profiles on Twitter.
16:16Ari Aster:And I got myself into different algorithms. And I started taking screenshots of those. And so that was a big part of this. Just like, I need to get as broad a picture of this as I can. Did that change your perspective at all? Were you like, oh my God, the algorithm is showing, my algorithm, me, Ari, is showing me one specific thing to look into the world through the eyes of this other person? What was that experience like? Was it surprising? It just, if anything, it was just, it told me what I already knew, but it was more alarming than I expected. And I found that the deeper I went on any given one, and depending on what you're clicking on and what you're liking, the more kind of like irretrievable you are.
17:00Ari Aster:So it was no surprise, but it was, you know, disturbing.
17:05Ben Smith:Did it make you more sympathetic to people who saw the pandemic? And like, I don't know if you live in New Mexico, but you must be in L.A. a lot. And like in a less L.A. way, like I found I was struck by in the opening of the film, you sort of relate to the guy who's annoyed to have to wear a mask. And you find the mask of the people who want a mask kind of annoying. Like I think that was that felt like that was in the film. Maybe I'm projecting. But like, did you, I don't know, did you get some empathy for people coming from a different political place or did it just make you hate everyone?
17:36Ari Aster:Well, you know, part of the project here was to be as empathetic as I could be towards everybody. It was very important to me that I understood all these characters and that the film be empathetic. It's just empathetic in multiple directions and some of those are oppositional. And so, you know, I mean, a big part of preparation for this project and just the writing of the script was me going back out to New Mexico, driving around the state, going to different counties, talking to sheriffs, going to small towns and talking to mayors and police chiefs and public officials, going to Pueblos and just getting as broad a picture of the political climate there as possible and talking to them all about their experience in 2020.
18:16Ari Aster:And it was very interesting. And I liked all of these people. And, you know, look, I'm on the left, but at the time of doing this research, Biden was president. The governor of New Mexico was kind of a figure of controversy, still is. And, you know, and she was a Democrat. And I found that, you know, a lot of the Democrats I was speaking to were giving me like talking points. They were very kind of like just dismissive of anything that contradicted those. And a lot of the people I was meeting in these small towns, like, you know, who were, you know, more conservative, they were really upset and really angry and a lot of what they were convinced you know was happening like i i i'm skeptical of but but they they had really passionately held convictions and i actually found them to be in some ways just like more just on a human level more interesting right and so that also informed this that it's you know it's like i i i don't want to be judgmental here you The film is a satire, but at the same time, I want these people to be flesh and blood and real.
19:26Ari Aster:And by the time I was making the film, they were real. And a lot of them were modeled on people that I got to know. So it got away from me in a way that I think was absolutely necessary if the film was going to work in any way. It's really interesting. Last week, actually, on our podcast, we had on Dr. Mike, who is this very famous YouTube doctor is the only way to describe him.
19:48Ben Smith:He's got like 14 million followers. We should include extremely handsome, probably. Yes, a very hot, yes, notable for being very hot, but also for giving medical advice. He was reflecting a little bit, and he's, you know, a pretty progressive liberal guy. And he was talking a little bit about the same kind of disconnect, which was, you know, this idea that one of the ways in which the medical community that he was a part of and some kind of senior medical figures, One of the places where they fell short was sticking to these talking points, not recognizing the kind of anguish and the unsettled nature of what was going on and not understanding that people were really confused and it wasn't easy to navigate.
20:26You know, he singled out how, you know, the CDC had said don't gather on Thanksgiving and that just wasn't something that people were going to do and that there were other things that we could have done to embrace people's kind of humanity while also keeping people safe.
20:37Ari Aster:Yeah, there's a tendency to just dehumanize people who you don't agree with. But, you know, I think it's important right now, given the atmosphere we live in, where we are being pumped 24-7, full of messaging, and a lot of people's hearts and minds are being poisoned. You know, it's very important, I think, especially if you're going to make a project like this, to do something that tries to hold up a mirror to yourself and that also tries to see the humanity and the people you maybe disagree with, because we're all subject to the same forces. Yeah. We're all in the same situation. Well, we need to take a short break, but we'll be right back with Ari Aster right after this.
