The Fountain

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I own it, but Aronofsky stated that the film and the novel are two different interpertations of the story, so you can't necessarily use the novel to figure out the film.

"Where Aronofsky is the director of the film, it might be best to think of Kent Williams as the director and production designer of the graphic novel. Williams has been given free reign to interpret the script his way and he's working off the original script, the Brad Pitt script, not the script used for the upcoming feature film. "Kent's interpretation is his interpretation," said Aronofsky. "I'm going to place the dialogue, but he's completely interpreting it himself. It's very close to what we were planning."

[comicbookresources]
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Yeah, it's very close. Key part right there. The two are like 85-90% similiar, and the comic book is the "definitive edition." Aronofsky was getting screwed trying to make the film, but he was involved with the comic as well. Anyways, there's plenty of stuff within the film that hints at the scientist not being real. Like I said, though, merely my thoughts, but the film works so well the way I interpret it. At least, that's what I think.
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Yeah, it's very close. Key part right there. The two are like 85-90% similiar, and the comic book is the "definitive edition." Aronofsky was getting screwed trying to make the film, but he was involved with the comic as well.
Right. They are similar, sure -- but they are different which is why I have always used evidence from the film exclusively.

Anyways, there's plenty of stuff within the film that hints at the scientist not being real.
That's one thing that is so great about this movie, it works for many people many diffrerent ways. I feel like there's plenty of stuff in the film that hints at the scientist being completely real

Like I said, though, merely my thoughts, but the film works so well the way I interpret it. At least, that's what I think.
No, I understand. I read Ebert's review, and his was similar except he believed the scientist timeline to be Tom's ending to Izzi's book.

It's pretty fun reading all the different interpertations. I read a really convincing write up on IMDB several months ago, watched the film a few more times, and was pretty convinced by what I had read. I should try and find it, it was a good read!



Sweet, I found it!

Originally Posted by the-devil-boy via IMDB

I can’t think of a film that’s more visually beautiful and conceptually challenging than this. It took me three weeks of analysis and multiple careful viewings to resolve all of the questions I had about it.

For starters, it’s clear that The Fountain is a cinematic puzzle. Aronofsky stated this in an interview, he said that the film is like a Rubik’s Cube – there are many permutations, but ultimately there’s only one complete and correct solution. But I think he was too close to the solution, because it’s so incredibly difficult to figure out the hidden meaning, that almost nobody seems to have accomplished this. And this is probably why he’s talking about reworking the film and re-releasing it some years down the line – I think he wanted more people to be able to see it the way he meant it.

So here’s the basic outline of what happened in the film, and what it means. It’s important to bear in mind that if any component of the film doesn’t fit with the interpretation, then the interpretation is wrong. And don’t be misled by the graphic novel – it’s a different version of the story and so it can’t help us figure out the film.

The story that Izzi wrote for Tommy, which she called ‘The Fountain,’ is a work of fiction that she came up with to send her obsessed husband a message about the ultimate futility of seeking immortality in this life. Tomas the Conquistador is how Izzi sees her valiant though single-minded husband. At the end of Chapter 11 of her book, we find Tomas the Conquistador about to be killed at the hands of the Mayan priest. If you study the frame by frame of the book you’ll see this to be true.

The present day story of Tommy and Izzi is ‘real,’ which, thankfully, few people dispute. But what really confuses a lot of people is the fact that at the very end of the film, we see a second version of events – in this version, Tommy goes after Izzi and catches up with her in the first snow. So naturally the question arises ‘which version -actually- happened?’ The answer is ‘both,’ which we’ll get back to shortly.

