The Fountain

[CatMan5129]

I watched the film this evening and the images, like a tumor, are embedded in my brain.  Aronofsky's shots were ungodly good, and the sound, editing and special effects left me speechless.  I only wish the love story was more developed.  There were a few shots of Izza being chased in a red dress, with long hair, laughing...but these were only quick flashbacks and then flashbacks of flashbacks.  I think Aronofsky should have extended those sequences so the audience could get more emotionally involved.  The film's emotion builds toward an unbelievable crescendo, but I think the first notes are missing. 

I was also left confused by the conquistador storyline.  When the conquistador drank the sap and became one with the earth, was that how Tom finished writing Izzy's story which ran parallel to the futuristic Tom dying with the tree in space? 

The last sequence felt a bit too long and seemed to sway back and forth from awkward to really good.  However, I think the length of the final sequence (if you can consider it one sequence) was very powerful, so much that I couldn't move when it ended.  It reminded me of the end of Requiem, but I thought Requiem was a little tighter.

I loved the movie, but I still feel like there was something missing.  I wish I could explain it better.  I will have to watch it again.

[NEON MERCURY]

///spoilers///


hey gang....i had to see this twice before i had to write my "review" of this...i am a huge fan of aronofsky's shit...so, i couldnt wait to see this and i enjoyed it the first time but still needed to see it again...and i think its the best film of the year so far and aronofsky's best effort yet....i am glad that pitt decided not to do this b/c the scene when jackman is tatooing the ring around his finger and cryign and shit  would not resonate on such levels if pitt was in it...and the "im going to die" scene was the highlight for me...and likewise that line and significance behind it could not be reached if pitt was in it...people want to mention that aronofsky abandoned his hip-hop montage shit...instead the whole film seemed like a montage...its has a great rhythm and feel...shots, themes, images, music, etc. were repeated like a montage-just not the hip-hop fast paced variety..so, i am glad that aronofsky/libatique are still the visual genuis'....i urge people who didnt like it at first to watch it again....and so someone like me who has o.c.d. and thinks that everytime i see a  spot or get sick i obseesed like i'm dying and i get scared and take even more prozac......the "i'm going to die" scene is somewhat theropeautic...i own three soundtracks...requiem, mulholland dr., and now this...damn, the soundtrack is great...i like this film...

[JG]

the images, like a tumor, are embedded in my brain.

deep.

[pete]

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.  

probably a little late in jumping on the bashing your review bandwagon, but man, anyone who declares himself a, and longs for the brotherhood of, "literate, sensitive" moviegoer(s) deserves to be shot in the face with a monkey's goof juice.  if you like masturbating on the internet, then don't try to fuck tarkovsky's skeletons in the same paragraph as well. 

[Pubrick]

///spoilers///


hey gang....i had to see this twice before i had to write my "review" of this...i am a huge fan of aronofsky's shit...so, i couldnt wait to see this and i enjoyed it the first time but still needed to see it again...and i think its the best film of the year so far and aronofsky's best effort yet....i am glad that pitt decided not to do this b/c the scene when jackman is tatooing the ring around his finger and cryign and shit  would not resonate on such levels if pitt was in it...and the "im going to die" scene was the highlight for me...and likewise that line and significance behind it could not be reached if pitt was in it...people want to mention that aronofsky abandoned his hip-hop montage shit...instead the whole film seemed like a montage...its has a great rhythm and feel...shots, themes, images, music, etc. were repeated like a montage-just not the hip-hop fast paced variety..so, i am glad that aronofsky/libatique are still the visual genuis'....i urge people who didnt like it at first to watch it again....and so someone like me who has o.c.d. and thinks that everytime i see a  spot or get sick i obseesed like i'm dying and i get scared and take even more prozac......the "i'm going to die" scene is somewhat theropeautic...i own three soundtracks...requiem, mulholland dr., and now this...damn, the soundtrack is great...i like this film...

cool review, but why do you write like that? at least make the font size 10, it looks good at 10. see?

welcome back i guess.

[I Love a Magician]

spoilers maybe

I liked this movie. I don't think it was Great or anything; a lot of it was kind of clunky and I really hated the Mayan scenes, but I have a hard time disliking something if I can tell whoever made it really gave a shit about what they were doing. The scene where Tommy comes home and gets in bed with Iz about got some tears out of me. I went back and forth thinking, "I really like how this movie looks" and "god what the fuck." A good deal of the shots were beautiful (him doing that stuff against the stars, the tree at the end, the funeral scene) but I also thought a lot of it looked kind of a fake-dirty and over saturated in a desaturated way (there weren't a lot of colors in most of the scenes, but the colors that were there were like, almost obscene).

I wish I hadn't seen so many of the important shots (tree at the end, Tom "melting" at the end, etc) before seeing the movie; kind of lessened their impact.

