but overall, I found the overlapping narrative to be pretty cool, and parts of it kind of resonated with me. However, I haven't seen it since opening weekend, so I'd have to go grab it and watch it again to remember the specifics of those scenes.
When you do, I challenge you to summarize the plot.
It's probably my favorite Aronofsky film, as I think Pi and Requiem are really overrated, and suffer from the same faults (scenes that come off as absurdly humorous if you're not completely absorbed into the storyline and characters).
I wasn't that big a fan of Requiem - it felt ham-fisted and, again, pointless.
But Pi is one of my faves of all time. And it HAD a story.
I just get irked when someone blows millions of dollars to make a movie that has no real story to tell. Burning feet of film to make pretty pictures without saying anything at all is nothing more than high-dollar wankery. I tried to get my money back after Fountain, but the manager of the theater was a dick.
How the conquistador comes to terms with death? By screaming, falling over and getting raped by a magic tree?
How the MCDB researcher comes to terms with death? By getting all emo about his wife and losing his wedding ring, then plants a fucking pine cone in the snow?
How the bald freak comes to terms with death? By getting melted in a supernova?
Again: Pretentious, vapid manure. No new tale to tell, a total waste of time and money.
Fly away, little boy. Fly away back to the cold love of your thesaurus. Look up hateful synonyms whilst whacking off into your dry fist, cursing my name and crying tears that taste of defeat.
Hey man, everyone isn't the same. Sorry you didn't enjoy it. Some people did, and I'd venture that they're not all pretentious snobs.
No, really, Strato, I'd love for you to expound on your earlier claim:
how is this movie about accepting death? What is the underlying message of this movie?
Here's kinda what I got out of it, but I only saw it once when it first opened, so it's not a clear memory anymore.
The storyline is the modern period setting about a doctor whose wife is dying young. The space thing is a representation of his psychological position: an overwhelming desire to delay or suspend death. The conquistador story is his wife's book, her attempt to communicate to him her understanding of his pursuit. The resolution being that she asks him to finish her book after her death. Wolverine finally gets to the tree, and eating from it causes death. I think he's learning from her that this tireless pursuit of immortality devalues the life we live. I dunno.
Wait, what do we have against The Elements of Style?
Nothing whatsoever. However, the statement that I should have my mother read it to me is grade-school bullshit, plain and simple. It's essentially the parallel of shouting "UR MOM" and blowing a raspberry at me.
Wait, what do we have against The Elements of Style?
Nothing whatsoever. However, the statement that I should have my mother read it to me is grade-school bullshit, plain and simple. It's essentially the parallel of shouting "UR MOM" and blowing a raspberry at me.
Hey man, everyone isn't the same. Sorry you didn't enjoy it. Some people did, and I'd venture that they're not all pretentious snobs.
No, really, Strato, I'd love for you to expound on your earlier claim:
how is this movie about accepting death? What is the underlying message of this movie?
To get into every detail would be to basically repeat the entire movie, because everything is important and there's tremendous depth and parallel. Here are the broad terms of each story:
The conquistador, doctor, and voyager all seek immortality. What is revealed in each story is that immortality is not what we imagine it to be.
The conquistador seeks to avoid death through the fountain of youth. When he drinks from the fountain, his body is sacrificed to become new life, just as the "immortal" Mayan creator was.
The doctor seeks to cure the "disease" of death with modern medicine. What his wife tells him about the Mayans is that if you plant a tree over a person's grave, they grow to become part of that tree through the roots, and they become part of the berries of the tree, and when a bird eats those berries they become part of the bird, and there they are soaring above the ground as alive as ever.
The voyager seeks immortality in the Xibalba nebula, believed by the Mayans to be the first creator. It's hard to tell exactly how this has occurred, but there are a number of good explanations you could make. The tree has to be the one he planted on her grave. I think this story is maybe the most important because it's here that he finally achieves peace with the universe. He finishes her book (where the conquistador can finally pass the flaming sword priest) and he goes into this Zen meditation where he no longer fears death. He becomes part of the universe, and they are absorbed in I guess what might be called holy rapture in this final instant. Once you stop fearing death, realizing it as a necessary part of life, you live in complete harmony and satisfaction. Death is the road to awe -- appreciation of life -- not a disease to be cured.
So I hope that helps regarding what I got out of it.
