If you want to read some reviews of The Fountain, click here to read Brian Orndorfâs and here for Steven Snyderâs. Both of them dug the hell out of the film and they are not alone, asI also thought the film was an amazing work or art.
The best way I can describe The Fountain is to repeat what Darren Aronofsky said before the press screening, âyou need to experience it.â
The film is one of the most beautiful achievements this year and it has the bestsoundtrack, at leastso far. And while this is definitely not a film that will appeal to the mass audience, the ones who watch and take in this message about life and death will be better for it. I strongly recommend seeking The Fountain out and watching it on a great screen with booming sound. Some shitty small theater will not do this film justice. This is an event movie, justwithout the 100 million dollar marketing budget.
The interview with Darren Aronofsky was done in roundtable form, meaning around ten of us sat at a table asking questions when we could. I just wanted to make sure that was clear. I really learned a lot about how he makes his films, and the main thing you need to know is everything you see on screen is there for a reason, nothing happened by chance.
You can either click here to listen to the interview, or you can read it below. Hope you enjoy the read and make sure you see the film this week, youâll be happy you did.
Question: The process of getting this film to the screen is a story unto itself. Originally Brad Pitt was going to be in it...
Darren Aronofsky: Brad who? (laughter)
You were going to shoot in Australia about three years ago, can you talk about the process of finally getting this made, and how frustrating it has been for you?
It was a very long process, and I think all of my projects have been really challenging. No one really wanted to make a black and white movie about God and math. And then, after âPiâ everyone was like, âWhat do you want to do? What do you want to do next?â and I sent them a copy of âRequiem for a Dream,â and they was just silence, and barely anyone called me back. For some reason, we just chose films that we think are interesting and cool, and theyâre just a little bit outside the box, so itâs always a big challenge. Brad [Pitt] got really interested at the beginning, and that gave it a lot of fuel. I always wanted a big movie star for it because I knew, when I started this film, I was really inspired by science fiction novels and graphic novels, in the sense that youâll be reading a science fiction novel and for the first 100 pages you really donât know what the hellâs going on, and then, suddenly, a few words show up and all these clues, and the world opens up and youâre smack in the middle of Neal Stephensonâs world and it suddenly all makes sense.
I wanted to give that similar experience with âThe Fountain,â so the first 20 minutes of the film, youâre afloat, and then, suddenly, you meet Rachel and the world starts to come together, and you realize that all those scenes actually do mean something and it does add up to something. My hope was that, by putting a movie star into it, it could hook the audience and help them get through that 20 minutes. So when Brad expressed interest, it was great. It started it all going. And then, we got really close, and then there was the much publicized shaving of the beard, and then it basically fell apart. There was $18 million against it and a lot of spilled blood. There was really no chance that anything would ever happen. I tried really hard to clean my palette and start something new. All the stuff we actually started new is probably what weâre going to do next, so that time didnât go to waste. But then, one night, I just couldnât get it out of my system and I just started to write again. Not having to write for a studio or for an actor freed me up to return to what was really important to me.
Did you trade that beard look that Brad had for the film for the shaved head?
That look is in the film. He was growing the beard for the Conquistador sequences.
It was much longer on Brad.
It took a long time to get to set. I donât know how much longer it was than Hughâs beard in the battle scene. I think it was probably pretty similar. Hugh had a big thing. Brad had a big issue about prosthetic beards. He wanted to grow it.
Every element of every timeline is in every other timeline. Itâs a very fractal picture. Everything is related. How did you build that in? Did that come in the script stage? Did you edit that in as you were shooting? Like I need to have this image again⦠how did that go?
Itâs all pre-planned. With the budget that we had, which was extremely low, and the limited amount of time, which was extremely short, to do something like this, it was all about homework. So, all those connections were made beforehand. Of course, things came up where we realized, âHey, we could stick that here.â Things happened on set, but Iâd say 95% of all decisions are beforehand. Because when you get to set, no matter how much two-dimensional work you do -- meaning storyboards, shot lists, script work -- as soon as you get into a three-dimensional space with real live actors and real physical equipment, nothing ever works out, so you have to be able to adapt. But, having done all that homework allows you to know what you absolutely need, so you can get pretty close to getting everything you want. But all the woosh shots, the horse going by, the car going by, and the ship going by, that was all pre-planned. All the star fields that are going on throughout the film -- in space, of course, and then the candles all hanging down, once you throw them out of focus, theyâre a star field, the Christmas lights behind Rachel on the rooftop are star fields. From working with with darkness and light in the same way, where Hughâs character is in the black and Rachelâs character is in the light. Hughâs never really fully lit until the end of the film, and Rachelâs lit all the time. That was always planned, 10 months before we ever got to set.
