Plumber's Nightmare: Two cents in "The Fountain"

I would have to agree the real-unreal issue is bogus. Each film creates a world that is inherently fake. Film is not representative: it is its own creation with its own rules (set by each particular film). Things just happen. What is annoying is when film legislates its images, its trajectories, to story in a dogmatic, pedantic way: when the filmmakers treat film like (bad) literature, not like film. The same can be said for certain critical reactions, I think, and when people do close readings of films as films they get more out of the film. Not to beat a dead horse but the _Pirates_ trilogy is really smart but my colleagues have routinely read it only as a money-making enterprise in loud hucksterism. I want to argue Gore Verbinski really knows what he's doing and the entire trilogy is kind of a remediation of the Action-Adventure genre (and its history).

As for _The Fountain_: I think it's a little too cluttered to work but it's still rather affective. It's a worthy mess of a movie that is only a mess because it tries to tie too many knots together in a tidy bow. The real surprises are (1) how obnoxious Rachel Weisz has become and (2) how astounding an actor Hugh Jackman really is underneath his XMen-Showtunes exterior. (I recently saw _The Prestige_ and I was immensely surprised: that is one smart film marred only by ScarJo's trifling performance.)

But anyways: it's a good thing to think about, and remember, when thinking about film. Deal with the whole thing first then see how it fits together then explode it with your readings. (I should say I'm still not quite there and the space we're alloted in this racket is not quite sufficient in most cases, such as _Pirates_. Also: half the people who read my stuff about liking _Pirates_ immediately dismiss it as "academic" and pointless and the other half kinda go, hmn, okay, cool, whatever and move on. It's a weird spot to be in. But you know what? I'll stick to my guns.)

I recently started listening to Aronofsky's commentary track that he put online for the film. Near the beginning he promises not to talk about what the film means or to clear up any of the ambiguity that surrounds the film. I think if the structure and chronology of the fiilm was absolutely critical, he would have cleared stuff up.

But as it is, it's not. It's interesting to discuss and to wonder and to debate, but I agree that the experience and the themes are the most important things.

Jim, I've been saying something similar about the "real/not real" argument for some time now. For example, I think it is not just a mistake, but a fundamental misunderstanding of the film (and of FILM), to ask what parts of "Mulholland Drive" are "real" or "not real." Or, as some people put it, what was a dream and what wasn't. There's no right answer to the question because it's simply not the right question to ask.

What's "real" in "Guernica" or in the song "White Rabbit"? Sound like a silly question? I agree. Now I understand film has a narrative element that these other works of art don't share, at least not as prominently ("White Rabbit" does, I suppose, have a much "tighter" narrative than "Mulholland Drive" now that I think about it), but there is no reason to privilege narrative above all other elements of the film. And even if you insist on doing that, there is no reason to assume that a film's narrative logic adheres to a real-world logic.

I am reminded of the screening on Bela Tarr's "Man from London" at Toronto last week. Briefly, the film consists is a claustrophobic depiction of a man's tedious quotidian life, mixed w/ a traditional but fairly amorphous story about an exchange of a briefcase full of money. Late in the film, there is an ambiguous moment when one character enters a room where another character is supposed to be (I am trying to avoid a "spoiler" here). Something happens in the room out of sight of the camera.

After the screening, one viewer asked Bela Tarr "So was it self defense or not?" A rather annoyed Tarr replied "Did this look like a crime movie to you? Did anyone else think it was a crime movie? No, this isn't about a story at all, so that's just not a good question."

I am paraphrasing, but that was the gist of it. I agree, though I thought Tarr was way too harsh on the poor, innocent viewer who had, like the rest of us, sat patiently through a movie full of 10-minute tracking shots along walls.

I always thought it was obvious what was happening with the story. Sure, it took a bit of thought, like most great films do, but in the end, the conclusion seemed completely clear:

Past Tom is entirely fictional. An allegorical tale to the other two Toms.

Present Tom is real. He finds the cure for death ("The Monkey has regenrated fully" or something like that which Ellen Burstyn told him in the hospital), but after his wife died. He plants a tree on her grave, like she said. He spends 500 some odd years and becomes...

Future Tom. He's traveling through space with the tree he planted for her. He has time marked on his arm, like her tree, etc. She is basically the tree and the tree is her. He's traveling towards a supernova to be reborn, like she said would happen. Why is he being reborn? As the film shows, he (his essence) gets sucked into the tree as the tree blooms with new life. What's happening? They're living together...forever...in the tree...just like Past Tom.

I personally thought it was one of the most beautiful love stories I've ever seen. Then again, I'm just about the only person who understood what happened. I've been able to clear up questions other people have had about my theory in the past, so if you don't understand, feel free to ask.

I don't think that's true about Mulholland Drive. I think it's pretty clear what's real and what isn't, once you have that "a-ha" moment. It's a beautiful film no matter how you slice it - but I think the distinction is pretty clear, and it all makes the experience better to get it.

I was gonna write my own explanation, but now I don't have to. Joe captured all the same themes and reasoning that I did, though I didn't like it as much as he did. I thought it was almost great, but wasn't, but I loved and admired Aronofsky's ambitious storytelling. It was the first movie of his I've liked and I can't wait to see what he does next.

I dunno. I certainly agree that getting stuck on the real/not real issue can ruin one's ability to really have much insight into a movie, but I'm not so sure it's not a good question. If a scene in a film is a fantasy/dream/nightmare, isn't it important who and why the scene was produced? Don't the differing theories about what's "real" in "Mullholand Drive" suggest different ways one might understand the movie? Film is all about point of view, and whenever the conventions of film "reality" are violated in favor of a scene that is a character's fantasy, we are getting and extreme dose of the medium's inherent subjectivity. "Decoding" mysterious films is not the same thing as meaningful criticism, but it is a legitimate and sometimes important part of that enterprise.

