Talk:The Fountain/Archive 2

Coverage
(Useful excerpts from interview with Aronofsky follow) Just tired of having the record in my inbox. Erik (talk) 18:50, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
 * How much of what happens is supposed to be real and how much is allegorical?
 * I've always described the film as a psychedelic fairytale. The "psychedelic" is meant to make it very clear that this is an adult fairytale. Hugh is Man, Rachel [Weisz] is Woman. They have Romance with a capital "R" - a sweeping love across the centuries, which is somewhat real, but also magical and romantic. Most movies have that scene that connects the lovers somehow; they do something silly together which shows you something into their character. I wasn't interested in that, even though everyone wanted me to do it. For me, they were very much symbols. The humanity of the characters came in because of the actors.
 * The opening certainly takes you completely by surprise.
 * Most of the time, audiences go in and they meet with their hero in the first couple of minutes, and then it's about following that person as they overcome other obstacles. This film, the first 15, 20 minutes you don't know what the fuck is going on. If you understand the sci-fi genre, it's OK to be disoriented for a bit until it starts to click together. It's actually a very old tradition of sci-fi. Most sci-fi novels, you read the first 80 pages, you don't know what's going on; then suddenly it all clicks together, and a universe opens up in front of you. So that's what we were aiming for.
 * Did this story come to you outright, or was it pieced together from different ideas?
 * Both. I think ultimately, I've always described myself when I write as a "tapestry maker." In a sense, I take fabric from different places, meaning cool ideas, things I'm interested in. I was always interested in Mayan history. I was always interested in conquistadores and Spain. I was listening to David Bowie's "Space Oddity." My friend who I was working with just got his PhD in neuroscience. So all these ideas were floating around out there, and I just started weaving them together, and eventually made a rug, which became the movie.


 * —Erik (talk &#124; contribs) 22:39, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Poor article that is full of redundancy
I really liked this film and wanted to find out more about its themes. But after spending 5 minutes reading this article, I am sadly left with a huge feeling of disappointment because it's just narrative. There is just under 10% of this article devoted to the critical analysis of the film's structure, meaning and symbolism. The rest of the page is devoted to narrative on the production e.g. the fact that Brad was not in it, etc. Material like this should be in an encyclopedia but that does not make it encyclopedic because the information does reflect critical commentary of the facts. It's just facts written as a story through words that have been taken from other published sources.

This film has some major philosophic talking points regarding the nature of "Life, Death and Everything" but none of these themes are addressed at all in this article, save for a small section at the beginning. Something is seriously wrong when there is plain narrative about how a particular scene was shot but not what meaning/context that scene had? But this article demonstrates how the Wikipedia model fails despite the best efforts of its collaborators. Due to the restrictive nature of all the rules and regulations in writing an article, the use of sources, no original ideas, no inclusions of what has not already been published/said/written about, all you will ever read on articles such as this if the rules are applied rigidly (and they have looking at the edit logs) plain and simple narrative. Encyclopedic articles must include critical analysis.

From reading this article, I have not learned anything about what the film's aims were, how it's story arcs critically addressed certain themes or what conclusions could be drawn from the film's imagery across time and space. Instead what I do know is, is how much it cost, who might have starred in it if the budget was bigger, where it was filmed and when? etc. A test for narrative, is whether it could have been surmised in a simple table, and in this case 90% of the article could have been done in this fashion. I am sorry to say this, as the article obviously ticks most of Wikipedia's requirement boxes for a good article but it fails miserably in the requirement of being a serious critique of a very intelligent film. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.158.87.77 (talk) 23:38, 13 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Please place the blame on publications that failed to analyze The Fountain. This Wikipedia article publishes coverage from reliable sources, most of which were keen on production detail. There is very little critical analysis available in publications, and the Wikipedia article cannot provide analysis of the film that has not already been published. If you know of any references that could be used in this article, I invite you to provide them. Otherwise, it sounds like you are looking for "original ideas", and Wikipedia is not the place for them; it has a policy of no original research. There are film articles like American Beauty that have critical analysis because there were publications that explored the film's themes. The Fountain, on the other hand, has not received that kind of attention. Perhaps in time it will if Aronofsky's star continues to rise. In the meantime, this Wikipedia article is as comprehensive as realistically possible for this film. Erik (talk &#124; contribs) 23:38, 26 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Yup i was also really disgusted with this nonsence that is written in here, about some kind of space traveler on his bubble space ship. Someone totally failed with interpretation of this film. First part is Izy book, second part is our reality, and last is shown in mystical way! They all have same message, Death is an Road to Awe. In death is life. Zazae (talk) 20:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Terrible lack of understanding the plot
-SPOILER ALERT- This post contains details about the plot.