Read the full transcript
21:31I was reading a list that you did for GQ about the five movies that influenced the making of Eddington. And one of them was JFK, which I thought was so interesting. You made this point that you wanted to kind of capture the mania of the movie and how you thought it was really interesting because in that movie, Kevin Costner's character, Jim Garrison, is the hero of the movie when in the reality, he was obviously a much more mixed figure, and people thought he was kind of a quack. And that you said, you gave him a great quote where you said something along the lines of that, we're a country of Jim Garrison's now.
22:04And I was reflecting back on that interview this week as we've been, you know, Ben and I have been writing about and covering and talking to people in the media and the administration about this Epstein situation and how it's splintering this conservative right movement that had really been invested in the kind of conspiracy theory. The mania that you captured in the movie kind of really seems to be reflected and actually like playing out right now as we see it with, you know, the White House and this kind of interesting mix of kind of conservative media figures that were obsessed with Epstein and part of Trump's movement and now feel a little bit alienated.
22:39Ari Aster:Yeah, well, I mean, look, these conspiracies have like just permeated the atmosphere. I mean, there are too many to deal with. That seems to be the central one And I think there are echoes of that in Eddington, especially with, you know, the Austin Butler character.
22:54Ben Smith:Yeah.
22:54Ari Aster:But yeah, I mean, JFK, I do find to be a really fascinating and kind of important film. And, you know, it's been widely dismissed and discredited. You know, it's like it's a rat king of different conspiracy theories, some of which contradict each other, you know. and uh jim garrison is considered to be a charlatan by you know many and but uh but uh for me that actually almost helps the film because where the film is valuable i think is in the way that it captures the fever of conspiracy thinking and i think we're and and it it really feels to me like ahead of its time in a way uh despite the fact that even then in the 90s it's looking back Right.
23:43Ari Aster:But even the language that, you know, you see being used on the right a lot, it's it's borrowed from that like 1960s left wing conspiracy rhetoric. It's like it's all it's it's it that's how that's kind of what's so insidious about this is that it's all been like we're living in like this like distortion of like history and and we're living in a time where we're like oversaturated with history. the internet has kind of flattened everything there's just no like nobody knows what's going on there's no contending with anything and so one other way that jfk is very useful is the way that it does bathe jim garrison in this heroic light um and i think that's that's a very important part of this is that is that the people who are uncovering these conspiracies are heroic they're doing heroic work like that's that's what's driving it you know is like is you know i need to bring light to something that you know has that has been buried that you know people are being lied to and and and it comes from the like the absolute you know certainty that that we're being lied to which of course we are you know and so it's you know so at that point it's just once you've decided that you know where do you go i mean you know i mean the film really does
25:03Ben Smith:have an incredibly dark vision fundamentally. And actually, one of the things I thought about afterward was, why isn't there more political violence? Like, maybe we're not that bad. Well, you know, it's a good question.
25:19Ari Aster:And all I know is that there is political violence and that none of the people in power seem to have any interest in tamping the rhetoric or the fever that is leading to it. So, you know, when I started writing this in 2020, it's because I felt that we had reached a boiling point and I felt violence coming. And I didn't know if it was going to happen tomorrow or five years, but it's like, if we stay on this path, if this continues, like, it's coming. I just, it's in my bones. I feel it. And I wrote the film in a state of anxiety and dread, and that dread has only gotten worse. And of course, I made the film while Biden was president, and it's being released into a different world right now.
26:14Yeah. One of the things that you mentioned this a little bit earlier, but one of the points of dread that the film has kind of looming over it, one of the threats that's kind of looming over it is AI. And it starts out with this data center being built. AI and data are a big theme of the movie, even though they're kind of the next threat, not necessarily the past one. I'm curious what you think as a filmmaker, what you think the role of AI is in filmmaking today. Do you use AI at all? When is it useful? When do you think it's inappropriate? How are you thinking about AI?
26:47Ari Aster:Um, I, I think that AI in almost every sector is like just too big to fail. And so it's coming. Um, I've been resistant to it and, uh, am, you know, taking as long as I can before having to really employ it. But, you know, it's this thing where I just, look, I spent my life, like, you know, learning how to be an image maker. And for me, you know, like, I have memories of going to films and being in awe of what I was seeing. And that's what drove me, you know, in wanting to be a filmmaker. And I feel like I'm seeing just awe being just disappearing, especially as like these images can just be made in an instant.