How can it NOT matter? If there is a differentiation to be made between what "happens" and what "doesn't happen" in a movie -- in other words, if that question does have an answer in a given movie -- than surely that effects what a given image or scene says about the story, character, or theme. Hell, how can you know what a scene says about a story if you don't know how it functions in the story?

Also, the A to B trajectory of the plot matters, or should matter. Isn't saying that it doesn't matter sort of like saying that where the characters are at the beginning, as opposed to where they are at the end, is irrelevant? Surely you're not saying that...

Jim, I generally agree with your take on the overemphasis on delineating what is real and not real in cinema, but I do think a line needs to be drawn between ambiguity and factual errors. I think Matt Withers's explanation crosses the line into factual error, whereas Marc Caddell's response is an interpretation that is supported by what's on screen. After all, would you want to discuss Citizen Kane with someone for very long who insisted that Marlon Brando turns into a water buffalo at the end of Apocalypse Now? I'm exaggerating here, so I'll paste in my response to Withers:

"Dear Roger,

It is odd to me that you refer to Matt Withers -- whose interpretation
of The Fountain was indeed well-written -- as the "one reader" who
figured it all out. It's odd because his is the interpretation that
I've heard most often from those who watched the movie (and weren't
completely confused by its non-linearity). How difficult is it to
explain away the last 3rd of the movie as Tom 2's version of the last
chapter? The movie hammers the point home that Izzy wants him to
finish the story, and even as I was watching the film my first time, I
realized it was a possible, but lazy, interpretation.

For does it really make sense that in the last chapter, which begins
in the middle of the swordfight with the guardian, Tom 2 writes all of
the following?

1) Tomas defeats the guardian, eats the sap, and dies giving life to the earth.
2) The story jumps nonsensically to the present, where a scientist
named Tom loses his wife. He tattoos a ring on his finger right after
a major scientific breakthrough involving mortality. He plants the
seed of a tree on his wife's grave.
3) A thousand years later, this same Tom, now with many more ringed
tattoos, travels with the tree that grew over his wife's grave, and
similarly Tomas in #1, dies giving life to the universe.

What doesn't make sense in this timeline? To me, it's the jump from
#1 to #2, which doesn't fit in with the rest of Izzy's book (different
author or not). My interpretation is that only #1 is Tom's ending for
the book, but that he doesn't write it until he (in real life, alive
for over 1,000 years) is about to experience the same cyclical death.
#2 and #3 are actual events in Tom's life, and are based on events in
the second segment: namely, his scientific breakthrough, his tattoo,
and the planting of the seed. Why must a good interpretation shy away
from science fiction?

Which brings me to my last point, about your mention of the
"Director's Cut" in your review. Based on interviews I've read with
Aronofsky, he was quite pleased with his $35 million version of the
movie, and has no intentions to tinker with it. He has also said that
the graphic novel version of the movie
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fountain_(graphic_novel)), which is
more up front about the sci-fi interpretation, represents the script
of the higher-budget Brad Pitt version of the movie.

I think Aronofsky made the movie he wanted to make, and I believe the
future is real.

P.S. If I got to make the call, Requiem for a Dream would be the one
to pick for your Great Movies series."

"Why must a good interpretation shy away
from science fiction?"

Thank you, crazymonk. That's been my big problem with kind of interpretation: those doing the interpreting always seem to want to leech out everything interesting, especially if it's something supernatural, otherworldly, etc. For example, I've heard from some people the idea that the creatures in "The Descent" are really all in the main character's mind is...bewildering.

Adam, jamie, bill: I appreciate what you're saying about "Mulholland Dr.," where there is definitely a point when pieces of the puzzle fall into place. But I'd still argue that the more important thing is not that something is "real" and other things are "imagined," but that everything is experienced subjectively, filtered through the perception of a character -- but above all through the vision of the artist (David Lynch, that is). Do you see what I mean? Lynch, of all people, is never saying: "OK, this is the 'real' part of the movie, and this is the 'fantasy' part." His entire work is based on the intermingling of waking and dreaming, conscious and un- (or sub-)conscious experience, and his movies don't draw distinctions. On the most basic level, when somebody talks about a dream in a Lynch film (and they always seem to do that), they may as well be describing lived events. You can read "Lost Highway" (as my friend Dave McCoy does) as the story of a man who can't accept that he has murdered his wife and actually splits into another personality (Bill Pullman into Balthazar Getty).

But that's only a starting point for exploring the film's themes and visual strategies, not the "solution" to the movie. (I have my theory about the incestuous drive behind the personality breakdown of "Donnie Darko," but I see it as a purely thematic one, not a literal one that necessarily "explains" the movie's science-fiction/fantasy elements.)

To me, the premise is the heart of the movie, and everything else is a variation or recapitulation of this central theme: A man fights to stave off death. Everything else is an elaboration on that. OK, the man's wife is dying. Let's say he's a medical researcher and she is writing a fantasy book. And so on and so on. Where do you begin and where do you stop? Everything we see is part of the story the storyteller is telling, and as such, in that sense, one is just as "real" as any other....

And bill, I think we're saying something very similar: What I mean is that the events are portrayed (non-sequentially, non-chronologically) in the movie for a reason. Aronofsky could have chosen to structure it straightforwardly (Point A to Point B to Point C), but he didn't. Why? Because to illuminate his themes, it works better to interweave the various strands, so that the journies of all the Toms end where and when they do.

crazymonk: I dig your interpretation (and your Brando/water buffalo comparison). That's one of the things I admire about "The Fountain": it encourages interpretations.

crazymonk:

Well, I agree with your points, especially the one regarding how the events are portrayed being as important as what is being portrayed. Also, I wasn't really arguing any points about Lynch specifically, because as you say he's the last guy to whom my particular side of this applies. I'm a fan of his, incidentally, and I don't subscribe to the various "dream" interpretations to his films, because, well, how boring would THAT be?