The future Tom is also ‘real,’ which most people seem to have big problems with, which is sad. Aronofsky mentioned in an interview that he discovered self-sustaining eco-spheres as part of some NASA program, and he based Tom’s ‘bubble ship’ on that idea. You have to ignore a lot of obvious facts to conclude that the future Tom in the space sphere isn’t real. You have to ignore the glaring fact that Tommy discovered an immortality drug while striving to save Izzi, and the fact that he told his boss and his co-workers that they were out to defeat death. And you have to ignore the rings on his arms which measure the chasm of centuries between Izzi’s death and Tom’s journey through space. And you’d also have to ignore the visual language of the film, which shows that the future scenes are ‘the present’ and the events in 2000ish are future Tom’s memories. So Tom in space is the immortal Tommy whose bittersweet conquest of death has actually prevented him from joining his beloved wife in death, a conundrum which torments him. Thus, his quest to the dying star Xibalba, so he can be reunited with his wife by dying at the nebula that she thought of as a metaphor for rebirth through death, ‘death as an act of creation.’

So all of that’s pretty clear, up until the last 15 minutes or so, when so many seemingly irreconcilable things happen in all three timelines that most people just get lost and frustrated, and settle for the first crappy explanation that comes to mind (which usually entails reducing the entire future timeline to a dream or metaphor…which doesn’t actually make any sense). But if we take the final scenes one at a time, they all actually converge on a fantastic and deeply satisfying, if fairly ‘far-out there,’ solution. That shouldn't put anyone off, though, because Aronofsky calls this film 'a psychedelic fairy tale.'

So the first real shocker, aside from Izzi’s ghost haunting Tom and generally being cryptic, happens when Tom finally accepts his own death and Izzi’s admonition to ‘finish it.’ Suddenly we’re back at the pivotal moment when Izzi asked Tommy out to the first snow – except this time, we see a moment of realization pass over his face, and he goes after her. Wtf, right? What just happened? Here’s what happened: The future Tom, whose consciousness is finally complete and enlightened, has sent a kind of message back in time, to himself, to correct the blunder of letting her go off on her own during the first snow. Enlightened Tom has created an alternate timeline, which closes the circle between the moment he screwed up and let Izzi go, and his death at Xibalba. Aronofsky is conveying a marvelous idea here that our consciousness is timeless, and he shows us the consequences of this in practice through this film. More proof of this comes in the subsequent scenes, which we’ll get to shortly.

Next we see future Tom break free of the bubble ship to be enclosed by his own mini-sphere, where he imagines the end of Izzi’s book, 'The Fountain.' The Chapter 12 he imagines reveals the divine aspect of Tomas (which is in fact his future, enlightened self) appearing to the Mayan priest, who then surrenders his life to this vision. The priest sees the divine in Tomas, even though Tomas can’t see it in himself. Regardless, Tomas the Conquistador fulfills his ultimate divine destiny to sacrifice himself to the cycle of life – it’s not the immortality he bargained for, but it’s precisely what the real enlightened Tom is up to in the future timeline, so their ends are the same even if their intents are different. Therefore, completing the circle of his destiny, Tom regains the ring he lost when he went astray by fearing the loss of Izzi, rather than embracing his love of his wife by joining her in the first snow. Reunited with his ring, death now reunites him with Izzi’s spirit. And as his ashes mix with Xibalba’s to flow over the Izzi tree, their deaths bring her tree back to life in a moment of foreshadowing, revealing that they will indeed both live together forever through the cycle of death/rebirth.

Then we get to see some more of the alternate timeline that Tom created through his enlightenment in the future. We see Izzi pick the seed and hand it to Tommy, and we see Tommy plant the seed over her grave. We see that this Tommy never lost his ring, because he never chose to work on Donovan rather than go traipsing in the first snow with Izzi. We see Tommy say goodbye to Izzi at her grave, because -this- Tommy has the benefit of the insight of his enlightened self in a future alternate reality, and we see Xibalba explode in the future, but from the vantage point of Izzi’s grave, because this Tommy never goes to Xibalba…he found his peace with Izzi’s death while on Earth.

Well, those are the broad strokes anyway. Not an easy puzzle to solve, by any means. But the idea that our future state of enlightened consciousness can retroactively alter our reality in the present…that just made all the puzzling worthwhile to me.

I hope you enjoyed my analysis, and that for some of you, it enriches your experience of the film.
[bam]



That's the best I've heard yet, partially because it acknowledges that you have to accept some pretty bizarre things for The Fountain to make sense.