27:33Ari Aster:And I found the AI generated imagery when it first started appearing to be very like interesting and startling and frightening because, you know, it was essentially hallucinating. and the images were like depraved and insane. And I was like, oh, this is what you think of us. Like, it's amazing and scary. And now it's become so much more uncanny to me because it's not uncanny anymore. It looks real. And that's really dangerous. You know, like this is the end of video audio evidence. We're at the advent of like a new kind of like fraud that is very hard to discredit. it. But at the same time, we already are living in an age of like total distrust.
28:20Ari Aster:And this is about to get so much worse. So, you know, I, uh, in some ways I think, you know, like the best thing to do right now is find a way to adapt because it's coming, but I didn't ask for it. Like, you know, like who, what, you know, did you, like, I, I don't know, like who, even the people who are ushering it in, like, you know, they're kind of cleaning their hands by saying like, look, Look, we warned you. We're telling you, like, this could end the world. Like, it's going to take away your jobs. Like, don't say we didn't tell you. It's like, yeah, but, I mean, great, thanks. I don't know.
28:52Ari Aster:Right. So, I don't know. The state of things is, like, so alarming right now. And I also just see AI as something that will accelerate everything. It's just, it's going to automate things further and make automation much faster and make it. So ultimately, like, you know, I wish we would just find like a path that didn't scare the shit out of me before AI like, you know, became applied to everything. It is true. I mean, Ben, maybe you remember this, too, is because you were making your kind of career in media as this kind of moment was happening. But the previous era of the internet and digital media, there was this utopian idea that like, okay, the internet is a great tool for disseminating information that will, you know, allow people who live in repressed regimes to access information outside.
29:41And maybe they'll rebel against, you know, whatever was going on. It's true. It happened. Yeah, it did. I mean, Twitter's role in the Arab Spring and whatnot. But obviously, you know, obviously that utopian vision was complicated. But there was a utopian theory of the case. With AI, there really isn't, right?
29:56Ari Aster:No, you're right. I mean, yeah, I always think about the utopian ideal of the Internet and how it took only so long for it to fall into corporate interests and everything became commodified. And now it's this like hellscape. It's a little harsh. Well, is it?
30:14Ben Smith:I don't know. At least we have podcasts.
30:17Ari Aster:It's true. At least we have podcasts. You know, it's funny, though.
30:19Ben Smith:Like, we did. I mean, I'm very much of the utopian internet generation, and God forbid you don't want any commerce on the internet and become corporate. But it is interesting. I mean, and everybody thought it would be fundamentally in social media would be a tool of, you know, to fight the power, and it really became a tool of power. I mean, maybe the reverse will be true of AI. I think everyone sees it accurately as like an incredibly powerful tool for authoritarians, but maybe it'll wind up being the reverse.
30:43Ari Aster:Yeah, as long as Mecca Hitler doesn't end up being the most influential. I mean, OpenAI was a nonprofit, right? And then Anthropic was, then they were going to be the ones who were policing OpenAI. And, you know, a big part of the research going into AI right now is alignment research, right? Making sure that these systems align with human values. So I just have a question. What are human values?
31:17Ben Smith:Yeah, when you figure that out, please let us know.
31:21Ari Aster:Yeah, what are they? And whose values are we talking about?
31:23Ben Smith:We should not train these AIs on Eddington. They'll have a dark sense of human values. Are you working on any AI projects? You know, films about it?
31:32Ari Aster:It's very much on my mind. And I do consider Eddington to be. Part of that. Sneakily an AI project.
31:40Ben Smith:This Hollywood moment in particular seems like, I mean, Bella Bajaria has that line about only wanting gourmet cheeseburgers, which you may have seen. But it's definitely a moment of like dumb, fun stuff that is sometimes very, very highly produced and dressed up, but kind of fundamentally unambitious. and I'm curious how you think about this moment. That's obviously not your instinct. I am bored by a lot of what I'm seeing
32:07Ari Aster:and a lot of it feels rote and a lot of it feels safe and a lot of it feels regurgitated and recycled and then I'm also seeing things that I think are great and exciting and sometimes those are successful and sometimes they're not. But I have noticed that fewer and fewer films are considered home runs, and that includes Marvel movies, superhero films. And I find that to be, hopefully that will lead to more adventurous decision making. because if the film that you're only doing because it's gonna make a lot of money, but your heart isn't in it, if those aren't doing well, maybe there's more room for risk-taking.