I guess what bugged me initially was the implied idea -- a popular one among internet critics these days, it seems -- that narrative is one of the least important things in a movie. I don't buy into that at all. Film is, obviously, visual storytelling, and the "plot mechanics" that are so often sneered at are important to, well, everything. (From here on, just assume I'm talking about films with a strong narrative, however ambigous it may be. I'm not referring to, say, "Koyaanisqatsi".) You say the theme and imagery in a film are most important to you, but that imagery is there because of that story, and it's at that place in the story because of the mechanics that got us to that place. It's the same thing with "character driven" movies. A character changes based on what happens in the story. The story, in fact, as David Mamet so often says, is what the character does. If a particular filmmaker is letting the actions of the character dictate where the story goes, you might as well sneer at "character mechanics".

As far as theme goes, that's more debatable, because it depends on if choosing the theme was the first thing the filmmaker did, or if it grew organically from the story, or if they arrived at it in some other way.

But now I'm just getting vague. I think you see my main point, though.

Me, now I'm wondering how the 26th century manages to be millennia in the future.

bill: I think we're getting closer to the heart of the matter here -- as Yeats wrote: "How can we know the dancer from the dance?" Some people like to think of the script as the "blueprint" of a movie, or the story as the backbone of a novel or a play or a film. And I think those are accurate (if incomplete) descriptions of the role narrative plays. The truth is a little more complex, I'd say, because the images are inseparable from the stories they tell. Put the camera in a different place, change the sequence of a shot, and the story changes.

I'm trying to think of a metaphor that would describe my experience of movies with regard to storytelling. Maybe this: The story is the empty riverbed (that goes from Point A to Point B), the currents below the surface are the themes, the water itself (the river) is the movie. I don't know if that quite works, but I think it's close.

I agree with Crazymonk's interpretation. When I first saw the film a year ago, I thought (and still think, after 5 viewings) it was the most beautiful love story I had ever watched. It left me thinking constantly, and yearning for people to toss ideas around with for weeks.

What I still take away most from the movie is the heartbreak in Tommy's struggle against death. It takes him 500 years of memories, and reflection on his wife's manuscript (and her request for him to "finish it"), to realize that he should not have been fighting, as death is the only true way for them to be together forever. When Tom (future) finally realizes that he is going to die and that he will be with Izzy again, he is ecstatic. In trying to take Izzy (the tree) to Xibalba, he is also sacrificing himself for their rebirth. With this realization, he is also finally able to finish Izzy's story as he knows she meant it to be. From Tomas's sacrifice comes new life. The appearance of future Tom in the story represents his new understanding; he is seen as First Father, the man who made the ultimate sacrifice.

It is science fiction, and it is a beautiful film.

I don't know that narrative is the least important part of film, though it is certainly the least important part of SOME films. However, there is little doubt that the majority of viewers as well as critics privilege narrative above all else. The first question people ask about most movies (other than possibly "Who's in it?") is "What's it about?" And they aren't expecting to hear something like "Color" or "Pacing."

Likewise, many viewers see the other elements of a film only in the context in which they "support" or "advance" the story. Victor Perkins, for example, promoted transparency as the ultimate in mise en scene, with any cut or camera shot that calls attention to itself being considered an example of poor filmmaking.

But a film isn't just a story with pictures attached to it. As Roger Ebert once wrote: "Why is it that we depend so desperately on plots to keep movies moving along? ... Robert Bresson is right. Plot is for theater and the movies are not theater. The movies are time, and movies with people in them are behavior and personality in time. "

Please don't anyone take this wrong, because obviously this is a very literate crowd that reads a great deal. Still, I might be in the minority as one who would give up movies before books on that silly desert island question, and I always get a little irritated by the comments about film being a visual medium and it's supposed to do this while novels are supposed to do that. By no means are they the same in what they do best but nobody should ever put a supposed to do on someone or we wouldn't have great movies with amateurish visuals (which we do) or great books with little to no plot or dialogue or linear narrative (which we do.) So that's my way of saying you're all right; in some films it absolutely matters what's real or not, whether there is one right answer or none or more than one (Donnie Darko), and other films (Lynch) float free as a bird from any such interpretations. For my money, the whole of The Straight Story may be the only thing "real" in Lynch's whole career. But then again I never actually knew that lawn mower guy...

Anyway, maybe Kerouac should have made movies and Merchant and Ivory should have been novelists but, you know, I'm just glad to have what they created/adapted.

Christopher & Dane: Hope it's clear I'm not saying (as a blanket principle) that story is the least significant part of narrative filmmaking (or writing, for that matter). It all depends on the work. But it is the thing I usually find the least interesting to discuss. Obviously, in most narrative films some kind of story has to be present or the whole thing would fall apart (and/or it would no longer be a narrative film). Novels and films may have long, complex stories, or they may have next to none. It's the writing, or the filmmaking, that is compelling, or not. (I'm a fan of Nicholson Baker's "The Mezzanine," which is simply one man's thoughts while on an escalator on an errand to buy shoelaces -- if I recall correctly -- during his lunch hour. The "story" is basically what "happens" between the foot of the escalator and the top.)

The conventional wisdom has it that theater is a writer's medium and film is a director's medium. That's a gross generalization, and it may be true for some plays/films and untrue for others. But you know what they say: You read/watch something the first time for the story; after that, you know where it goes and how it gets there, so if you revisit it, you do so for the characters or the texture or the writing or the imagery or... something else. To paraphrase Roger Ebert again: A movie is not about what it is about, but how it is about it.

Hey, does anyone realize we're rehashing in microcosm the decades long Kael-Sarris debates?

