The Fountain

[last days of gerry the elephant]

Well from the trailer I guess I couldn't get into all the CGI that appeared all over it. Usually, CGI can easily ruin the entire film for me. I had a totally different perception of what it was going to turn out to be like. But it all came together in the film, it wasn't over done at all and the sets seemed more natural. Understanding the story a little better also helps look past that too I think.

[modage]

well in case you havent read the 10,000 articles in this thread there is NO CGI in this film.  aronofsky has stated many times that everything in this was actually filmed.  (maybe on a greenscreen and composited, but still nothing was computer generated).

[Redlum]

Thats not strictly true. They tried to do as much as possible in camera using some fascinating microscopic photography techniques; filming chemical reactions in a pure black, liquid environment. This was done by a company in Oxford who used some really random stuff like curry powder to get the nebula, and dieing star, star field effects. However this (and other practical effects) did have to be augmented or mirrored by computer generated simulations in a lot of shots. Fantastic, scientific approach, though...really appropriate for the character.

There's a great section in this months Cinefex on it all.

[last days of gerry the elephant]

well in case you havent read the 10,000 articles in this thread there is NO CGI in this film.  aronofsky has stated many times that everything in this was actually filmed.  (maybe on a greenscreen and composited, but still nothing was computer generated).

I have read some of the articles that do mention this yes, by CGI I might as well have meant special effects (I do understand they're not the same, I apologize for the confusion). The visuals do look like they could have been CGI regardless wether they were not in reality. What's the point of using these strenuous techniques if the end result resembles those of CGI capabilities? (It still has that effect over me, watching it... it still was fake) Those were my first impressions as I said, and they did appear very awkward during the trailer.

[Ghostboy]

I'm gonna have to pick up that issue of Cinefex. Or at least read it at the bookstore.

I just got the book in the mail today. It's more of an art book than anything else - it consists entirely of photographs, which echo the movie in blending the three time periods together (via Photoshop). There's no actual text anywhere in the book. The script for the film is actually its own book, inlaid within the main volume's back cover. It's not the original script - it looks like the shooting script for what made it to the screen.

Worth getting if your'e a completist or a fan of the film's imagery. And yeah, the cover's slightly different.

[OrHowILearnedTo]

well in case you havent read the 10,000 articles in this thread there is NO CGI in this film.

I thought i saw CGI technician credits near the end.

[McfLy]

I'm sure they get cgi artists to clean up the picture and fix up some compositing. But the primary effects were done as Redlum explained.

[Gold Trumpet]

Someone said Andrei Tarkovsky should have directed this and I agree.

And that is sad because I really did like the premise and when I was done watching the film, I appreciated how thoughtful the movie was. This film had the chance to really stay with me the way a great Tarkovsky film would. It could have been visually inspiring and meaningful in ways that could have gotten me to question existence and the meaning of life.

Visually, this film is stunning. The visuals hit on every cylinder and is always made me want to look at the corners of the screen. Time permitting because the editing is usually quick. The problem is that the story is a mess. Not only is the film trying to jumble three storylines, but each piece of story and action is only lead up to giving you the pieces of a puzzle you finally understand by the end.

The thing is that reduces the greater ideas in the story. It makes you think about the disjointed structure of the film before you think about the ideas. When people say Tarkovsky should have directed this, I don't think they say so because he would have been visually more memorable. I think he would simplified this story to breathe life to the ideas and themes. I think that would have included dropping the story set in 1500. There were other ways to get the essentials of that subplot into the story.

What Arnofsky does is make a film that is a cute lead in for the viewer to finally start thinking about the ideas it has. Tarkovsky would have resignated the ideas and themes into the mind of the viewer from the very beginning and asked even greater questions by the end.

[adolfwolfli]

The critical reception to this film is depressing, but is to be expected in the current American cultural climate.  Americans simple cannot come to grips with anything that is deeply layered, ambiguous, and philisophical.  Because a large majority of our population suffer from what Don Delillo, in his seminal "White Noise", termed "Brain Fade", a movie like The Fountain is sure to be baffling, and then ultimately a target of anger, because we hate what we cannot understand.  I saw this movie last night, or, I should say, it saw me, and it is one of the most deeply felt, searching, trancendental films ever attempted by an American filmmaker.  There are more ideas woven into its running time than every other movie that was playing in the multiplex that I saw it in – and I think there were 20 or so other films playing that night.  Anyone who tries to tell you that this film is a "headscratcher", or "open-ended", simply didn't have the intellectual and emotional capacity to grapple with its themes.  (Also, I think there is a certain breed of fanboy that is entering the theater anticipating a muscular science fiction movie, which this surely is not – it is a love story, through and through.)  Aronofsky manages to weave Mayan history and religion, the Spanish inquisition, modern medicine, Emersonion transcendentalism, Eastern mysticism, science fiction, cosmology, and more into a seamless, effortlessly-woven tapestry.  Like others on this board have mentioned, Tarkovsky is the touchstone here, not Kubrick (though there is a sequence toward the end that undoubtedly calls to mind 2001), but I wouldn't say "Tarkovsky should have directed this".  There is a fleet-footedness and thoroughly modern pulse to The Fountain that makes it the product of an original voice, and a product of our place and time.  After Requiem for a Dream (which, in retrospect is brilliantly made but a bit immature) I knew Aronofsky had it in his blood to make a great film.  Secondly only to Malick's The New World, I can't remember a film that left me this shaken.  I cannot get it out of my head.  Don't let the critics dissuade you – get out and see this.  If you are a literate, sensitive moviegoer who desires a challenge and is in need of a deeply cathartic theater experience, now's your chance.  