But still, I liked it.

[Sunrise]

I have a hard time disliking something if I can tell whoever made it really gave a shit about what they were doing.

I really enjoyed this comment. It's not necessarily universal for me because there are certainly less-than quality films produced by filmmakers that were passionate about their subject matter and themes. Perhaps that is more of a reflection of their talent than their passion. And even though Aronofsky's passion slightly overreaches his talent in The Fountain, it is still a wonderful experience.

[socketlevel]

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.

SPOILERS




agreed mac.  The most important message in the movie to me was the sense of not letting go.  more importantly, how not letting go will kill the very thing you're trying to save.  there were many examples of this.  the one that hit me the strongest was how he would eat a little bit of the tree.  and in turn, tapping into that fountain of youth, to prolong his life, was killing the tree in the long run.  if he wasn't feeding off of it, you get the impression the tree would have made it to the dying star.  he says to himself, almost made it.  however, the very reason he comes so close to almost achieving what he is set after, yet never quite gets there, is a reflection of his own obsession.

the 2500 and the 2000 character is the same man (we know this because of the ring tattoo), for 500 years he has been eating the tree and using it's life for his own experiments.  he shot himself in the foot, because the tree dies moments before being reborn.  that was the most powerful moment for me.  even more than the love story, which i agree with mac was very moving.  it was a great tragedy in the style of hamlet.  he was his own worst enemy and realized the consequences of his actions one moment too late.

i think in the future this will be remembered as one of the great films of our time.  it is in many ways our 2001, the audience is just too far behind it to understand it's importance.

-sl-

[Gold Trumpet]

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?

It's a good question. There have been many great films that approached complex storylines the same way. They reduced the storyline to fragments and then lined those fragments in a complex puzzle in order to reveal the greater ideas in the story. The only reason I see for doing this if the focus of the story was strictly emotional. Exotica really dug at its inherent emotional strands with such a structure. But, the focus of the Fountain is both emotional and on greater ideas.

When someone in this thread said that American audiences could not understand a film of this depth and ambiguilty, they were missing the point. The Fountain is ambiguous but it is also very structural which is an American trait. Many American films have climbed to reach the heights of art cinema only to reduce their ambitions by including an equally great plan in structure. It assumes their is a lack of patience in American audiences to be able to accept a simple art film that is philosophical in ideas and making. It is a chief difference that have kept any American filmmaker from achieving the sense of an Eric Roth or a Yasurijo Ozu while maintaining a belief they are still influenced by both filmmakers. I believe Andrei Tarkovsky is involved in that company. The only film he made that was structurally complex was Mirror and it was based on the greatness of memory with imagery and thus the structure worked. I believe he would have simplified the story here and focused on the themes and asking the greater questions. The Fountain isn't asking new questions with its final revelations. That is why it could have approached the way it did things.

Darren Arnofsky is American and is trying to make a film that combines both the emotional with ideas and places it in a greater structure. For the reasons above, I think he is trying too hard, but he has a majesty to his imagery that will survive and I think he is successful for making a unqiue film that looks even better within a dull year for movies. But the fact is that serious art films ask to be compared to the greatest art films that they are comparable with. I don't know if The Fountain would have been equal to the very best philosophical films if it changed the problems I identified, but I think it would have been greater than it is.

[MacGuffin]

Matthew Libatique, 'The Fountain'
Source: Variety

Awards: Independent Spirit Award for "Requiem for a Dream"; Chlotrudis Award for "Pi."

Tools: "We used Panavision cameras outfitted with standard primes, which are older sets of lenses. We were going for something a little more, for lack of a better word, vintage, because we wanted less resolution. We took great pains to achieve grain, so we shot on Kodak stocks, 5229 specifically," Libatique says.

Visual references: "We wanted it to be like Werner Herzog's 'Wrath of God,' but compositionally, the artist Moebius was also a huge inspiration for the look of it, from an image standpoint."

Aesthetic: "Conceptually, we had so much time to create a template and run extensive tests, so we decided to introduce the character in the dark and move him into the brightest white light you could imagine. It represents his quest for immortality, with the white light meaning truth. But it's about more than just balancing the extreme contrast between light and dark, it's about light trying to enter this man's life," says Libatique, who has collaborated with director Darren Aronofsky on all of his films. "Darren brings the idea and the composition of language. I bring light and movement and the visual score. I also worked very closely with the film's production designer, James Chinlund, who I had very fluid conversations with about things like symmetry, graphics and light."

Challenges: "The biggest challenge, from a technical standpoint, was the tree ship. I like to light with the philosophy of realism and naturalism. I wanted to convey what space would be like and what it is like to move in a nebula towards a dying star. At first, the light is realistic and practically motivated, but how do you do that with an image we've never seen before? It took a lot from a creative standpoint," Libatique says.