Obviously, it's a lovely film, but the presence of Future Tom in the Mayan Temple always screwed up any interpretation that tried to make literal sense. My brother and I went over it a dozen times, and that one event completely screwed up any attempt to make real, coherent sense of things. We always had to say something like "well, the film was just showing us him imagining something," or something else crazy like that.

So, in that sense, as beautiful as the film can be, that aspect of it bugs me. This is probably a reflection of my preference for films which do make logical sense and don't have imagery and symbolism sitting in the place of actual events and meaning just because it seems pretty or emotionally powerful to do so. Putting that aside, however, this theory does explain the appearance of Future Tom in a way that is, if not exactly "fair" to my mind, at least consistent and purposeful in a narrative sense.

There's a degree to which I will never be able to completely give myself over to this film, because that one event either doesn't make sense, or I have to accept the idea that Tom is changing the past with his mind -- which is pretty hard to swallow. As is the idea that we need a universe that is simultaneously concurrent and separate to avoid a time travel paradox. But it is nice to have reasons for these things, at least. It makes these leaps a bit more palpable.

Thanks for posting that.



He goes on later in the thread which I believe is also a great read.

Originally Posted by the-devil-boy via IMDB
For clarity, I'll be using the following naming convention:

Tom - this is the character within the bubble ship ~2500A.D., which is the Present in the film.
Tommy - this is the character in the modern age, ~2000A.D., who we see in Tom's memories.
Tomas - the conquistador character from Izzi's story 'The Fountain,' which is set ~1500A.D.

...

You ask:
HOW COULD ONE POSSIBLY INFER THIS LOGICALLY IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM FROM THE EVENTS OF THIS FILM?
Glad you asked, because careful observation of the evidence and logical analysis are precisely how I inferred that Tom had a transcendental moment that changed his own history. Here’s the evidence:

- It’s clear that the turning point of the entire story, at least as far as Tom is concerned, occured when Izzi came to ask him into the snow, and he gruffly refused. This is evidenced by the fact that this scene is the first thing that Tom recalls when he’s ready to see the error of his ways at the very beginning of the film when he says “Alright, I trust you. Take me. Show me.” It’s also supported by the fact that he remembers that moment repeatedly, and is further supported by the fact that the last time he remembers it, it happens differently, which changes the course of the story, and his own timeline.

- The Fountain is a film about transcendental subjects: love, death, enlightenment and meditation, immortality, the cycle of life, and time. There are actually several moments of transcendence in the film, and moments that verge on transcendence, which serve to foreshadow the moment that Tom changes his own timeline. Note how in nearly every case, these transcendental moments make a direct connection between events that are widely separated in time. First, there’s the transcendental moment in the lab, at 00:16:48, when Tommy looks up into the skylight and sees Xibalba (from the POV of his ship in the future approaching it) – and in that instant he’s struck with the inspiration for the immortality elixir that saves the monkey Donovan, and ultimately leads to his immortality and his journey to Xibalba. Second, at 00:20:28, there’s the moment at their home when the painting of the ancient temple seemingly comes to life for a moment with birdsong. Third, there’s the moment at 01:09:48 when Tommy begins to exhale cold air in the past as the tree dies in the bubble ship in the present, just before the snow begins to fall. Fourth, at 01:16:43, past Tommy in the lab overlaps with present Tom as the lab and the bubble ship are shaken and suddenly lit up from above, as Tom's ship clears the nebula around Xibalba. This is soon followed by the final conversation with Izzi’s ghost, who drives home the transcendental connection between Tom’s present and future actions: ‘You do, you will.’ And this time, Tom gets it. He hears Izzi’s admonition ‘Finish it’ for the last time, and this time he says ‘Okay.’ At exactly that moment is the fifth transcendental moment in the story - Tom goes back to the memory when Izzi asked him out to the first snow, and at 01:21:26 we watch as he *clearly has an epiphany* just like the one he had in the lab when he realized the formula for the immortality elixir, and he pushes past Manny to go chasing after his wife in the snow. Then, having corrected his error in the past, Tom finishes his last task – envisioning the final chapter of Izzi’s book. This begins with the sixth transcendental moment in the film, when meditating astronaut Tom magically appears to the Mayan priest in lieu of Tomas the Conquistador. A seventh transcendental moment occurs at 01:26:11 when Tomas trips out on the white sap from the Tree of Life and sees Xibalba, then drops the ring and turns into flowers. Then the most extraordinarily transcendental moment of the whole film occurs, when future Tom reaches into his own imagination to retrieve the lost ring from where Tomas dropped it.