33:01Yeah, you're more likely to take a risk. The only one that seems to be a home run these days is Jurassic Park. I can't believe they keep making those movies. They're really bad, and yet they do insane numbers. We have to ask about one. And if this ends up not being true, we'll cut it out. But as we were preparing for this interview, I was talking to somebody. And somebody was like, oh, actually, you got to ask Ari. Like, I heard this rumor that they asked him at one point to do a Marvel movie. Did they ever ask you? Did Marvel ever ask you to do something? Yes, once. What was it?
33:32Ari Aster:Oh, really? Well, I don't know. I feel like I shouldn't say. Should I? Yeah, of course you should. I was asked to do Morbius. Morbius. Oh, my God. That would have been awesome if you did it, though. It was a huge flop. I think that would have been amazing if you did it, though. That would have been incredible. We could have added it to my list of... Exactly. You know, you started your career kind of during the streaming era at this moment of kind of peak disruption in Hollywood. If you'd had your career 20 years ago, it would have looked a lot different. Not only are we seeing kind of the disruption of the business, but also people's attention has changed too.
34:14It used to be the biggest thing that existed in media was movies, right? The movie star was the biggest type of celebrity you could be. Now, you know, younger people, we've talked about Ben's kids a lot on the show and what they are consuming. You know, they don't distinguish as much between a movie star and an influencer or a TikTok star or something like that. I talk to all these executives who refer to shows as just TikToks now, like four-minute-long kind of things. I'm really curious how you're navigating this moment of major change at the industry, thinking about your own career. Like, how are you kind of navigating the changes in taste and the changes in what people are interested in, and how are you thinking about it?
34:52Ari Aster:Uh, I am trying to keep my antenna up and be just present in the world as it is right now, which is harder and harder to do because it's an increasingly unpleasant place. but I do think that there's a tendency to retreat and you know fall into either nostalgia or like past trauma instead of looking at the moment and especially even like imagining the future right and I think and it's it's hard to I think there's not a lot of belief in the future right now and I I'm I'm really desperate for for like new ideas for like a new idea of what the future could be as opposed to the one that is being projected right now that we seem to be moving towards, which, you know, like it feels like we're living through a failed experiment that failed a long time ago.
35:49Ari Aster:But instead of it being like slowed down, it feels like, you know, jetpacks are being strapped to it. And just to bring it back to Eddington, you know, like maybe there can be some, if there's anything hopeful in the film, because I've heard it be called nihilistic and I don't think it is nihilistic. And I think part of that is because it's a period piece, right? So it's set five years ago. And maybe there could be some solidarity and some opportunity to sit in a room with each other and see maybe a little bit more clearly how we were. And then maybe that'll give us a little bit more objectivity on how we are and the path that we're still on and whether we want to stay on this path.
36:27Ari Aster:And how do we get off? And is there a way to like re-engage with each other because we are completely siloed off. And, you know, I don't see how we can move out of this without that. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, movies like yours and obviously very important, equally important podcasts like this one are very much about that theme. So Ari, we really appreciate you taking the time to do this today. Well, thank you. And thanks for the film. Yeah. Thank you. and just so uh because i i i ended on kind of a lofty human plea it's also supposed to be funny the movie's supposed to be funny the theater was laughing the theater that i was in was cracking up i was laughing i thought it was fucking hilarious i love i loved it good go to eddington and have a good time that's right that's right seconded thanks sorry thanks guys
37:34Ben Smith:So, Max, you've followed Ari's career. You're a big moviegoer. What surprised you about that conversation? What did you learn? You know, I have obviously paid a lot of attention to him. I've listened to him on podcasts. I've watched his interviews. And so, you know, it is always really fun to see people you pay attention to and follow closely in the media kind of come to life. It's one of the treats of getting to do this show and having the show gain a little bit of traction. So he didn't surprise me in terms of his, you know, the things, his ideologies, the things that he had to say. What honestly surprised me and what I thought was really cool and interesting and makes sense if you see the film is his deep understanding of how our modern information bubbles work and the things that he – the lengths that he went to to kind of live in that world, right?
