Mr. Foppy 01.12.08: The Fountain

Posted by Peter Bielik on 01.12.2008

One of my friend Pišta's favorite films.

Let me start this week of by saying- fuck you! Fuck you to my professor who doesn't see fit to coming to an exam that was scheduled weeks ago. The snag is, I'm studying in a different town than my hometown, so I had to travel there for a couple of hours. And she doesn't even come or leave a note! I mean, seriously- WHAT THE FUCK?! How can someone be an unresponsible scumbag that doesn't care some students had to fuckin' travel quite a lot to get to the exam. Unbelievable.

With that out of the way, we can look at this week's inductee. It's another recent film, just like last week's and just like last week's it's a science fiction movie. Not in the same vain however.



Year of the cock-up: 2006

Budget: $35,000,000

Domestic gross: $10,144,010

Foreign gross: $5,794,280

Worldwide gross: $15,938,290


Darren Aronofsky is a talented individual. I think it's fair to state that right at the very beginning. He first let the world know about himself in 1998, when his first feature film Pi (or π if you like) was released. Even though he had serious trouble raising the money necessary to finance the film, it paid off because it gained much attention from the critics and even won Aronofsky the Directing award at the Sundance Film Festival. Even though by no means was this a catapult to stardom, Aronofsky earned himself the reputation of a very promising talent. He proved that reputation right with his next film.
Hubert Selby is an American author who wrote Last Exit to Brooklyn—one of the talented director's favorite books. While finishing Pi, the film's producer suggested that Aronofsky read another book from Selby- Requiem for a Dream. He did so, loved it and immediately began writing a script. Because he already had a name, he was able to finance this piece with greater ease.

The finished product is an amazing movie that definitely let everybody know about a new talent in town. Requiem for a Dream is an amazing film. Aronofsky's uncompromising look at addiction as the worst way of achieving your dreams and people whose lives were destroyed by it is breathtaking. Very few films I've seen left me so emotionally drained afterwards. The cinematography was great, the direction was great, the actors were great (Marlon Wayans? A good actor? Miracles do happen sometimes.)- simply put, Requiem for a Dream is one of the best films I've ever seen. Everything just clicks. The critics loved it and even though it wasn't a box office hit, subsequent releases on VHS and DVD gained the film a very strong following. As of this moment, it has an average rating of 8.5 and is #64 on IMDB's Top 250.
So with only 2 movies under his belt, Aronofsky was already in the position of having a complete freedom of what to do next. And it took him six years before his next project was finally brought to the silver screen. The original idea was, of course, that the entire production would go smoothly. Well, that didn't happen.

Free to choose any project he desired, Aronofsky decided to make a science fiction film. A new breed of science fiction that would be void of the flashy technical aspects that became the norm for the genre over the years. The director wanted to go beyond typical science fiction films that were plot-driven by technology and science. Right about this point in time, both Aronofsky's parents were battling cancer, while his grandmother was denied a dignified departure from this world. Aronofsky remembers: "She was 93 years old and suffered a heart attack. She was taken to the hospital. They tried to resuscitate her three times and broke her ribs while doing so. We spend enormous fortune trying to keep alive the people that should no longer be alive. We don't allow them to die." These incidents in his personal life were obviously a huge factor when it came to choosing the topic of his next film and its following realization. It was an ambitious project, maybe too ambitious for Aronofsky to handle.