The article sets readers attention in wrong directions. The movie is not easy to understand but it is not complex. At least it is not chaotic set of stories. I've watched The Fountain several times and I like it because of simplicity but with additional greater, hidden meanings. It covers the questions of human nature and the sense of life from different perispectives but with one core story. The plot is about the man who lost his wife because of brain cancer. He is biologist, researcher who fighted with the disease and he just didn't make it in time. However, accidentialy he researched the way to live forever, through the symbiosis with the Tree of Life. This turns the story to the actual time set in the far future, when same man travels through space to find answers to his failure. He meditates and fights with the past through visions (the core story is told by that as retrospective), he evolved, he's searching for the meaning, but yet he didn't reconciled with death of his wife. The movie tells us how he does this and finally makes it. The scenes set in 15th century are the basiucaly same story but set in his wife's book (which she intentionally wrote for him as a guide). They are also the answer to the man's questions and on the side, raising other interesting thoughts. The character of inquisitor is the parallel to the cancer and the conquistador is ordered to fight it. But notice how the queen of Spain (actually the wife) refuses to go with straight fight against the threat and finds the other way, leading to the ancient, magical Tree of Life. The book ends with sentence that "conquistador finds death". This is very answer to the man's questions but he's not aware of this as he is trying to understand it as he was told to end the book his way.

Finally, through the analysis of his past actions (and we can feel that he did that hundreds of times when traveling alone in space - by his reactions), he finds that his fight was worthless, just as the book's conquistador fight. The immortality he was gloryfing was the barrier to the joy and the advancement granted by death. He finally accepts that he would meet again with his wife after death and it itself is the opening to the new life as part of the cycle. He finishes the book showing how wortless was conquistador's fight, that he was basically led to die. Obviously the queen was aware that she will die too, giving him the ring to put on >there<, to be together afterlife. After that the man sacrifices himself to the dying star, which even earlier was said that is not dying but evolving into new form.

Summing all up, the plot covers the basic problem of reconciliation with death and actions one should perform instead fighting it. That would be being closer to the dying person, being together. "Together we will live forever".

PS. Even the small detail turns to that, when the Izzy is falling down and Tom is holding her in last time, as she tells him later that "she felt support there being reconciled with the fact". That is the lesson the movie tries to imply. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kabanowster (talk • contribs) 21:45, 9 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much for your plot summary that hits the point. I really like this movie and I agree that many people seem to misinterpret the plot. I found some summaries that describe the travel of Tommy as a space travel (of his reincarnation) in a starship in the year 2500 (???), although it seems obvious to me that this depiction is metaphoric for his way to acceptance of the death of Izzy. It was good to read a summary written by someone who, in my opinion, fully understood the plot. Greetings! IustusPeccator (talk) 08:30, 17 January 2014 (UTC)


 * - (asking because I'm just seeing your comments here, not because I'm attached to any particular version of the article) - Where are you taking this version from, which you state in such absolute terms? Was there an Aronofsky interview or clarity in a novelized version of the film? I wouldn't say you're wrong, just that it sure sounds like one of several certainly unofficial interpretations. --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  |  20:47, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

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Plot overlength
The plot is about 600-800 words overlong. Some of this is due to discussion about the plot (including references) being in the plot, which is wrong. The rest is just self-indulgence. I'm going to do what I can to fix this.ZarhanFastfire (talk) 03:11, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Official Website problem
The "Official website" template in the External Links section takes me to WikiData's second-ranked "flashsite" URL, which doesn't work, instead of the first-ranked one in the "official website" section. Why? How can this be fixed?

User5910 (talk) 17:07, 9 August 2021 (UTC)