Robert Benton summed up their feud in one sentence: "Pauline loves movies because of writing and Andrew loves movies because of something more invisible… the writing is less important to Andrew than certain formal values."

One does not need to pick one side exclusively, of course. It is difficult to think of any one quality that is essential to the definition of a film - not even that it has to have sound or images, let alone a story, or even that it has to be on film... or even if it is on film that the film needs to be developed and projected.

Christopher: Your comment reminds me that Kael described "the ideal auteur" as "the man who signs a long-term contract, directs any script that's handed to him, and expresses himself by shoving bits of style up the crevasses of the plot." That's a deliberately grotesque distortion of what the Cahiers du cinema crowd (and Sarries) were saying, but it's a pretty good description of what we, nowadays, would simply call a "hack." It's a question (as Richard T. Jameson wrote in a famous Film Comment piece in the March/April 1980 issue) of style vs. "style."

I always figured the stories in the past and future were just metaphors anyway. And that no, they didn't happen. But it is important to some who use the degree of reality to determine how much importance to invest on different story lines.

As for Dorothy, I find that it-was-all-a-dream tends to be a device that cheapens things. If it was all a dream, anything could have happened and the real Dorothy would have been unharmed. And all of her friends would have been just figments of her imagination. I've always felt that Dorothy really went to Oz, regardless of what the filmmakers believed, and that her wish to go home let her wake up in her bed as if it had all been a dream. It's important to me. I've invested my psychic energy in these characters, and if the film won't even allow them to exist.... I can't elaborate.

Remember when people were suggesting that no actual magic happened in Labyrinth of the Faun? (Let's start a movement to axe that Pan crap; he's no Ancient Greek goat god.)

I simply had come to the conclusion that Tom 2 is in the present and Tom 1 is in the past , while Thomazs is a fictitious character in the book "The Fountain".
While searching for the cure for Izzy's illness, Tom 1 had come across an answer for cell restoration. It was used on an orangutan to restore lost cells and tissue from surgery. After the surgery's success Izzy dies and Tom 1 looks to the book Izzy wrote, "The Fountain", for answers. He reads about Xibulba and combines that theory with his cure for mortality. Hence, Tom 2 is Tom 1 simply 500 years from the present (meaning that tom 2 is in the present and Tom 1 is in the past) now transporting Izzy to the nebula, Xibulba.
Tom 1 had earlier planted a seed where Izzy's grave was and she had become part of the tree that grew there. He is transporting Izzy, The Tree to Xibulba and also in his search for answers, realizes that he can not resurrect Izzy. It is simply not possible. She was meant to die because the only way they can be together is in the afterlife.
Tom 1/2 transports himself and Izzy to Xibulba, the end.

D.

Christopher: I know these aren't your words, but why in the world would plot have more to do with theater than with film? And as far as Ebert's quote about "movies with people [being] personality and behavior in time"...well, okay, but that "behavior", as I've already said, is sort of dictated by what the story and, yes, the plot dictate.

And at the risk of sounding dim, can someone explain to me what the huge difference is between "story" and "plot"? Everyone seems to claim there is one, but based on my understanding of them, and my dictionary, I can't figure it out, other than that "story" is apparently good and pure and true, and "plot" is base and low-brow and other bad things.

Finally, Jim: I actually have no problem with your river analogy, as long as we all understand that the particular currents in a given river are largely dictated by the shape and texture of the riverbed.

Unless the difference is simply that "plot" refers to the planning out of the story. In which case I can see the difference, but still don't understand why plot gets such a bad rap.

I'm enjoying reading these interpretations, and I will not contribute my own. But I would like to say "Ha, HA!" to the critics who bashed this movie for whatever reasons.

Anyone who contributed to the negative critical backlash against this film is going to end up being on the wrong side of history on this film.

How many "4 star" films from a year or two ago are we still debating? Still trying to figure out? Still fascinated by?

Not many. And I am going to laugh in 20 years when this film is being referenced and studied in Universities, and the shortsighted critics who panned it upon release, will be left to defend their reviews.

For the record (and perhaps ironically, given my stance on the broader issues brought up here), I liked "The Fountain", but I admit that I definitely didn't feel like I "got it". I knew something was going on worth exploring, but for various reasons, among them my mood at the time (and, quite possibly, my inherrent dumbness) I didn't actually do any exploring.

But I like crazymonk's theory. That makes sense.

Hi, all -

I e-mailed the Answerman over at Ebert's site to no response. I don't agree with the original Withers essay or the new ideas that are posted. Here are my thoughts:

So, this person is basically saying that EVERYTHING that happens in the "future" is the final chapter? Are we to assume that Tommy basically abandoned the tone of his wife's entire book and crammed in an entire futuristic journey into one last chapter? That might seem a bit out of place with what she had already written (think: many chapters, then one final chapter that says, "hundreds of years later..."). The "future" scenes seem to also have more layers by interweaving ALL of the time periods, making it seem like a lot of this is just subconscious thought processes and feelings and not limited to one chapter of a book.

It makes more sense to think that the part where Tomas passes the Mayan guard and is consumed by the tree (flowers popping out) is his ending. Just like Tommy has realized this, Tomas in the final chapter sees that there is no escaping death. Subconsciously, Tommy can know (future scenes here) that the only new life will be after death.

More thoughts:

The "future" scenes where Tom has the tattoos/markings all around him - this moreso fits with the present Tommy (on a subconscious level) who did the same, NOT the Tomas from the book. This past Tomas never did anything with actual markings on his body in Izzi's book, and now all of a sudden he is keeping track of passing time in the future?

Also, there's an interesting part of the script where Tommy is reading Izzi's book and he wakes up, thinking to himself, No...I'm not in space. For those who have read the script, this is another hint that maybe the future is his thought process through all of this. Why would he be thinking that he is in a book's last chapter which he has not written yet?

