Nicolas Cage wants to work with 'Midsommar' director Ari Aster, compares him to Brian De Palma

Veteran actor Nicolas Cage is mighty impressed with "Midsommar" and "Hereditary" director Ari Aster and wants to collaborate with the young filmmaker. Cage, who has worked with celebrated directors ranging from Brian De Palma to Werner Herzog, called Aster a "real student of film".

"Ari Aster, to me, is an event. If you look at 'Hereditary' and 'Midsommar', so much thought goes into them. They're uniquely different, but you can tell that they come from the same mind. He's a real student of film," the actor said during an interview with IndieWire at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). "It was exciting. I saw those Bergmanesque shots. I remember thinking, 'This is like Bergman. Then I heard a podcast where he was talking about the closeups in 'Persona', and I'd just gone through my Bergman kick, so I was like, well, this is really someone willing to explore and try new things in cinema," Cage added, describing Aster as "someone who has that auteur panache, like De Palma did back when he was doing films like 'Sisters' and 'Phantom of the Paradise'".

Aster's films take a unique approach to horror genre, but Cage said while he is ok with experimenting in the space, he wants to stay away from "torture-porn". "Horror is fine, you can be very creative with that. The thing I really don't like is what they call 'torture porn. If you're just watching some woman get cut up, that's really not for me. It needs to have a reason there, a story, that propels the characters, an emotion connected to it. I would probably have to pass on just gratuitous violence."

Cage was at TIFF promoting HP Lovecraft adaptation "Color Out of Space" which marks "Hardware" director Richard Stanley's first narrative feature since he was fired from "The Island of Dr Moreau" in 1996.

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