What's next: "The Number 23," a supernatural thriller starring Jim Carrey, due in February; pre-production on "Iron Man."

[MacGuffin]

So what if critics have somehow failed to recognize quite possibly the greatest piece of cinema ever made. At least they were decent enough to honor Clint Mansell with not only a nomination from the Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Film Composer, but also a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Film Score in Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. When I started this interview, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I started researching and realized, Jesus, this composer is actually a rock star! Clint "Poppie" Mansell "hung up his microphone" when he left the groundbreaking British band, Pop Will Eat Itself, and discovered a passion and talent for composing film scores.

Page Suicide: What was it like working on 18 projects between Requiem for a Dream in 2000, and working with Darren [Aronofsky] again on The Fountain 6 years later?

Clint Mansell: During that time, while Darren was working on The Fountain, I went out and got experience. I had six years to learn my trade and I've grown artistically, which is why I'm actually glad it took so long for The Fountain to get made. I like to think the result is a reflection of that.

PS:How did working with all those other directors compare to working with Darren?

CM:Bartender, can I get another drink? I met Darren when I came to New York, after leaving my band in England, to conquer the world. We met, and just like any other type of relationship, there is a chemistry, in our case an artistic chemistry, that just sparked something. He asked me to score Pi and since then, I've been in this profession. Darren's films are the best films I have done. I do what I do pretty much to be able to work with Darren.

PS:In an interview, I heard you say that you prefer the comfort of your own home to create music. Do you look at Suicide Girls when you make your tracks?

CM:Oh, hell yes. All the time.

PS:In The Fountain, do you work with the Foley artists and the post production sound team to combine the sound track and sound effects to reach a harmonized outcome?

CM:We work very closely for extended periods of time. Brian Emrich is the Sound Designer on The Fountain. He, Darren and I literally worked one room away from each other for months. We had to get everything to sync, so every Friday we watched the film together. That really helped us get the flow of the film down and constantly monitor urselves to make sure what we were doing wasn't rubbish. Sometimes we would watch it and say to ourselves, this is torture, why was the film better two weeks ago, you know, but in the end it just helped us to make it better, I think.

PS:When you first started working on The Fountain, you said you were still unsure of how you would tie the three distant time frames together. How is did you end up resolving that?

CM:At first, I had planned on having three distinct styles of music for each time period. But obviously, Darren would be weaving it all together, and, musically, it would have made no sense. I had to focus on the story. Essentially, it's one man's journey of life and death. That is what I had to serve. The time frames are really irrelevant to the central story of the people.

PS:You said that Darren's "initial excitement of the story" kept you guys going throughout the long process of The Fountain. Did it come out the way you thought it would in the finished product?

CM:Definitely not. It far surpassed anything I could have imagined. When you start, you can see infinite potential, but with every decision you make you close off certain possibilities, but then that many more possibilities open up. Whenever I arrive at the end and see how it all flows together, I never could have imagined that from the beginning.

PS:What influences did you end up drawing from for the Fountain?

CM:I listened to a lot of Mogwai, Godspeed you Black Emperor, Sigur Ros, and M83, and I started to get the idea of what I was going for in The Fountain. I met with Mogwai for the film; they're a Scottish band, a sort of unclassifiable post rock phenomenon. Darren and I saw them at the Knitting Factory a while back and both loved them, so it was great to work with them for the film. But I would say I also drew heavily from Godspeed You Black Emperor. Their use long, symphonic chords was perfect inspiration for The Fountain.

PS:Did you enjoy working with the Kronos Quartet for The Fountain as well as Requiem for a Dream?

CM:Yeah, of course. They are simply amazing. I may write the music, but they really make me look good by the skill and practice they put into every note. No machine could ever bring the emotion and performance that the Kronos Quartet does.

PS:Do you ever find yourself sneaking subliminal tones from your past as a punk rocker into your film scores?

CM:I don't really have to sneak anything in. Working with Darren, everything we do comes from Punk. It's an attitude. I'm not worried about what they want. Part of my job is connecting with the director's work, but its all about doing what you like and knowing that, when it's finished, you've done what you want. My whole style is based on punk.

PS:What's it like making the transition from a rocker to film composer?

CM:It was quite a natural progression for me, I think. You have to learn to let go somewhat, and listen to what the director or producer, is asking you to do. Then its a case of getting in touch with the film and how you feel about it. I'm not classically trained. The way I see music is through its most basic elements. Maybe I'm being too basic here, but punk is a progression of a melody and a beat and an interaction of the basic elements. The same with what I do now. Film music works extremely well if you keep it simple, melody, rhythm and progression. I've grown more toward instrumental music because there is more room for my own interpretations in instrumental music, which I like.