Another thing - kind of random - but in the making of on the DVD, the artistic creators said they didn't have to worry about the shape of the futuristic ship because they didn't ever have to worry about it leaving the atmosphere. If it did, it would have had to be shaped completely differently. Again, this hints that it isn't about a real character ever leaving - or in my opinion, even a character in a book leaving Earth.

Phew. All that to say I still think a lot of the future stuff is purely symbolic and subconscious thoughts of our present Tommy. You could also think of it as this subconscious Tom of the future is looking back into his past with his wife and the struggles of the book.

Also, saying the "future" actually happened aka is real has a fatal flaw. Xibalba explodes twice. Once right after Tommy visits Izzi's grave and looks up into the sky RIGHT before the ending. The other time is in the futuristic parts with the bright explosion. This furthers the fact that the "present" is real, and the future is his own subconscious/thinking about all these events (afterall, he IS a scientist - this can all be HIS way of looking at the situation). There is no way Xibalba could have exploded once at the grave and then AGAIN in the future, so it can't be real. No?

Jim, I really liked "The Mezzanine", too, and it's a perfect example of what I was saying about books. I hope you also checked out Baker's "Box of Matches" which was along the same lines but sold as Nonfiction, if I remember correctly. There's a discussion to have in the book world.

I agree with the comment about the "it was all a just a dream" ending of "The Wizard of Oz" cheapening it. It's also not the way the book ends. L. Frank Baum wrote an ending that's far more open to intepretation.

About Xibalba exploding twice in "The Fountain," there are at least two "real" stellar explosions in the story anyway: the one in the past that created the nebula, along with the Mayan mythology that inspired Izzy's story of Tomas, and the one seen above her grave in the present.

I found it interesting to try to seperate my thoughts on the realness of each timeline from the meanings of the film. I have to say that I really can't do it though. This film moved me. It moved me because of the interpretation that I came up with. Although I won't get into details as to why, for the record I believe present and future Tom to be "real". While I would have enjoyed the movie without coming to my own interpretation, it wouldn't have affected me the way it did.

I like the way Aronofsky has left things ambiguous though. Art is what the beholder makes of it. Interpretations on the timelines open up discussions of the greater meaning of the film. That this film is open to several different interpretations, both of the timelines and the meaning of it all, is one of the things that makes it a great film in my eyes.

While max's theory is interesting, there's a fatal flaw in his reasoning on
Xibalba's double explosion.
Two words for you: Eta Carinae

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eta_Carinae

Stark -

I don't get what exactly you're saying. The link is all pretty technical. Is it just saying there is a possibility it could have exploded twice?

It makes more sense to view these things as parallel and happening at the same time - the death of Izzi/Xibalba supernova explosion seen from earth parallels the death of the tree/Xibalba supernova explosion in space. That's kind of a stretch to think at some point in the future the tree death/supernova explosion line up at the EXACT SAME TIME again, just as they did on Earth many years ago.

Also - what do you think about the other points I made earlier regarding the shape of the bubble and the "No I'm not in space" part of the script?

Max-
In a previous post you use the
fact that Xibalba explodes twice as proof that "future tom" is not (for want of a better word) real.
But just because we see Xibalba explode over the grave doesn't mean it can't
explode again. Therefore "future tom" and "present tom" can be one and the same person.
As for the shape of the spaceship, I don't know why the shape would have to be different if it really was in space.
One point i find interesting in the "past tom/future tom" are fiction theory, is that "future tom" shows up in "past tom's" timeline.
If we accept "past tom" as
Izzi's fiction, why should
"future tom" appear in it if he's real?

Stark -

Not sure what you're getting at considering I don't think he's "real" OR a part of Izzi's fiction.

I feel that Tomas is Izzi's fiction, while Tommy/Tom are the same person - the future is just a symbolic representation of the present.

... the future is just a symbolic representation of the present."

Max, I like the way you think. Chronology isn't of primary (or literal) importance here. (The way the movie's structured should tell us that.) More than one thing can be going on at the same "time" -- especially in a movie like this.

Terrible movie for people who don't know better.

This is an excerpt from a review I wrote of the film for my own website, and discusses both the narrative strategy and the idea of the three characters (I apologize for the length):

Because it’s (ostensibly) a science fiction film with Buddhist trappings, the audience might think there is something more to it. But its depth lies in its sad simplicity. Bergman has made films like this, only with a naked, dramatic approach that makes his work unbearable to some. Darren Aronofsky has found a way to express the same ideas - loneliness, regret, and the much touted emptiness of death- in a way that appeals to a generation raised on anime and comic books.

The film takes place in three time periods, jumping between the early sixteenth century, the present day, and five hundred years in the future, though the earlier events are not necessarily real and are presented as fiction, involving an impossibly young Queen Isabella (Rachel Weisz) and her favorite conquistador (Hugh Jackman). Isabel orders her warrior to find the Tree of Life so that she can unite Spain against the Inquisition. Just try to forget about the real Isabella’s cozy relationship with the Inquisition and everything will be fine.

In the future, Jackman hurls through distant space in a bubble containing the Tree of Life, repetitiously consuming its sap to live while struggling to keep the tree itself alive. A woman (Rachel Weisz again) appears to him in hallucinations bidding him to “end it.” He tries to ignore the woman but she haunts his thoughts. Clearly, immortality does not have the best effects on mental health.

The scenes in space are dazzling, if diminished slightly with just a smidgen of new age dross. Aronofsky’s vision of space travel is original, resembling a bubble gracefully floating through beer instead of the usual hulking vessel ambling by, making clunky machine noises an object in space shouldn’t be making. You have to give credit to a director who will casually throw out the rote clichés of science fiction. Like “Pi,” there is no effort here to say the same old things in the same old ways.