I also started studying Buddhism because of the symbolism of supreme enlightenment and all that. So that was another effect of the movie on me. It's been fulfilling, and actually make me less pretentious as a result.
Hey man, everyone isn't the same. Sorry you didn't enjoy it. Some people did, and I'd venture that they're not all pretentious snobs.
No, really, Strato, I'd love for you to expound on your earlier claim:
how is this movie about accepting death? What is the underlying message of this movie?
Here's kinda what I got out of it, but I only saw it once when it first opened, so it's not a clear memory anymore.
The storyline is the modern period setting about a doctor whose wife is dying young. The space thing is a representation of his psychological position: an overwhelming desire to delay or suspend death. The conquistador story is his wife's book, her attempt to communicate to him her understanding of his pursuit. The resolution being that she asks him to finish her book after her death. Wolverine finally gets to the tree, and eating from it causes death. I think he's learning from her that this tireless pursuit of immortality devalues the life we live. I dunno.
Ending such an analysis with "I dunno" seems like awfully weak sauce after your vehement defense of this movie.
Plus it doesn't wash.
His wife didn't write much of anything in that little book. She left him with a few starting pages and said "You finish it." On the other hand, the story of the conquistador goes all the way through a narrative about a guy who finds the tree of life and dies horribly. Are we to extrapolate that the doctor wrote the rest of that happy little tale? One would have to suspend disbelief to a near-lethal degree to think that whining emo bitch was creative enough. Also, if the overlying story is one of acceptance and understanding, I fail to see how the conquistador's fate fits into that particular moral.
And if your analysis is correct, then everything in the magic baldy bubble scenes is nothing more than artistic wankery. It could have been excised from the movie whole hog without effecting the whole of the story. Instead it was kept in so the director could jack off in our eyes with his "amazing visuals."
This is known as "Poor editing" in the film world.
She wrote all but the last chapter. She wrote up to the point where he's at the priest.
I think it's okay not to be firm on all the details after only two viewings. I got enough of the general gist of it that it makes me want to watch it over and get more out of it.
Right now the conquistador just serves as an example to me of how immortality isn't what you'd expect. But I also can't even remember what happened to the queen, nor do I remember if he put the ring on or dropped it
So sure maybe I don't have the details down, but I feel I understand the general theme of the movie very completely. And if I made it up, that's fine too. I think it's okay to be interpretive, and it didn't feel like wankery to me. That seems like something hard to classify.
The conquistador, doctor, and voyager all seek immortality. What is revealed in each story is that immortality is not what we imagine it to be.
A completely unoriginal premise. Shit, I think every vampire story told since Stoker's major work has been a reiteration of the same.
The conquistador seeks to avoid death through the fountain of youth. When he drinks from the fountain, his body is sacrificed to become new life, just as the "immortal" Mayan creator was.
But that wasn't what he sought. He sought to save his country from the religious extremists that were tearing it apart, and finding the fountain of youth would have swung power back to the crown. He only drank tree semen because he'd been wounded, and turned into ground cover as a result. One could even say this story acts AGAINST the premise of life going on - he failed miserably, and the religious fanatics took over his country after he died in poorly acted agony.
The doctor seeks to cure the "disease" of death with modern medicine. What his wife tells him about the Mayans is that if you plant a tree over a person's grave, they grow to become part of that tree through the roots, and they become part of the berries of the tree, and when a bird eats those berries they become part of the bird, and there they are soaring above the ground as alive as ever.
And if you strip out the other two storylines, this one is just plain boring. It becomes a chick flick along the lines of "Beaches."
The voyager seeks immortality in the Xibalba nebula, believed by the Mayans to be the first creator. It's hard to tell exactly how this has occurred, but there are a number of good explanations you could make. The tree has to be the one he planted on her grave. I think this story is maybe the most important because it's here that he finally achieves peace with the universe. He finishes her book (where the conquistador can finally pass the flaming sword priest) and he goes into this Zen meditation where he no longer fears death. He becomes part of the universe, and they are absorbed in I guess what might be called holy rapture in this final instant. Once you stop fearing death, realizing it as a necessary part of life, you live in complete harmony and satisfaction. Death is the road to awe -- appreciation of life -- not a disease to be cured.
That's a really long, boring, stupidly convoluted route to travel to get a concept that most college sophomores understand after a few bonghits. Shit, couldn't he have just aimed the magic bubble at the sun and gotten the same effect?