PS:Do you have your eye on any musicians or singers that you would like to work with in the future?

CM:They say you shouldn't meet your heroes, right? Seriously though, James Levell from Uncle is doing a remix of The Fountain soundtrack. I think that would be great.

PS:One of Darren's pursuits is "pushing the boundaries." What do you do in your work that pushes musical boundaries?

CM:It's hard to say, specifically, but I think it's got to do with taking what you've got and making something greater out of it. I just gotta say well, I've got these two sticks and I've just got to rub them together and burn the fucking place down!

PS:What are you burning down right now?

CM:Right now, I'm taking a bit of a break. But I am working on a couple of short films. One is a 30 minute horror film called In the Wall, by Mike Williamson. The other film I'm working on actually a 10 minute student film, directed by Robert Glassford and Timo Langer and is called The Big Forever.

PS:Those film school kids are lucky! How did they get you to do that?

CM:It was through myspace, actually. They were persistent and not annoying so I said what the hell?

PS:So why are you taking a break?

CM:Well, I am still going to work, but I do get a little belligerent and frustrated when music is involved. I have to take a break and step back because I can't put up with their bullshit and they can't take mine.

PS:That kind of comes with the territory being an artist, I think.

CM:Definitely.

PS:What is Vive la Revolucion? It says "coming soon" on your myspace page.

CM:For me, it always used to be a thrill to search through back street record shops to find the good punk records like New York Dolls or something rare. Especially with the rise of the internet, I think the only way something can be valuable is if it's hard to find. Vive la Revolucion is a record label I'm going to start. I'll just make the music I want to make, and only get 100 to 500 copies made and just give away the copies. I don't even care if people want it. In fact, maybe I'll only give it to people who don't want it. Sort of like an art terrorism type of thing like Banksy and Danger Mouse revamping the Paris Hilton album, so to speak. I thought that was awesome.

PS:Did you have anything to do with the re-arrangement of Lux Aeterna for the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers trailer?

CM:Just cashing the check. Yeah, that's pretty much it except for seeing it and going, wow, I guess my stuff can be used in all kinds of ways.

PS:How did you make the music have such a grand sound, yet feel so intimate that it made the hair on the backs of our necks stand up?

CM:[laughs] Well, I like the idea of making the SG's hair stand on end, but actually, we originally thought it was going to have much more of a huge sound. Ultimately though, The Fountain is a love story. Contrast that with an exploding nebula where a man is coming to terms with his own death and there are no shortcuts. Godspeed You Black Emperor gave a lot of inspiration from their ability to sound so huge when they only have ten players, giving an intimate feeling while still sounding big. It's a sound not generally associated with the movies. Everything was scaled back to produce intimacy above power. The music crescendos to the end where it is a much more powerful climax contrasted with the intimacy that came before.

PS:What's it like when you realize that you have made the perfect piece of music to go with a film?

CM:I think it does have a good bit to do with ego. First of all, you need a bit of an ego to believe that anyone is going to want to listen to anything you create. There's an arrogance to the need to express yourself, too. Then the flipside of the coin is that people go, 'yeah, that's cool, but how about if you made it just a bit cooler?' That can kind of piss you off at first, but you have to learn to understand that it isn't a personal thing, that you probably can do better.

PS:Anyway, how does it feel to get nominated for two big awards in one week?

CM:Obviously its awesome! But it's weird, you know, I've always wanted to throw up when these people get awards and go 'oh my god, I had no idea!' But its pretty crazy and I love it. I wish ever week was like the one I just had!

PS:Why do you think the rest of the movie isn't getting any credit?

CM:I don't know. I think it's a beautiful movie but I can also understand that it might not be for everyone. It reminds me of books of poetry or books by people like Ram Dass, people like that. The Fountain displays experiences that you have to be at a certain place in you life to appreciate, or to even want to try to appreciate. Now, someone could easily argue that my point here is just a crock, and that I'm just making excuses. To that I would just say that we should wait and see what the fullness of time tells us about The Fountain. All I know for sure is that we are incredibly proud of what we did.

PS:You should be. You guys are the rock stars of the film industry.

[modage]

from aronofsky's myspace...

dvd

bad news and good news

good news is yes there is a dvd of the film.
the bad news is it won't be out till may 15th.
i don't quite understand it all, but that's the reality. may 15th.

it has a bunch of great stuff on it including a doc of the making of it all by my friend niko.

so stand by. more shit to come.

dsa

[Kal]

this really sucks. how fucking clueless everyone is. the movie got zero theatre time, no awards consideration exposure, and no fucking dvd release until 5 months since it was removed from theatres... makes NO sense.

[I Love a Magician]

in conclusion:

[Pwaybloe]

in conclusion: