The Fountain (2006): Before We Watch
Wait, what’s happening right now?
It’s been a good run, my friends, with our weekly savoring-of-the-views. But I need to take a hiatus with this newsletter as other commitments begin to warrant increasing attention.
While not intended to be, The Fountain is an apt way to sign off for a spell. I have more questions than answers – correction, I have only questions and no answers – for this movie. If any film would benefit from a solid crowd-sourcing of assessment, it would be this one.
Anyway, hello, welcome, and thank you for stopping by. For new visitors, here’s what this situation is all about:
With Savor the View, we’ll watch, think, and talk about movies and the things that matter. A special welcome and thanks to our regular crew!
Each Monday, I share brief, spoiler-free remarks and questions to frame viewing a movie on our own.
Each Thursday, I share post-viewing questions to poke at the issues, ideas, quandaries, inspirations...whatever...that movie might have summoned (spoilers, ahoy!).
Paid subscribers can talk it all out in a weekly Discussion Thread.
Overview
The Fountain (2006): Darren Aronofsky, also known for Pi, Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan, Mother!, and The Whale, directed this fraught film (co-written with Ari Handel). I write “fraught” because both its development and its reception were, well, fraught. The movie began with a large budget and Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett co-starring and ended with a much smaller budget and Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz co-starring. No shade on any of that – I’m a fan of Jackman and Weisz! – but when any project, from a breakfast menu to a national defense strategy, is re-created whole-cloth, it’s a sign that something went substantially awry and a substantial remedy is required. The question is whether the substantial remedy is precisely the fix that was called-for. Given the mixed bag of critical commentary, that question remains.
2006 provided good company for a film dipping its toes in everything from fantasy to science fiction, from religion to history. Also released that same year: Pan’s Labyrinth, Lady in the Water, Children of Men, Apocalypto, 300, The Da Vinci Code, and The Prestige.
Some films seem very much of their time. Others get better with time. And others transcend their time. I leave it to you to decide how this one works for you.
The universal/general
Lots of things going on here. What does this film do with or suggest about:
Christianity?
Spain?
Mayan culture and history?
Trees?
Space?
A bald Hugh Jackman? Who sometimes eats parts of a tree?
The specific/unique
Where/when are we at any given moment?
Who are these people?
What is happening?
The viewer is always present
The movie has a distinct feel cultivated through a particular style of staging (camera angles, lighting, color, general ambience, etc.). What are you noticing and how does that affect your sense of what’s happening? For example, often characters are centered on the screen. What do you make of that choice?