38:25He was talking about setting up his like burner accounts so he could see stuff that wasn't coming to him. And, you know, the amount to which he, like everybody else, was just living online during COVID and how that kind of warped his mind. And, you know, I also just think I liked this movie. Obviously, I think a lot of people did not like this movie and will not like this movie. I think that it seems to be very, very divisive. But what I really liked about it, and I think you kind of pushed him on this a little bit, was that while everybody else has been going towards escapism and things to make us forget about COVID, he was like, wait, why is nobody paying attention to this crazy thing that we all experienced and how it has totally changed our world and continues to change it?
39:09And like, it is true. I mean, he's right about that. And it's brave, I think, artistically to go after that. You know, open question whether audiences will reward him for that with their money.
39:19Ben Smith:I think Mixed Signals listeners probably actually ought to see it. I mean, because as you say, he captures kind of, there's so many dumb movies about media and so many sort of misunderstand our business and how media works. And I do think he really, really nails it. I mean, you know, it's funny because remember when people used to say Twitter isn't real life? And I do think like historians of the future, like they're only going to read Twitter. Like Twitter is going to be the only thing that is real in terms of trying to understand what happened in the last decade. And I do think that he and this film like totally gets that.
39:54Ben Smith:And I thought it'd be kind of amazing. He said, this is the movie that Twitter made. I mean, that's like the worst tagline I've ever heard. And no one who hears that will watch it. But that's a very, very kind of very astute treatment of this reality. And he was really smart to focus it during COVID because that was when it accelerated the ways in which media became important parts of our lives. And it accelerated this kind of fragmentation because, of course, we couldn't interact with people and media became the thing through which we interacted with the outside world and other people. Yeah, although, you know, it's funny, you started by sort of picking up Naima's point about, you know, how we don't haven't fully processed COVID.
40:30Ben Smith:You know, I honestly left this movie thinking, you know, COVID wasn't the problem. Like the media was the problem. You could tell this whole story of the United States and the world gradually losing our minds on social media without COVID. Yeah. Like media maybe was ultimately the real virus. I think COVID gave it that familiar backdrop and texture. In some ways, I also think it, and you got at this point as well, it lent some humanity to characters who the movie otherwise made fun of. At the time, maybe some people of a certain political persuasion felt like, you know, oh my God, I don't want to be around this person that's not wearing a mask.
41:07He might give me COVID. I don't want to die. I feel like I maybe was one of those people. But in retrospect, looking back, you're like, oh, my God, this person is being humiliated on screen. And Ari really focuses on that experience. And I think that that was important. Meanwhile, it also shows those people consuming insane stuff that's driving them crazy and forcing them towards these fringe views. So I think it just complicates the kind of partisan pictures of these different moments. And I agree with you that I thought it really understood the texture of this modern media moment in a way that I have not seen on screen.
41:38Ben Smith:Yeah, I mean, he said, Ari said somewhere that it's a Western in which instead of guns, you have phones. Yeah, it's a real statement of this moment. Anyway, Max, thank you for roping him in. That was a really fascinating conversation. Thank you for going along with the ride with me on this one. I thought it was well worth it. For sure. Well, that is it for us this week. Thank you for listening to Mixed Signals from Semaphore Media. Our show is produced by Sheena Ozaki. with special thanks to Josh Billinson, Chad Lewis, Rachel Oppenheim, Anna Pizzino, Garrett Wiley, Jules Zern, and Tori Coor. Our engineer is Rick Kwan.
42:11Ben Smith:Our theme music is by Billy Libby. Our public editor is Jack Dorsey. If you like Mixed Signals, please follow us wherever you get your podcasts. If you're watching on YouTube, please like and subscribe. And if you want more, you can always sign up for Semaphore's media newsletter out Sunday night. And Max has a particularly good scoop this week, so definitely sign up.
42:34Thank you.
From the publisher
Ari Aster, the filmmaker behind Hereditary and Midsommar, is out with a new movie today called Eddington. The new film is a modern Western placed in the height of lockdown during the 2020 pandemic, where the real villain is digital media. This week, Ben and Max bring on the writer and director to talk about why he decided to make a film set during Covid when the rest of Hollywood is running in the other direction, how his relationship with social media led to Eddington, and how researching for the film made him more empathetic to conspiracy theorists. Plus, Ari reveals which Marvel movie he turned down.
Sign up for Semafor Media’s Sunday newsletter: https://www.semafor.com/newsletters/media
For more from Think with Google, check out ThinkwithGoogle.com.
Find us on X: @semaforben, @maxwelltani
If you have a tip or a comment, please email us mixedsignals@semafor.com