- And then there are the final scenes of the film. Note that throughout the entire film, everything we’ve seen has been; Tom in the bubble ship on his way to Xibalba, his recollections of his life, and Izzi’s book. He is present in every scene without a single exception, it’s his story. But he gets incinerated at Xibalba, and instead of being the end of the film, we’re suddenly transported back to Izzi picking a seedpod from a tree (apparently during the first snow), and handing it to Tommy. This fades to Tommy alone at her grave.

Clearly these scenes can’t be Tom’s imagination, because he’s dead. They can’t be Izzi’s imagination either, because she’s in the ground. And if they’re simply a flashback, then we’re stuck with two major paradoxes:

One: this Tommy has his ring on at her grave. This is a major problem, because we know that future Tom didn’t get his ring back until he fetched it from his mind some 500 years in the future.

Two: this Tommy seems to be at peace with Izzi’s death – he even says ‘goodbye’ to her. This isn’t like the Tommy or future Tom that we’ve seen throughout the film, who couldn’t let Izzi go until he was about to perish at Xibalba.

There’s only one reasonable solution that simultaneously resolves these issues: this isn’t the same Tommy. This Tommy, ‘Tommy2’ we can call him, went chasing after Izzi during the first snow, let the rotten monkey die on the operating table, never lost his wedding ring, never discovered the immortality elixir, and never went to Xibalba. All of that changed because the 500+ year-old enlightened master Tom1 gave Tommy2 a second chance to set things right, and ‘finish it.’



A system of cells interlinked
Bravo.
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Sorry Fiscal, that interpretation is crap. I mean that in the nicest way possible, of course.

One, the idea that the two walks with Izzie are both real...doesn't work. Not for me, anyways. The idea of conciousness being timeless...eh...not buying it. I, for one, do not believe the second walk to be real. Rather, an understanding of Izzie's wishes.

Secondly, the future Tom showing up in the past is not all that crazy. Present Tom has been reading his wife's story and having recurring nightmares about saving her. The two can obviously bleed into each other since they are in his head.

This idea that there has to be some perfect understanding of life, love and death is silly. The Fountain makes LESS sense if the future is real. Why does future Tom kneel before the Queen in is bubble? Why does the ring magically appear to future Tom? Why is a tree the symbol of his wife unless he planted the seed the first time around? Huge gaping holes. Ain't working, sorry.

The transdence part is square on, though.



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hmmm... I need to watch the film again, but I thought it was all somewhat real.
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planet news, I think we have similar tastes. So tell me, should I watch this movie? I thought it got really bad reviews. But people on here seem to really enjoy it.

And try not to be facetious, even though I know that request will basically make you be facetious.
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WATCH THIS MOVIE

It is definitely one of the best of the decade. Aronofsky's best (except maybe Pi). Very creative and direct use of the medium. Perfect cinematography. Perfect editing. Beautiful effects. Moving score. Ambiguous meanings.



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Alright, sorry I was so short. I was mobile posting, but I just got home so I'm ready to tear into this one.

Just some real quick problems/ideas. The walk with Izzie where he figures out to plant a seed over her grave is not proof of the future being real because he alters his consciousness. Rather that he realizes what he missed by blindly trying to cure her tumor and once he reflects on this he remembers the part where Izzie tells him of the Mayan guide and the seed over his father's grave. It's why we don't see Izzie speak to Tommy during their walk...it's all from his point of view...his understanding of her last days, which we see in the present. The only part that is real.

