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All of which raises a question: Why don’t directors of a certain serious bent just forgo the studios altogether and declare themselves permanent independents like Leigh or Woody Allen, who has been independent since leaving Universal Artists in the Seventies? (His latest film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, received wide critical praise and took in $70 million worldwide.) “Well, personally I couldn’t afford it,” Aronofsky answers with a laugh, noting that his strategy—one shared by both Boyle and Van Sant, not incidentally—is to alternate between exercising artistic freedom and earning a paycheck. “The Wrestler cost me money to do. I’m not starving or anything, but it’s tough to support a family doing films for nothing.”