I also started studying Buddhism because of the symbolism of supreme enlightenment and all that. So that was another effect of the movie on me. It's been fulfilling, and actually make me less pretentious as a result.
Hey, whatever punches your ticket. If I can't execute the religious outright in the streets for being batshit fucking loco, then I can at least live and let live. :P
Wait, what do we have against The Elements of Style?
Nothing whatsoever. However, the statement that I should have my mother read it to me is grade-school bullshit, plain and simple. It's essentially the parallel of shouting "UR MOM" and blowing a raspberry at me.
Oh I see.
I was curious about Nap's reaction too.
Because it is tired, dated bullshit that ignores the fact that language is a diachronic process rather than a static, synchronic snapshot.
Hey man, everyone isn't the same. Sorry you didn't enjoy it. Some people did, and I'd venture that they're not all pretentious snobs.
No, really, Strato, I'd love for you to expound on your earlier claim:
how is this movie about accepting death? What is the underlying message of this movie?
Here's kinda what I got out of it, but I only saw it once when it first opened, so it's not a clear memory anymore.
The storyline is the modern period setting about a doctor whose wife is dying young. The space thing is a representation of his psychological position: an overwhelming desire to delay or suspend death. The conquistador story is his wife's book, her attempt to communicate to him her understanding of his pursuit. The resolution being that she asks him to finish her book after her death. Wolverine finally gets to the tree, and eating from it causes death. I think he's learning from her that this tireless pursuit of immortality devalues the life we live. I dunno.
Ending such an analysis with "I dunno" seems like awfully weak sauce after your vehement defense of this movie.
Plus it doesn't wash.
His wife didn't write much of anything in that little book. She left him with a few starting pages and said "You finish it." On the other hand, the story of the conquistador goes all the way through a narrative about a guy who finds the tree of life and dies horribly. Are we to extrapolate that the doctor wrote the rest of that happy little tale? One would have to suspend disbelief to a near-lethal degree to think that whining emo bitch was creative enough. Also, if the overlying story is one of acceptance and understanding, I fail to see how the conquistador's fate fits into that particular moral.
And if your analysis is correct, then everything in the magic baldy bubble scenes is nothing more than artistic wankery. It could have been excised from the movie whole hog without effecting the whole of the story. Instead it was kept in so the director could jack off in our eyes with his "amazing visuals."
This is known as "Poor editing" in the film world.
My vehement defense of the movie? You must have confused me with somebody else in the thread. I really enjoyed the movie, but I don't see it as unassailable and have not engaged in any sort of protracted discussion of the movie up to this point. I'm not about to try to make any objective assertions regarding art in general.
Like I said, I haven't seen it in a while, but I thought I remembered the wife having written most of the book, leaving him only the ending to write. I'll probably rent it soon and see what I don't remember. How does it fit in with the rest of it? If she writes herself as queen and her husband a knight, he is her loyal servant, and she has given him a nearly impossible task. His reward for completing that task is death. It's a warning to those who pursue the Fountain of Youth.
And yeah, I think the space scenes aren't necessarily crucial. His obsessive pursuit is seen in his practice as a doctor/researcher. I think it largely serves as a balance to the Fountain of Youth story, and his wife's position. They're both mythological structures incorporating icons like the Fountain, the Yggdrasil, and Buddha to show how myth deals with death in contrast to how science does. I don't think there's any grand conclusion or answer in the movie. It just felt like a consideration of some ideas, a way of depicting how some people deal with these things.
The argument I was making last night was that I don't think all elements of the film need to directly serve the narrative. Sometimes the visual aesthetic helps to manipulate the mood in a more general way.
The argument I was making last night was that I don't think all elements of the film need to directly serve the narrative. Sometimes the visual aesthetic helps to manipulate the mood in a more general way.
And this is the basis of where you and I will always come to fisticuffs.
I even agree, slightly - narrative without flair and style is dry and pointless. But we live in a time when too many damned producers and directors obscure the story behind making pretty lights flash in front of our eyes. The story takes backseat to how many bikinis, explosions, drift racing scenes, eye-shocking nebulae, guns and bullet-time shots can be jam-packed into a movie. The Fountain suffers from this to a degree that kills it. Hollywood once was about telling the story - now it's about making monkies in the theater go "ooooooooo." Fuck that. Bring back the story, man.
Wait, what do we have against The Elements of Style?