The core of the film actually happens in the present. Tommy (Hugh Jackman again) is a cancer researcher running experiments on primates to figure out a way to slow, perhaps even end, the spread of cancer. He’s an intense, driven man in the Victor Frankenstein mold, alienating his fellow scientists with his tenacious recklessness in the lab. Death, as he explains to his director (Ellen Burstyn), is a disease that should be wiped out. His objectivity, we discover, went out the window when his wife, Izzi (Rachel Weisz), was diagnosed with cancer. He just can’t accept her death and thinks he might be able to beat it with an extract from an ageless tree discovered in Guatemala.

Izzi knows she’s going to die, and as the movie gradually progresses, comes to accept it. Unable to respond, Tommy flees to his lab where he hopes his experiments will yield a miraculous cure. Eventually it seems as though the tree might provide the answer. But while obsessing over finding a solution, he ignores her, runs away from her. Izzy gradually comes to accept her death, wanting only a few good last moments with Tommy. But he simply cannot abide it and his denial poisons the relationship. Izzy provides him with a manuscript she’s written, the story about Isabella and the conquistador, to illustrate the point, but he’s so incapable of dealing with what’s in front of him he doesn’t notice it until it’s too late.

In a Bergman film, the space scenes would have just been an old man looking back on his life, regretting the pain he caused and remembering the people he should have appreciated. The same thing happens here, but with a more explicitly metaphysical visual strategy. Here, space is literally death and lingering life hides in a bubble passing through it. Aronofsky uses the bubble to show us Tommy’s growing acceptance of Izzi’s passing and his own impending death. The tree, we gradually discover, has become a metaphor for Izzi, and as the tree dies so does his memory of her.

If all this sounds ridiculous, it is. But the material works on the strength of the performances. Tommy’s a hotshot doctor, a narcissist incapable of accepting failure. Jackman nails the role with a mixture of swagger, anger, and fierce resolve. It’s only in the presence of Weisz that we see his resolve crumble into impotent fear, fear because he knows he can’t defeat the looming specter of death. Weisz is a bright presence, perhaps more lively than a cancer victim should be. But the part requires conveying tough resignation and a deep reservoir of fear and she delivers. Whatever Aronofsky did to motivate his actors worked because the performances here are some of the best they’ve done.

Like Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream,” “The Fountain” is intimately focused on only a few characters. The camera is always tightly focused on Tommy and Izzy as though they and a few others are the sole inhabitants of the world. The contemporary story is told in tight shots with close-ups of characters’ faces. The space bubble is by definition claustrophobic, a small sphere surrounded by the vacuum of space. Even the expansive jungles of Central America have an almost asphyxiating quality. Repetitious editing, a technique Aronofsky has been using since “Pi,” makes even the private thoughts of characters pressing and in your face.

The film tries a little too hard to grasp profundity towards the end, somewhat obfuscating its own message. The concerns of “The Fountain” are universal- our regrets, painful memories of relationships, and the fear of death, and eventually the burying of regrets, our reconciliation with memory, and the acceptance of death- but in its final act it starts piling on the visual extravagance, the post-rock crescendos, and meditation postures, which makes the simple, if reaching, eloquence of what came before seem less so. Even so, the film quickly rebounds and its overall effect when the curtain falls is truly moving.

This is only Aronofsky’s third film and his promise continues to grow. It’s not as gut wrenchingly visceral or focused as “Requiem for a Dream,” but “The Fountain” has something few science fiction films or family dramas have these days: an outlook. It’s not just showing us a series of momentous or depressing events, but saying something about them, placing them inside a deeper, more thoughtful context. Aronofsky has a world view, a position on matters of life and death. And he approaches the material with a seriousness few young filmmakers have, perhaps with too much seriousness. But he tries, and in these frivolous and facetious times trying counts for a lot.

Two movies, "The Fountain" and "What Dreams May Come", have left me in such a state of consternation. No wonder the reviews are so mixed! I think (and that's the crux of the matter, these movies bait the thinking/rational mind) I prefer not to think at all, and let the mystical shine its not so often seen pretty light.

I think the problem is that any interpretation of an open-ended film like this tends to supplant or at least attach itself to a film. Doesn't this indicate that the interpretation is separate from the movie? Sontag argued (much more broadly than I would dare) that interpretation is adding something to a film that isn't already there. She was of course talking about broad symbolic interpretation, but when a narrative is left open I don't think we do it any favors by trying to close it up (even if the filmmakers really want us to). Pan's Labyrinth, in my opinion, was not made so we can decide whether the girl is just a dreamer or not. The presentation of fantasy as real and reality as brutally fantastic is so potent; melding the two worlds together, and (as Jim said a while ago) providing two different endings, is too beautiful and poetic for me to go searching through the film to find "the answer." Why bother? The movie stays the same no matter what we think.

I don't know if someone ever talked about this theory before. But the timeline is bollocks. The mayan story is Liz her creation. Tommy is so busy finding a way to cure Liz that he can't enjoy the nice moments they have togheter. The so called " space" element is in fact Tom's search. As long as he keeps searching for a cure, the spaceman looks lost and in pain, it's only after liz's dead that Tom realises he made a mistake by working on a cure while he could enjoy his time with Liz in the first snow of the year. And at that moment the Tom in Liz her Mayan story and Spaceman Tom (the one in his head) become enlighted, he have seen his mistake and only by accepting this and cherishing the good times with Liz he can finish her Mayan story. It's not about live it's about love.

This is a fantastic, deep movie that covers many different scientific/spiritual concepts and does NOT follow the normal structure of a movie. Can anyone identify Acts 1, 2 & 3?

What is it about? Death and Life are a part of the natural cycle and order of the universe. Death is the ultimate spiritual experience. Love is timeless. Love is the only thing that quells the loneliness of existence. Submission is the ultimate act of bravery.