Was it Hugh that actually suggested Rachel for this?
Yeah. Did Hugh tell you that, or Rachel? I wasnât into the idea because I had a personal relationship with Rachel and itâs a gamble. Either the relationship was going to be over or the relationship would be fine, so why risk something like that. Hugh suggested the idea. I wasnât open to it. He said, âWell, letâs at least meet.â And so, we had dinner at a vegan restaurant. Actually, it wasnât vegan, it was macrobiotic, but I donât know the difference. And, they just completely connected and it was electric. It was one of those things, as a director, you hope happens in a casting room, which rarely ever happens, where you see two actors look at each other and understand each other. And, the thing about Hugh and Rachel was that they were both extremely hungry actors, at the time. Now, theyâre big time movie stars. Now, I donât know about working with them. But back themâ¦. theyâre stage actors and theyâre incredibly well trained, and they both hadnât had the opportunity to really show what they could do. That, to me, is the most exciting. Ellen Burstyn has done great stuff, but it had been a long time. Jennifer Connelly and Marlon Wayans they all had a reason to show up.
Did directing Rachel exceed your expectations?
Sheâs amazing. I describe her as a cauldron of emotions. You just turn up the heat and things start boiling over. Sheâs one of those actors that you can get four or five different emotions from, in one choice. To me, thatâs amazing. When she talks about Moses Morales -- the guy who was buried, and grew up into the tree -- thatâs one take. Very, very few actors out there can hold an extreme close-up really tight for 40 seconds. Originally, I cut it up like crazy. The first time we cut the film together, it was in pieces. I took the best from here and the best from there, and it worked, but then, I said, âWe should go through the material once again,â and then we stumbled on that piece, which just worked all the way through. Youâve got to let an actor shine when they do something like that.
âThe Last Manâ was always âThe Fountain 1.0.â That was just a secret title. Iâm a pretty paranoid guy, so we just called it âThe Last
Thereâs a few differences. There was a huge battle scene at the beginning of âThe Fountain 1.0,â but it was in a post-âGladiator,â pre-Peter
Had you seen Hugh Jackman in something that led you to believe he could do such an emotional role?
How many male actors have you actually seen do emotional work like that?
Thatâs true.
Iâve been in 15 cities in the last two or three weeks, and a lot of women have said to me, âIâve never seen a man that vulnerable, on or off screen.â I didnât really know what he could do. I didnât really know what he could do. When I first started this, he wasnât on my list because he had just done Wolverine, which he was fantastic as and became a star off of, which is an amazing, difficult thing to do, if youâre a fan. Just to step into that role, out of nowhere, and actually pull it off was a big accomplishment. But, I had seen nothing else. Then, when I saw âThe Boy From Oz,â I just saw an incredible amount of talent. It was undeniable. Outside of what he did in âThe Fountain,â the guy can sing and dance. (laughter) Itâs really kind of upsetting. Itâs just remarkable, what he did in this movie, and itâs overlooked somewhat. I met Hugh randomly at a bar, or something, with some of his friends. We just said hello. And then, we were staying at the same hotel and I was sitting there doing my 20-pound curls, and this guy is moving a machine across the room. He was pulling this thing and the machine was jumping, and I was like, âWhat the hell? Who is that freak?â And, it was Hugh Jackman, training for âX-Men 2,â and I went over and said, âHey, how are you doinâ?â Then, Hugh went from that type of size to, in 12 months, being able to get into full Lotus position. Iâve been doing yoga for seven or eight years and I canât get into Lotus. And he performed all those scenes, where heâs in Lotus, underwater to make himself float, attached to a barbecue rig, so that when he flips over and goes upside down, the rig basically spun him around, held him upside down for 10 seconds, and then brought him back up, where he would land on that ship for that big revealing shot of the bubble. That was one of the shots he did underwater, and in character.
Physically, you wonât find a specimen on the planet like him. This is the type of guy that could have been an Olympic gold medal athlete in so many different sports. So, that was amazing. We had a stunt double -- and I know itâs kind of cliché that he did all of his stunts -- but he was better than the stunt double, in everything. So, thatâs him climbing the tree, doing the fights, everything. Outside of that, emotionally, he just unleashed. The traditional way to shoot a scene is to start off wide because it establishes the lighting, and then you go in for close-ups. We got the camera and, suddenly, these faucets started to open and we were like, âOkay, cut! Get the camera in as quick as you can!â We flew the camera in and we just went, and he would go until he was dry. And then, we would take a 10-minute break and we would go again until he was dry. It was a bit abusive, but he loved it. (laughter) We enjoyed it.That was why the editing took so long. He and Rachel, both, played every scene on every note imaginable. Usually, the actor will give you just one kind of take on it, but then I was like, âYou know what? Play it as Tomas, play it as Tom, play it sad, play it angry, play it a little angrier, play it now really happy.â We just bounced around and tried different things, and it was a joy.
So far, all three of your films have been somewhat open to interpretation. At one point, you were attached to do a âBatmanâ . . .
No. I wasnât ever attached to do âBatman.â âBatmanâ was a writing gig. It was about coming off of âRequiem for a Dream,â dreaming about doing âThe Fountain,â realizing that was going to cost a decent amount of dime and, seeing how the studio probably perceived me as the guy who just did a $4 million drug movie, when they offered me the chance to do something on âBatmanâ and I realized that I could work with one of my heroes, Frank Miller, I was like, âIf I develop this, it might actually open up their perception of me to do âThe Fountain.ââ But, I was really trying to make âThe Fountainâ for the last six years.
Would you do something more linear like that, or will you continue to have this sort of vision for your films?
Iâm just going to make them weirder and weirder and weirder. Weâve always been trying to push the envelope of what you can do in cinema. Matty, my DP, always says weâre wild style filmmakers. Wild style was that crazy, graffiti writing style, but you could recognize who wrote what all the time, by the style of the letters. And, I think for us weâre always trying to put a visual language into a film that helps tell the story that youâre doing, but is incredibly unique and, hopefully, interesting for people.
When âThe Fountainâ was put on hold, you said you worked on other things that formed the germ of what will probably be your next project. Can you talk about what that is?
No. (Laughter) But CHUD has an exclusive.
You said that your next film was going to be something Biblical, your first film was about God and math, and this film is spiritual, in an agnostic way. Whatâs your take on God? Are you religious? Do you believe in God?
I think the themes of âThe Fountain,â about this endless cycle of energy and matter, tracing back to the Big Bang . . . The Big Bang happened, and all this star matter turned into stars, and stars turned into planets, and planets turned into life. Weâre all just borrowing this matter and energy for a little bit, while weâre here, until it goes back into everything else, and that connects us all. The cynics out there laugh at this crap, but itâs true. The messed up thing is how distracted we are and disconnected from that connection, and the result of it is what weâre doing to this planet and to ourselves. Weâre just completely killing each other and killing the planet, and itâs a state of emergency right now, I think. All of my charity work has always been about the environment. There are 15,000 species on the endangered species list. Mercury poisoning is my new thing. Weâre doing it to ourselves. The fact that thereâs mercury poisoning in the breast milk of indigenous people in the North Arctic is all coming from us, and Alzheimerâs is on the rise. What are we doing to ourselves? Itâs a complete disconnect. To me, thatâs where the spirituality is. Whatever you want to call that connection - some people would use that term God. That, to me, is what I think is holy.
Did you change anything for the PG-13?
The only change was thereâs an added line that was in the trailer, but wasnât in the movie, which is the âDeath is a disease and thereâs a cure, and I will find it.â That was a line that Hugh wanted in, that I couldnât figure out a place for, and I had to tinker with it.
You didnât cut any of the violence?
No, no. The violence is all the same.
Then how did you change it from R to PG-13?
Negotiation.