Nothing whatsoever. However, the statement that I should have my mother read it to me is grade-school bullshit, plain and simple. It's essentially the parallel of shouting "UR MOM" and blowing a raspberry at me.
Oh I see.
I was curious about Nap's reaction too.
Because it is tired, dated bullshit that ignores the fact that language is a diachronic process rather than a static, synchronic snapshot.
I think White had a better grasp of that than Strunk, by far. I still think it has an interesting point about style and simplicity, regardless of the particulars. Otherwise, it's just kinda quaint.
And it was never intended to be anything above grade-school bullshit.
To be fair, it WAS in response to J. Grant pretending I called him a dick, some internet toughguy crap about people with an opinion about a movie being killed and fed to pigs, and an argument about Hugh Jackman's acting that appeared to boil down to "dude looks gay."
The argument I was making last night was that I don't think all elements of the film need to directly serve the narrative. Sometimes the visual aesthetic helps to manipulate the mood in a more general way.
And this is the basis of where you and I will always come to fisticuffs.
I even agree, slightly - narrative without flair and style is dry and pointless. But we live in a time when too many damned producers and directors obscure the story behind making pretty lights flash in front of our eyes. The story takes backseat to how many bikinis, explosions, drift racing scenes, eye-shocking nebulae, guns and bullet-time shots can be jam-packed into a movie. The Fountain suffers from this to a degree that kills it. Hollywood once was about telling the story - now it's about making monkies in the theater go "ooooooooo." Fuck that. Bring back the story, man.
I know you don't actually mean fisticuffs, but I can't imagine being so confrontational over something of so little importance. That's probably just the mood I'm in, because last night I clearly felt amused to be overly confrontational about nothing at all. But man, it's just a movie.
And I think different movies serve different purposes, just as different paintings do. Some are all about visual craft, some are all about heavy handed messages, and some are in between. A good story can be a great thing; it can serve both the entertainment and the ideology. But I don't think all movies need it. I liked that the movie was ambiguous in some respects. Life is ambiguous.
but overall, I found the overlapping narrative to be pretty cool, and parts of it kind of resonated with me. However, I haven't seen it since opening weekend, so I'd have to go grab it and watch it again to remember the specifics of those scenes.
When you do, I challenge you to summarize the plot.
the novel izzy is writing is a metaphor for how she sees their relationship
the future is tom after using the stuff from the tree to live forever so he can find a cure for izzy
at the end of the film tom realizes that fighting death is pointless, and travels back in time so he can properly enjoy his last days with izzy
Wait, what do we have against The Elements of Style?
Nothing whatsoever. However, the statement that I should have my mother read it to me is grade-school bullshit, plain and simple. It's essentially the parallel of shouting "UR MOM" and blowing a raspberry at me.
Oh I see.
I was curious about Nap's reaction too.
Because it is tired, dated bullshit that ignores the fact that language is a diachronic process rather than a static, synchronic snapshot.
I think White had a better grasp of that than Strunk, by far. I still think it has an interesting point about style and simplicity, regardless of the particulars. Otherwise, it's just kinda quaint.
And it was never intended to be anything above grade-school bullshit.
To be fair, it WAS in response to J. Grant pretending I called him a dick, some internet toughguy crap about people with an opinion about a movie being killed and fed to pigs, and an argument about Hugh Jackman's acting that appeared to boil down to "dude looks gay."
The argument I was making last night was that I don't think all elements of the film need to directly serve the narrative. Sometimes the visual aesthetic helps to manipulate the mood in a more general way.
And this is the basis of where you and I will always come to fisticuffs.
I even agree, slightly - narrative without flair and style is dry and pointless. But we live in a time when too many damned producers and directors obscure the story behind making pretty lights flash in front of our eyes. The story takes backseat to how many bikinis, explosions, drift racing scenes, eye-shocking nebulae, guns and bullet-time shots can be jam-packed into a movie. The Fountain suffers from this to a degree that kills it. Hollywood once was about telling the story - now it's about making monkies in the theater go "ooooooooo." Fuck that. Bring back the story, man.
I know you don't actually mean fisticuffs, but I can't imagine being so confrontational over something of so little importance. That's probably just the mood I'm in, because last night I clearly felt amused to be overly confrontational about nothing at all. But man, it's just a movie.
And I think different movies serve different purposes, just as different paintings do. Some are all about visual craft, some are all about heavy handed messages, and some are in between. A good story can be a great thing; it can serve both the entertainment and the ideology. But I don't think all movies need it. I liked that the movie was ambiguous in some respects. Life is ambiguous.
Good god.
If I could refine the essence of your arguments down to a clear oil, add some coloring and put it in fancy black glass bottles, I'd make a billion dollars selling Eau de Whiny Bitch.
Go drink a latte and wear your beret while telling people that Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reasoning is ironically egotistical, you fucking wimp.
The argument I was making last night was that I don't think all elements of the film need to directly serve the narrative. Sometimes the visual aesthetic helps to manipulate the mood in a more general way.
And this is the basis of where you and I will always come to fisticuffs.
I even agree, slightly - narrative without flair and style is dry and pointless. But we live in a time when too many damned producers and directors obscure the story behind making pretty lights flash in front of our eyes. The story takes backseat to how many bikinis, explosions, drift racing scenes, eye-shocking nebulae, guns and bullet-time shots can be jam-packed into a movie. The Fountain suffers from this to a degree that kills it. Hollywood once was about telling the story - now it's about making monkies in the theater go "ooooooooo." Fuck that. Bring back the story, man.
I know you don't actually mean fisticuffs, but I can't imagine being so confrontational over something of so little importance. That's probably just the mood I'm in, because last night I clearly felt amused to be overly confrontational about nothing at all. But man, it's just a movie.
And I think different movies serve different purposes, just as different paintings do. Some are all about visual craft, some are all about heavy handed messages, and some are in between. A good story can be a great thing; it can serve both the entertainment and the ideology. But I don't think all movies need it. I liked that the movie was ambiguous in some respects. Life is ambiguous.
Good god.
If I could refine the essence of your arguments down to a clear oil, add some coloring and put it in fancy black glass bottles, I'd make a billion dollars selling Eau de Whiny Bitch.
Go drink a latte and wear your beret while telling people that Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reasoning is ironically egotistical, you fucking wimp.
that seems like a pretty big over reaction to a pretty reasonable point aneutherhertherma made
The argument I was making last night was that I don't think all elements of the film need to directly serve the narrative. Sometimes the visual aesthetic helps to manipulate the mood in a more general way.
And this is the basis of where you and I will always come to fisticuffs.
I even agree, slightly - narrative without flair and style is dry and pointless. But we live in a time when too many damned producers and directors obscure the story behind making pretty lights flash in front of our eyes. The story takes backseat to how many bikinis, explosions, drift racing scenes, eye-shocking nebulae, guns and bullet-time shots can be jam-packed into a movie. The Fountain suffers from this to a degree that kills it. Hollywood once was about telling the story - now it's about making monkies in the theater go "ooooooooo." Fuck that. Bring back the story, man.
I know you don't actually mean fisticuffs, but I can't imagine being so confrontational over something of so little importance. That's probably just the mood I'm in, because last night I clearly felt amused to be overly confrontational about nothing at all. But man, it's just a movie.
And I think different movies serve different purposes, just as different paintings do. Some are all about visual craft, some are all about heavy handed messages, and some are in between. A good story can be a great thing; it can serve both the entertainment and the ideology. But I don't think all movies need it. I liked that the movie was ambiguous in some respects. Life is ambiguous.
Good god.
If I could refine the essence of your arguments down to a clear oil, add some coloring and put it in fancy black glass bottles, I'd make a billion dollars selling Eau de Whiny Bitch.
Go drink a latte and wear your beret while telling people that Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reasoning is ironically egotistical, you fucking wimp.
Referring back to what you were talking about with lack of story and too much visuals, in the case of the fountain I actually think the visuals themselves tell the story. It's not useless flair, it actually supports the narrative because it's illustrating the emotions of the main characters.
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denihilistAncient and MightyRegistered User, Moderatormod
i think the fountain is aronofsky's best work so far
I think it suffers from the same problem all of aronofsky's films suffer from.
The acting was so off that I didn't really connect with the characters and the overlapping 'narratives' depended on emotional connections to really work so I guess the whole film didn't work for me. It was sold as a time-travelling/time-spanning story but turned out to be a rather basic, formulaic love story with a pretty wrapper.
Basically it was the cinematic equivalent of buying wine for the pretty bottle.
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denihilistAncient and MightyRegistered User, Moderatormod
edited July 2007
Oh the problem with Aronofsky's films is that he distances the viewer from the characters.
Posts
It's about
Sorry if that doesn't do anything for you
When you do, I challenge you to summarize the plot.
I wasn't that big a fan of Requiem - it felt ham-fisted and, again, pointless.
But Pi is one of my faves of all time. And it HAD a story.
I just get irked when someone blows millions of dollars to make a movie that has no real story to tell. Burning feet of film to make pretty pictures without saying anything at all is nothing more than high-dollar wankery. I tried to get my money back after Fountain, but the manager of the theater was a dick.
Bullshit.
Let's see:
How the MCDB researcher comes to terms with death? By getting all emo about his wife and losing his wedding ring, then plants a fucking pine cone in the snow?
How the bald freak comes to terms with death? By getting melted in a supernova?
Again: Pretentious, vapid manure. No new tale to tell, a total waste of time and money.
No, really, Strato, I'd love for you to expound on your earlier claim:
FAG.
Secret Satan
WHO LIT THE FUCKING STRUNK AND WHITE SIGNAL
NAP SMASH PUNY HUMAN
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Here's kinda what I got out of it, but I only saw it once when it first opened, so it's not a clear memory anymore.
Nothing whatsoever. However, the statement that I should have my mother read it to me is grade-school bullshit, plain and simple. It's essentially the parallel of shouting "UR MOM" and blowing a raspberry at me.
Oh I see.
I was curious about Nap's reaction too.
To get into every detail would be to basically repeat the entire movie, because everything is important and there's tremendous depth and parallel. Here are the broad terms of each story:
The conquistador seeks to avoid death through the fountain of youth. When he drinks from the fountain, his body is sacrificed to become new life, just as the "immortal" Mayan creator was.
The doctor seeks to cure the "disease" of death with modern medicine. What his wife tells him about the Mayans is that if you plant a tree over a person's grave, they grow to become part of that tree through the roots, and they become part of the berries of the tree, and when a bird eats those berries they become part of the bird, and there they are soaring above the ground as alive as ever.
The voyager seeks immortality in the Xibalba nebula, believed by the Mayans to be the first creator. It's hard to tell exactly how this has occurred, but there are a number of good explanations you could make. The tree has to be the one he planted on her grave. I think this story is maybe the most important because it's here that he finally achieves peace with the universe. He finishes her book (where the conquistador can finally pass the flaming sword priest) and he goes into this Zen meditation where he no longer fears death. He becomes part of the universe, and they are absorbed in I guess what might be called holy rapture in this final instant. Once you stop fearing death, realizing it as a necessary part of life, you live in complete harmony and satisfaction. Death is the road to awe -- appreciation of life -- not a disease to be cured.
So I hope that helps regarding what I got out of it.
I also started studying Buddhism because of the symbolism of supreme enlightenment and all that. So that was another effect of the movie on me. It's been fulfilling, and actually make me less pretentious as a result.
Ending such an analysis with "I dunno" seems like awfully weak sauce after your vehement defense of this movie.
His wife didn't write much of anything in that little book. She left him with a few starting pages and said "You finish it." On the other hand, the story of the conquistador goes all the way through a narrative about a guy who finds the tree of life and dies horribly. Are we to extrapolate that the doctor wrote the rest of that happy little tale? One would have to suspend disbelief to a near-lethal degree to think that whining emo bitch was creative enough. Also, if the overlying story is one of acceptance and understanding, I fail to see how the conquistador's fate fits into that particular moral.
And if your analysis is correct, then everything in the magic baldy bubble scenes is nothing more than artistic wankery. It could have been excised from the movie whole hog without effecting the whole of the story. Instead it was kept in so the director could jack off in our eyes with his "amazing visuals."
This is known as "Poor editing" in the film world.
I think it's okay not to be firm on all the details after only two viewings. I got enough of the general gist of it that it makes me want to watch it over and get more out of it.
So sure maybe I don't have the details down, but I feel I understand the general theme of the movie very completely. And if I made it up, that's fine too. I think it's okay to be interpretive, and it didn't feel like wankery to me. That seems like something hard to classify.
A completely unoriginal premise. Shit, I think every vampire story told since Stoker's major work has been a reiteration of the same.
But that wasn't what he sought. He sought to save his country from the religious extremists that were tearing it apart, and finding the fountain of youth would have swung power back to the crown. He only drank tree semen because he'd been wounded, and turned into ground cover as a result. One could even say this story acts AGAINST the premise of life going on - he failed miserably, and the religious fanatics took over his country after he died in poorly acted agony.
And if you strip out the other two storylines, this one is just plain boring. It becomes a chick flick along the lines of "Beaches."
That's a really long, boring, stupidly convoluted route to travel to get a concept that most college sophomores understand after a few bonghits. Shit, couldn't he have just aimed the magic bubble at the sun and gotten the same effect?
Hey, whatever punches your ticket. If I can't execute the religious outright in the streets for being batshit fucking loco, then I can at least live and let live. :P
Twitter | Facebook | Tumblr | Last.fm | Pandora | LibraryThing | formspring | Blue Moon over Seattle (MCFC)
I shall remedy this by opening with COCKS FAGS LOL DICKS
And furthermore, DONGS
My vehement defense of the movie? You must have confused me with somebody else in the thread. I really enjoyed the movie, but I don't see it as unassailable and have not engaged in any sort of protracted discussion of the movie up to this point. I'm not about to try to make any objective assertions regarding art in general.
And yeah, I think the space scenes aren't necessarily crucial. His obsessive pursuit is seen in his practice as a doctor/researcher. I think it largely serves as a balance to the Fountain of Youth story, and his wife's position. They're both mythological structures incorporating icons like the Fountain, the Yggdrasil, and Buddha to show how myth deals with death in contrast to how science does. I don't think there's any grand conclusion or answer in the movie. It just felt like a consideration of some ideas, a way of depicting how some people deal with these things.
The argument I was making last night was that I don't think all elements of the film need to directly serve the narrative. Sometimes the visual aesthetic helps to manipulate the mood in a more general way.
And this is the basis of where you and I will always come to fisticuffs.
I even agree, slightly - narrative without flair and style is dry and pointless. But we live in a time when too many damned producers and directors obscure the story behind making pretty lights flash in front of our eyes. The story takes backseat to how many bikinis, explosions, drift racing scenes, eye-shocking nebulae, guns and bullet-time shots can be jam-packed into a movie. The Fountain suffers from this to a degree that kills it. Hollywood once was about telling the story - now it's about making monkies in the theater go "ooooooooo." Fuck that. Bring back the story, man.
And it was never intended to be anything above grade-school bullshit.
To be fair, it WAS in response to J. Grant pretending I called him a dick, some internet toughguy crap about people with an opinion about a movie being killed and fed to pigs, and an argument about Hugh Jackman's acting that appeared to boil down to "dude looks gay."
I know you don't actually mean fisticuffs, but I can't imagine being so confrontational over something of so little importance. That's probably just the mood I'm in, because last night I clearly felt amused to be overly confrontational about nothing at all. But man, it's just a movie.
And I think different movies serve different purposes, just as different paintings do. Some are all about visual craft, some are all about heavy handed messages, and some are in between. A good story can be a great thing; it can serve both the entertainment and the ideology. But I don't think all movies need it. I liked that the movie was ambiguous in some respects. Life is ambiguous.
the novel izzy is writing is a metaphor for how she sees their relationship
the future is tom after using the stuff from the tree to live forever so he can find a cure for izzy
at the end of the film tom realizes that fighting death is pointless, and travels back in time so he can properly enjoy his last days with izzy
that's sort of what i got from it
All I saw was Strunk and motherfuckin' White.
And that shit makes me fucking Hulk out.
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Good god.
If I could refine the essence of your arguments down to a clear oil, add some coloring and put it in fancy black glass bottles, I'd make a billion dollars selling Eau de Whiny Bitch.
Go drink a latte and wear your beret while telling people that Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reasoning is ironically egotistical, you fucking wimp.
that seems like a pretty big over reaction to a pretty reasonable point aneutherhertherma made
I mean, we're just talking about a movie here, and Grant's cried about it more than most rape victims.
But, I'm definitely the whiney bitch, here.
Referring back to what you were talking about with lack of story and too much visuals, in the case of the fountain I actually think the visuals themselves tell the story. It's not useless flair, it actually supports the narrative because it's illustrating the emotions of the main characters.
The acting was so off that I didn't really connect with the characters and the overlapping 'narratives' depended on emotional connections to really work so I guess the whole film didn't work for me. It was sold as a time-travelling/time-spanning story but turned out to be a rather basic, formulaic love story with a pretty wrapper.
Basically it was the cinematic equivalent of buying wine for the pretty bottle.