The Fountain (2006)

Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world.

Director:

Darren Aronofsky

Writers:

Darren Aronofsky (screenplay), Darren Aronofsky (story),

Stars:

Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, Ellen Burstyn

Nominated for 1 Golden Globe. Another 6 wins & 15 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Hugh Jackman	...	Tomas / Tommy / Tom Creo
Rachel Weisz	...	Isabel / Izzi Creo
Ellen Burstyn	...	Dr. Lillian Guzetti
Mark Margolis	...	Father Avila
Stephen McHattie	...	Grand Inquisitor Silecio
Fernando Hernandez	...	Lord of Xibalba
Cliff Curtis	...	Captain Ariel
Sean Patrick Thomas	...	Antonio
Donna Murphy	...	Betty
Ethan Suplee	...	Manny
Richard McMillan	...	Henry
Lorne Brass	...	Dr. Alan Lipper
Abraham Aronofsky	...	Lab Technician
Renee Asofsky	...	Lab Technician
Anish Majumdar	...	Dr. Spencer

Storyline

Three stories - one each from the past, present, and future - about men in pursuit of eternity with their love. A conquistador in Mayan country searches for the tree of life to free his captive queen; a medical researcher, working with various trees, looks for a cure that will save his dying wife; a space traveler, traveling with an aged tree encapsulated within a bubble, moves toward a dying star that's wrapped in a nebula; he seeks eternity with his love. The stories intersect and parallel; the quests fail and succeed.

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Plot Keywords:

tree | dying | love | mayan | eternity | 

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Taglines:

Death is the road to awe.

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Genres:

Drama | Romance | Sci-Fi

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for some intense sequences of violent action, some sensuality and language

Details

Official Sites:

TFM Distribution [fr] Warner Bros. [us]

Country:

USA Canada

Language:

English Maya

Release Date:

22 November 2006 (USA)

Also Known As:

La fuente de la vida

Filming Locations:

Cité du Cinéma, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$35,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$98,297 (Brazil) (24 November 2006)

Gross:

$10,139,254 (USA) (2 February 2007)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros, Regency Enterprises, Protozoa Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

96 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Warner Bros. refused to do a director's commentary for the DVD release, so Darren Aronofsky recorded one in his living room and released it on his web site.

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Goofs

The "Xibalba Nebula" in the movie is the Orion Nebula - which is not gold and does not contain dying stars, unlike in the movie. It is largely pink (from ionized hydrogen gas) and is a stellar nursery where young stars are forming. The first stars to die there will be massive and will not create nebulae first (they will supernova instead).

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Quotes

[first lines]
Tomas Verde: Let us finish it.

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Crazy Credits

The movie ends with a white out, which represents the Big Bang or creation of the Universe. Following that, the white areas behind the credits condense, which correlates with the condensation of matter and ultimate large sale structure of the universe. These devolve to black screen, the early "opaque" stage of the universe, when early particle were forming. From this, stars begin to form, one by one until the credits end with a universe full of stars and the story of our universe to the present, told behind the credits.

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Connections

Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Episode dated 25 November 2006 (2006)

User Reviews

Death is the Road to Awe

This is not a film for any one public. Americans, often ignorant of philosophy and mythology (by and large) would stumble awkwardly through much of the film, wondering what the hell is going on. Others still would prefer to call the film pretentious and drenched in metaphysical bull----. Woe it is to the archetypes. No one knows how to reach the elemental, the archetypal arena of human experience anymore; a fact proved by so many other reviewers penchant for searching for the "realism" within the movie. (cf. Roger Ebert's review; this is a thoroughly stupid and ignorant way of viewing such a film...it seems that the Divine Comedy would be cast aside today, because Dante does not describe Paradise in a "realistic" fashion. Which of course is worse than nonsense...its f---ing stupid.)

The problem many people have with this film is that they see it as a story about two people, and not two archetypes that are elemental within human mythology (first man and first woman). It is interesting to note how Jackman becomes Western man (furious and daring, he hopes to reach beyond nature, to become a 'superman,' while not understanding that he is not simply a product of nature but very much a PART of nature) and Weisz becomes the embodiement of Eastern thought (her submission to the truth of nature (death) is not a submission, but an understanding of the tide of life, an understanding Tom, in all his embodiements, does not possess). I see a purity in the representation of first man and first woman, a purity that allows me to see the characters as archetypes that resemble the spiritual forces that have driven us for our eternity.

Ebert said that it is a standard critical practice not to create a fiction that was not implicit within the film; but with a film like The Fountain, there are so many interpretations and meanings...deep thoughts linger in me while I watch, an ocean of experiences that dwells inside me, calm and enveloping. Interpretaions can, in their own rights, be works of art, if what they interpret, in itself, is beautiful. I will not pretend that my interpretation is right, complete, or a work of art; but what I have seen and felt from this film has filled me with something I cannot describe--if the definition was not insufficient, I would call it God--yet so many pass by it with scorn and rolling eyes. I hope some will see in it what I have felt pass through so many times...or at least to understand, at the very least, that just because a movie doesn't touch you, it does not mean that your perception of the movie is, in itself, truth; it is merely an opinion like mine. On art there is no truth, except the pieces we craft ourselves.