If you follow science (or have read A Brief History of Time) you may be aware that the past, present and future are all happening right now (Way too much to explain here). We observe our surroundings from a temporal dimension of our own created reality. In my opinion this film tells a story from three perspectives that are linked together in the movie. The matter of which is past, present, future is irrelevant. They are all happening at the same time! The story is the same in all of them! Past/present/future is only a matter of perspective. This is a story told in three different lives of two beings (Tom and Izzi). It is a deeply meaningful love story that demonstrates the rich lessons that one will find in eastern philosophies. Submit. You can't cheat death. Death is not the end. It is not even death as we imagine it. It is actually a part of the cycle of the universe. We are and always were immortal! Why do we search for immortality when we already have it? Are we deluded? Remember, Death is the road to awe. Awe and wonder are what keep us going. Love is the thread that binds us.

Check out Alan Watts podcasts on itunes or www.alanwattspodcast.com. This great modern philospher explained Eastern concepts and fused them with the western prediliction for an intellectual scientific approach to examining life as we know it. Perhaps read the Vedas and then watch the Fountain again.

For example:
-- Brahma, the first living being in material creation grew from a lotus that bloomed in the navel of Vishnu. He molded the illusion of the worlds from Vishnu's creative energy -- This is the allegory used when Tomas drinks the sap of the tree of life. His body gives birth to the next flowering cycle of creation.

There is more depth to this film when you have more depth within yourself. Personally, I am going to read some more and watch it again. I bet there's more to be found within it. Darren Aronofsky takes a long time to make his films. They are VERY carefully and thoughtfully put together. The film is (in my opinion) better experienced, not intellectualized. The journey is experiential, and demonstrates our most important life (or multi-life!) lessons. I believe that Mr. Aronofsky may not have explained the intricacies of the 3 stories and the timelines as they are not the point of the story (who? where? when?) and only remove one from the experience of the story.

The entire movie takes place during the 2500's. It starts out with Tom dreaming (during 2500) about the last chapter in Izzy's book. The present day scenes are Thomas remembering the past (during 2500 with Izzy's help). It would be ludicrous to say that the 2500 Thomas did not exist when the entire movie takes place during that time period.

The arguments about future Thomas appear in Izzy's book are flawed. You have to remember in the scene before Xibalba explodes the camera zooms into Thomas's forhead. This clearly is done to indicate that everything you see next is in Thomas mind. He mentally finishes Izzy's book showing that the Mayan guy realized that Tomas was the first father. Likewise Thomas at Izzy's grave watching Xibalba explode is something in his past that he changed mentally.

Also to the reviewer who said that Stephen Hawkings would back him that the future couldn't be real, how the hell can you predict the technology we would have in 500 years? Even Stephen Hawkings couldn't do that. It's a science fiction story for christ sake...you don't invalidate the story because it doesn't apply to our known rules of the universe.

I like to imagine that the seed Tom 1 plants at the end of the film becomes the tree which carries Tom 1, now Space-Tom, up to the nebula. That somehow Tom 1 discovers the "cure for death" after all but, 500 years later, still never forgets his Izzy. Regardless of my little flight of fantasy, it is clear why it was so important for Tom to take that walk with IZZY. So she could GIVE HIM THE SEED which he eventually plants over her grave, no?Otherwise, how could she "live forever" by becoming incorporated into the tree? Also, i don't know if anyone has mentioned Space-Tom's arm-ring tattoos. They are very reminiscent of the rings in the trunk of a tree which mark it's growing cycles.

I've enjoyed reading these analyses, but they all seem to me to be missing the point. I think the film is poetry, or perhaps even music, rather than the prose assumed by the reviewers. I don't think of it as sci-fi. I don't agree that Tomas is only a character in Izzi's book. All of this is far too literal. The film is metaphor, much of it having to do with mystical symbols, positioned in such a way as to create a lovely musical rhythm. Example: the "Tom2" character has the same tattooed ring on his finger as "Tom1," to be sure. That's a life, with all its complexities. "Tom2" has almost Maori-level markings on his arms, suggesting the passing of many lives, many incarnations, many forms, each just as complex and filled with purpose as the "Tom1" life... or, for that matter, the "Tomas" go 'round. Another film in this genre was the sadly maligned "Lady in the Water." The psychographic of this lovely, poetic fable was, I think, quite a bit younger (childhood seeks to emerge from the terror of existence and death to fulfill its purpose) than "The Fountain," which was more a treatise on romantic love, projection and attachment to forms, including the "form" of life. I found both wonderfully rich, deeply moving, and much more concerned with form and movement than with plot or genre.

All you need to know to understand the Fountain: Fiction in itself can be, and often is, more "real" than reality.

The Conquistador, the Scientist, and the Cosmonaut are all the real Thomas, and they are all a fake Thomas. This is because there is more than one façade to any person or thing-- an important point brought up continuously in the film.

Is Xibalba a dying nebula, or is it the Land of the Dead? Is Isabel a Queen, a Wife, or is she a Tree of Life? Is Thomas a conquerer, a creator, or an ender? Is Death a disease, the end of life, or is it the Road to Awe?

But to examine The Fountain as a piece seeking to contemplate reality is an injustice to the film. Reality is its own nature and it cannot be described, nor does the Fountain attempt to. Tom may be just a scientist, but through the eyes of his loving wife Izzie he is a Conquistador- her own Don Quixote. Tom, however, may think of himself more as a cosmonaut- a lone soul drifting towards death through the dark, gorgeous, and cold universe on a golden bubble. To him, Izzie is a Queen, but she is also a Tree- his own Tree of Life. She is his support, but as she drifts towards Xibalba Tom comes face-to-face with the reality that she can not exist forever.

As his support crumbles, as his tree withers, he follows in suit. As he comes to match this new foe, death, he finds he can no longer be the conquistador, the dominating conqueror. For Death, a sword can find no point of entry. Even as a cosmonaut, Tom's ultimate goal was to conquer and to subjugate. "Death is a disease, and I will cure it."

The Fountain isn't about time lines, nor is it about science fiction. It's drive is fear- the kind that makes you realize that you are alive, and that even though there is this reality that you are here and now is immortal, you also exist on the reality that you will not be, eventually.

But the Fountain goes beyond this- This film is about love. Undying love. The truest of all immortalities. Love that is more than the sum of two people. Love that permeates reality itself. It explodes and like the subtlest of all sound waves it flows forever. Izzie tries to explain to Tommy the story of her guide's father, how a tree was planted over his burial site and how, he came to live forever through transference of material. This, and the explosion of Xibalba, they are the same. Perhaps they took place in different times, or perhaps only one of neither ever physically happened. What is a thing like time or space against absolute love?

If you desire to question which of the time lines is the "real" time line, and if you wish to unjustifiably blast The Fountain on the matter of confusion, then I simply ask: What could possibly be more "real" than love? What on this earth can be more real, than the feeling that almost literally stops you and brings you away from yourself?

The timeline of the present day Tommy Creo actually splits in two decision paths.
The branching point is the moment where Izzy comes into the hospital to ask him if he wants to come out to walk in the snow.
He denies her request and afterwards makes his breakthrough in finding an all-cure, but tragically, it is too late to save his wife. He lives on for the next 500 years until he has the means to take the tree found in the Amazon and which makes him immortal with him to Xibalba, where he hopes to be able to revive Izzy.
Alas, when he arrives, he realizes that his quest was doomed from the start and he finally accepts death.
This helps him to transcend time and space.
He realizes that immortality cannot save his love (in the first branch this is symbolized by him losing his wedding ring after finding the cure) and upon this realization he can finish Izzy's book and takes another decision path in the present.
He runs after Izzy to spend her remaining time with her instead of neglecting her to save her.
This means that he actually never finds the cure in this second timeline. The seed planted on her grave symbolizes that immortality (the tree of life) can just as well be found in accepting death, or even more so than in clinging on to life.

The timeline of the present day Tommy Creo actually splits in two decision paths.

The branching point is the moment where Izzy comes into the hospital to ask him if he wants to come out to walk in the snow.

He denies her request and afterwards makes his breakthrough in finding an all-cure, but tragically, it is too late to save his wife.
He lives on for the next 500 years until he has the means to take the tree found in the Amazon and which makes him immortal with him to Xibalba, where he hopes to be able to revive Izzy.
Alas, when he arrives, he realizes that his quest was doomed from the start and he finally accepts death.
This helps him to transcend time and space.
He realizes that immortality cannot save his love (in the first branch this is symbolized by him losing his wedding ring after finding the cure) and upon this realization he can finish Izzy's book and takes another decision path in the present.
He runs after Izzy to spend her remaining time with her instead of neglecting her to save her.
This means that he actually never finds the cure in this second timeline. The seed planted on her grave symbolizes that immortality (the tree of life) can just as well be found in accepting death, or even more so than in clinging on to life.

I have just finished the film The Fountain. It is indeed very beautiful, and I actually didn't find it difficult to "get". Mostly because I knew the reality within the story (The reality concerning Surgeon Tom), along with the themes that connected all three of the stories.

The film begins with the final part of the 11th chapter of Izzi's book "The Fountain", in which Tomas is seemingly about to meet his end at the sword of a Mayan priest. Soon, it cuts to the 12th chapter in the book, featuring a Zen Spaceman traveling with the Tree towards a nebula. This 12th chapter is written by Surgeon Tom as requested by his wife Izzi before she dies. The end of Izzi's original story, along with the 12th chapter as written by Tom, are shown again in end, along with Tom's wishful vision of his wife giving him a tree seedling, so that he would plant it over her grave, which is the same fashion in a real life story that she told him concerning a man who planted a tree over his father's dead body, in the belief that if the father's body was dug up, he would disappear. Both Tomas and the Spaceman are fictional beings. Tomas being made by the Izzi, and the Spaceman being made by Tom as a both love letter and a duty to his deceased wife.

The theme is said often during the film, first by the Mayan priest in the fictional story beginning and then by Izzi in real life. Both characters say the words "Death is the road to Awe". Meanwhile, Dr. Lillian in a way says the film's theme, though by expressing her astonishment in the way that Izzi took her death, "while the rest of us leave the way we came in: kicking and screaming." before Tom storms out of the funeral angrily exclaiming "Death is a disease, and I will find a cure." Yet, when Tom sets out to find a cure for death, no one will go with him. Since no one supports him in his goal of finding a cure for death, a goal augmented by the death of his wife, he then (presumably) goes on with his life, after planting a seedling over his wife's grave. Then, the space man who floats along with the tree to the nebula that was found and mentioned by the fictional characters in Izzi's story, Izzi in real life (along with her knowledge of Mayan mythology), and the Space Man Tom who floats along with the tree of life to the nebula. When the star explodes or "dies" as Izzi and the Mayan priest would put it, since they both have knowledge of Mayan legend, the explosion is wonderous, and the Space Man Tom, as made by Tom in real life himself, dies, while the true blooms in the light of the spectacular event.

Ultimately the theme is this: One cannot beat death, no matter discovery you may make, and death is ultimately a wonderful transition. It is a part of life. As one form dies, another lives, carrying with it the life force of the former. Death and Life are part of an eternal cycle, and one cannot exist without the other.

At least, that is what the film dictates. I will just place my personal thoughts on the theme somewhere else, so as not to spoil anyone else's opinion on the film (I have done that already in the beginning of this post (Insert winking emoticon here).