Also, the ending where the fast/sudden cuts take place between all the 3 separate stories is square on with the way a person grieves the loss of a loved one. "Why? Could I have done more? Did I say everything that needed to be said?" Boom, boom, boom. It's all fast and irrational. Tommy's in a worse position than normal, however, because his very own work was to stop tumor growth. He didn't think he did enough and, as such, he's wrought with grief over Izzie. He comes into work to "stop dying" because he still hasn't accepted the fact that she's gone.

The paintings and connections between the past and present merely show us the inspiration of Izzie's story...that she left clues for him everywhere for when she's gone.

Again, the future is a nightmare. Fueled by grief, Tommy's advancements in anti-aging and Izzie's explanation of Xibalba...where death is an act of creation. The present is the only real part, so I can't buy the future being real. I get the explanation and the interpretation...but it just doesn't work. There's more gaping holes there than the film being one giant representation of grief/understanding/acceptance.

Lastly, the future alternating the past so the future doesn't happen, wouldn't that by its very self make the future not real? I'm just sayin'. Besides, the only part of the present that gets altered is his walk with Izzie. Alternating that alters everything else about the present, which makes the present we see not real either. See, you just start getting stuck in mud with this interpretation.

BTW, Ebert's thoughts are even crazier. Why in the hell would present Tommy write a future Tommy into the past as First Father? That idea just bugs me even more.



Just watched it again!


Just some real quick problems/ideas. The walk with Izzie where he figures out to plant a seed over her grave is not proof of the future being real because he alters his consciousness. Rather that he realizes what he missed by blindly trying to cure her tumor and once he reflects on this he remembers the part where Izzie tells him of the Mayan guide and the seed over his father's grave. It's why we don't see Izzie speak to Tommy during their walk...it's all from his point of view...his understanding of her last days, which we see in the present. The only part that is real.
Do you believe that the scene where he plants a seed over Izzi's grave was real?


Again, the future is a nightmare. Fueled by grief, Tommy's advancements in anti-aging and Izzie's explanation of Xibalba...where death is an act of creation. The present is the only real part, so I can't buy the future being real. I get the explanation and the interpretation...but it just doesn't work. There's more gaping holes there than the film being one giant representation of grief/understanding/acceptance.
It was weird watching the transitions from future Tommy to scientist Tommy this go 'round, it seemed that some transitions hinted at him having a nightmare, but it still seemed to me that MOST of the time future Tommy was in the present remembering scientist Tommy timeline. There were at least two occasions when scientist Tommy was dreaming and it was the conquistador story in transition.



BTW, Ebert's thoughts are even crazier. Why in the hell would present Tommy write a future Tommy into the past as First Father? That idea just bugs me even more.
agreed.



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Just watched it again!
I'm listening to the soundtrack now.


Do you believe that the scene where he plants a seed over Izzi's grave was real?
Yes, the present time line works perfectly for it. He doesn't plant the seed until well after her funeral, as the grave was covered in a thick layer of snow. Showing how wrapped up he was in his anti-age jazz...before he got the story his wife left...before he understood his wife haunting his "dreams of hope." Wow, this sounds good. You and I are hearing this for the first time as I just thought of this. I may need to reflect on this and translate it better, but I think I may have stumbled upon something.

It was weird watching the transitions from future Tommy to scientist Tommy this go 'round, it seemed that some transitions hinted at him having a nightmare, but it still seemed to me that MOST of the time future Tommy was in the present remembering scientist Tommy timeline. There were at least two occasions when scientist Tommy was dreaming and it was the conquistador story in transition.
Yeah, but every time the conquistador story started it was when he was reading her book. It's been a couple weeks since I watched it, so I'm a little fuzzy on the cuts between the 3 stories. I plan on watching it this weekend, though, so I'll come back to this, I'm sure.



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The digital copy of this movie is on sale right now through the Microsoft store. And it’s moviesanywhere compatible. Yes, I promptly bought a copy. Still my all time favorite movie. I’ll fight anyone that has a problem with that.