He decided to handle this topic in a grand way—his film would take place in three different timelines, taking place in years 1500, 2000 and 2500 respectively. Aronofsky even flew to to Central America to consult with Mayan experts, as one of the film's three plots was about a conquistador looking for the Tree of Life in Mayan temples. A project like this needed a lot of money to finance, but even though studio heads were impressed by Aronofsky, they weren't going to give him tens of millions of dollars without having confidence it would make money. In translation that means they wanted a star to participate in this. And fortunately for the young visionary, he was able to find one- Brad Pitt.
Pitt was impressed by Requiem for a Dream and agreed to the film. Following Pitt, Aronofsky was able to attract Cate Blanchett for the main part and all was fine with the world. The studio agreed to a budget of $70 million. Of course, the happiness was extremely short-lived as Blanchett was slated to participate in April of 2001, but by June 2002 no material was shot, because charming Cate got pregnant. Aronofsky wanted to wait for her, but the studio was increasingly concerned over an escalating budget and threatened to cease the project unless a co-financier was found. Eric Watson, Aronofsky's friend and co-producer, petitioned independent production companies for support and was able to find one that agreed to do so. Thus, the production was set to begin in October 2002. But much to everybody's chagrin, the main star was starting to find more and more quibbles in the script.
Pitt was initially very excited about the project, but as the time went on his enthusiasm slowly diminished as his proposed script revisions were not met. He left the project seven weeks prior to the first day of shooting and with $18 million worth of sets already spent. With the studio threatening to shut down the project, Aronofsky overnighted the script for The Fountain to actor Russell Crowe as a potential replacement for Pitt. Crowe politely refused the offer and so in September 2002 it was announced The Fountain would cease production, with Blanchett receiving compensation for her time and the Australian crew being fired from the halted project.
As a result of this unfortunate turn of events, Aronofsky suffered a long depression. Immediately after returning from the Australian sets, he left for China, where he remained in a weeks long self-imposed exile.
After returning, Aronofsky remembered that as a former independent director, he was used to cutting down costs on his films.
He changed the script to a something a lot less epic, excluding a big time battle sequence for example. In February 2004, Warner Bros. resurrected Aronofsky's project and greenlighted it for the second time with a budget of $35 million and Hugh Jackman as the leading man. Jackman reached quite a stardom thanks to X-Men, so the studio was happy. Surprisingly, it was Wolverine himself who pitched the idea of casting Rachel Weisz as the other half of the story's couple. The problem was of course, that Aronofsky and Weisz were in a relationship together and he didn't want to show any signs of favoritism in casting her. When the trio met together for a lunch, Aronofsky saw that a spontaneous bond formed between the two and he agreed that it would translate well on film. Obviously not a jealous type. This time nobody withdrew and the shooting went as planned.
The film's locations, with the exception of scenes filmed at a museum and at a farmhouse, were built in Montreal. The only expensive decoration that remained from the original epic script, was the tree of life, seen in two of the film's parts.

One part of the film takes place in deep space, which our hero cruises in a space ship that's basically a transparent bubble. Because of this, we see all the stars and planets around the ship, but Aronofsky wanted to use as little CGI as possible. The solution came in the form of Peter Parks, an expert in macro photography. Parks brewed chemicals and bacteria together to create reactions of which the visual effects team shot 20,000 feet worth of film in the course of eight weeks for The Fountain. Instead of millions of dollars for a single special effects sequence, Parks generated all the footage for the film for just $140,000.

The film was finished and when the trailers appeared, movie buffs around the world became increasingly more excited about the film. With the cult status that Requiem for a Dream has achieved, the modest budget and the well known names- everybody thought the film would at the very least break even at the box office. These prognoses were terribly wrong, unfortunately for all involved.

The film's opening weekend earnings were awful- $3,768,702. To make matters worse, The Fountain wasn't universally praised and the bad word-of-mouth didn't enable to film to slowly gain an audience. Come awards season, Aronofsky's new project was forgotten.

Just like with Sunshine last week, I think it's quite unfortunate this film performed so horribly at the box office. Personally, I loved the film. Several people called it pretentious and that it's presumed philosophical depth is non-existent. I don't think that's exactly getting the point.
This movie is about love, life and death. But it's not giving you an overly complicated dose of deeply philosophical dialogues or scenes- it's actually quite easy to understand and the final message it delivers definitely is worth thinking about.
I understand that some people are still going to say it's an artsy-fartsy boring stuff, but I think there's a great difference in being pretentious and being ambitious.
This film is ambitious. Maybe too ambitious, but at least someone in Hollywood is trying to break new ground. At least someone is trying to think outside of the box and create unique cinematic experiences. Aronofsky might not hit all needles on their heads, but he's certainly giving it his best and his movies are at the very least interesting to watch.

The Fountain may (or may not) be a movie that'll gain its acclaim several years later. I'm not saying it will, but I think there certainly is a strong possibility. I find it funny how very few people are willing to admit that something may be ahead of its time (MAY, not IS-there's a difference). That would basically mean openly admitting you may be wrong about something and unsurprisingly many people don't like to do that. I guess once again, only time will tell.




I give the award this week to the director himself- Darren Aronofsky. Personal enjoyment of the film aside, his finger really is not on the pulse of the movie-going public. Not even Hugh Jackman could help this one, as he's proven that he's a reliable draw only when he has three claws on each hand.
Aronofsky can be glad that Pitt declined the offer, because if the film would have performed like this with an even larger budget, the damage to his career would have been greater. But then again, the script would be a little different so maybe the audiences would be drawn to this much more. That's not what happened and Aronofsky is going to have more trouble raising money for his next projects. But at least he can still bang Rachel Weisz, so I guess it's not that bad a deal.

Since The Fountain was a Darren Aronofsky vehicle, I hereby award him the title Mr. Floppy.



That's all good Pete has in his magical bag for you this week, but next week he'll be back with more tasty, crisp, delicous and downright divine Mr. Floppy goodness.

Take care.

- Peter