[©brad]

The problem is that the story is a mess. Not only is the film trying to jumble three storylines, but each piece of story and action is only lead up to giving you the pieces of a puzzle you finally understand by the end.

The thing is that reduces the greater ideas in the story. It makes you think about the disjointed structure of the film before you think about the ideas.

why is this a bad thing?

[MacGuffin]

Well, I had to do a little driving to find a theater still playing it, but it was worth it. I bought into it, and was amazed. The moment that sealed it for me was the bathtub scene. It was the moment I fell in love with Izzi too and saw/felt everything Tom felt about her. Because, while all the visulas were completely striking, for me, in the end, it was a love story, and I couldn't help thinking about Arthur Hiller's Love Story while watching this (there are some similarities). But also, I felt the film, despite all the ideas about life, was about acceptance and letting go. I loved being an interacting part of the film, knowing what the repetitive "Finish it" dialogue from the opening meant before Izzi tells Tom, for example. And yet, I never felt like I was ahead of the film. I was an experience I was pleased to have. Will be in my Top Ten of the Year list.

[Pozer]

Well, I had to do a little driving to find a theater still playing it, but it was worth it. I bought into it, and was amazed. The moment that sealed it for me was the bathtub scene. It was the moment I fell in love with Izzi too and saw/felt everything Tom felt about her. Because, while all the visulas were completely striking, for me, in the end, it was a love story, and I couldn't help thinking about Arthur Hiller's Love Story while watching this (there are some similarities). But also, I felt the film, despite all the ideas about life, was about acceptance and letting go. I loved being an interacting part of the film, knowing what the repetitive "Finish it" dialogue from the opening meant before Izzi tells Tom, for example. And yet, I never felt like I was ahead of the film. I was an experience I was pleased to have. Will be in my Top Ten of the Year list.

[matt35mm]

The critical reception to this film is depressing, but is to be expected in the current American cultural climate.  Americans simple cannot come to grips with anything that is deeply layered, ambiguous, and philisophical.  Because a large majority of our population suffer from what Don Delillo, in his seminal "White Noise", termed "Brain Fade", a movie like The Fountain is sure to be baffling, and then ultimately a target of anger, because we hate what we cannot understand.  I saw this movie last night, or, I should say, it saw me, and it is one of the most deeply felt, searching, trancendental films ever attempted by an American filmmaker.  There are more ideas woven into its running time than every other movie that was playing in the multiplex that I saw it in ? and I think there were 20 or so other films playing that night.  Anyone who tries to tell you that this film is a "headscratcher", or "open-ended", simply didn't have the intellectual and emotional capacity to grapple with its themes.  (Also, I think there is a certain breed of fanboy that is entering the theater anticipating a muscular science fiction movie, which this surely is not ? it is a love story, through and through.)  Aronofsky manages to weave Mayan history and religion, the Spanish inquisition, modern medicine, Emersonion transcendentalism, Eastern mysticism, science fiction, cosmology, and more into a seamless, effortlessly-woven tapestry.  Like others on this board have mentioned, Tarkovsky is the touchstone here, not Kubrick (though there is a sequence toward the end that undoubtedly calls to mind 2001), but I wouldn't say "Tarkovsky should have directed this".  There is a fleet-footedness and thoroughly modern pulse to The Fountain that makes it the product of an original voice, and a product of our place and time.  After Requiem for a Dream (which, in retrospect is brilliantly made but a bit immature) I knew Aronofsky had it in his blood to make a great film.  Secondly only to Malick's The New World, I can't remember a film that left me this shaken.  I cannot get it out of my head.  Don't let the critics dissuade you ? get out and see this.  If you are a literate, sensitive moviegoer who desires a challenge and is in need of a deeply cathartic theater experience, now's your chance.  

I don't mean to antagonize, but I think you could have given your thoughts on the film without effectively calling anyone who didn't care for it that much a retard (or am I to interpret a person who doesn't have "the intellectual and emotional capacity to grapple with its themes" as something other than intellectually and emotionally retarded?)

I don't have a problem with your review otherwise (oh it's brilliantly written but a bit immature).  It just would have been nice for you to be able to convey your point that people ought to go out and see the film regardless of what critics have been saying without playing the superiority card.

[picolas]

yeah. i hate it when people defend a movie by saying other people don't get it because they're dumb. really cliched and embarassing excuse for a premise for a review that says nothing about the movie. just the reviewer.

[polkablues]

I couldn't help thinking about Arthur Hiller's Love Story while watching this (there are some similarities).

"What can you say about a 2,500 year old girl who died?"

I agree with you completely.  The Fountain would make a great triple-feature with Love Story and Keith Gordon's Waking the Dead.