New Clip Reveals Ark In 'Noah' Built to Resemble Shipping Container
A new video clip has been released this week detailing the building of the ark for Darren Aronofsky's film "Noah," released in March. This most recent clip was revealed to promote the movie's digital and blue ray releases.
In the 1:23 clip, Mark Friedberg, production designer for the film, explains that he and Aronofsky, the film's director, wanted to use their building design to convey that the ark had been built in haste, not carrying much artistic design but rather to show that it was built as a shipping vessel to transport all of God's creation, as found in the Genesis flood narrative.
"The basic idea we wanted to convey was that the ark was built in haste," Friedberg recalls in the clip. "We took the Bible at its word for its dimensions — the height, the length and the width. It didn't give any indication of a design."
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"We assumed […] that Noah was really building a shipping container, a way to store these animals to weather a storm," the production designer continued. "All Noah has really been instructed to do is build this thing and wait it out."
"It was not made to be admired. It was not built in honor of anything except survival of what was in it," he added.
The clip also shows shots of the movie set that included the giant wooden ark, built near New York City in an empty lot off of the Long Island Expressway. The ark reportedly took one year to design and six months to actually build.
Aronofsky has previously described a similar approach to creating the ark. In an ark featurette released in March by Paramount Pictures, the film's director explains: "There was a huge issue of what is this ark going to look like."
"The idea was let's go back to what God tells Noah in the Bible," the director continues, adding "It basically describes a box. It doesn't talk about a bow. It doesn't have to navigate. It wasn't like Noah was trying to take the ship anywhere. It basically has to survive the flood."
When "Noah" was released in March, it raked in over $100 million at the box office, despite criticism from some who argued the film did not accurately reflect the Bible story of the Genesis flood. The film, starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly, was released digitally on July 15 and will be released in DVD and Blue Ray on July 29.
