43 Comments
Thank you!!!
very very very thank you
your work is a move that deserves far more accolade than it received too
as you said about movie
(I Copied this sentence from your Writings.lol!)
RmaN,
Thanks for showing me where I had a pretty good spelling error! lol. I fixed it, so your comment doesn’t really make sense anymore, but I wanted to say thanks. Hope everyone is enjoying the soundtrack!
Hey,
What happened to your follow up article?
_______
Check out my Health article on Healthcare Laws
( http://ideasprojectqa.nokia.com/ideas/3735 )
many thanks for your work… but… i wanna be a drooling ‘sumer-zombie… i wanna keep up with the jones’… really…
Thank you! I have been looking for DA’s Commentary on one of my favorite movies, The Fountain for a long time.
Wow. Just…wow. This is quite a service you’ve done for fans of The Fountain! Thank you!
Thank you for doing this! Criminally underrated film that I fear will never get the treatment it deserves.
It appears that the page on DA’s site for the commentary isn’t even working anymore, which is a loss, so double thank you for preserving it!
I really wish I could put this in a more eloquent fashion, but… Thank You… You have done a wonderful thing… I truly appreciate the effort …
The file links seem to be broken, is either version available any more? I’m having trouble even finding Aranofsky’s commentary track online, which would be plenty! I’ve never had the chance to listen to it, I only just found out about it.
Sorry, I updated my WordPress to the latest version, and it changed something about the way the blog handled the link. It’s re-coded and addressed correctly. Many thanks to Ryan for letting me know it wasn’t working.
My Interpretation of The Metaphors and Symbols in The Fountain Movie — Darren Aronofsky’s Single ‘Rubik’s Cube’ Solution Found!!
http://www.facebook.com/groups/111702785583735/doc/356599954427349/
The Fountain movie contains many popular themes and concepts from Science and Spirituality. The director of the movie Darren Aronofsky said that there is a definitive interpretation to the many ambiguous themes and concepts within the movie–
“Aronofsky insists that “The Fountain,” no matter how ambiguous, has a definitive interpretation: his. “It’s very much like a Rubik’s cube, where you can solve it in several different ways, but ultimately there’s only one solution at the end,” he says.”
Director Darren Aronofsky: A ‘Fountain’ Quest Fulfilled
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/23/AR2006112300534.html
What the director meant to say is that the metaphors and symbols within the film are constructed within the context of the movie. There can only be 1 way to perceive the movie that can logically explain all of the metaphors and symbols correctly. This is exactly what my following interpretation of the movie will accomplish. You will see that it will explain everything in a logical way.
Even though the director intended the movie to contain various spiritual and scientific metaphors and symbols, I doubt that he is fully conscious and understands what many of these metaphors and symbols really mean at a deeper level. I guess I can never know because he did not reveal his interpretation of all of the movie’s metaphors and symbols even in his own commentary of the movie, maybe he does not yet know the true meanings himself! Perhaps he was under divine guidance or was dealing with the movie’s themes mostly from a subconscious state of mind.
The Fountain Commentary By The Director of The Movie
Even though there is the possibility that the director(and the writer) might not realize the full extent of the various meanings of the religious/spiritual metaphors and symbols, he did accomplish putting them together in a very comprehensive and beautiful/harmonious way that is also very sensory and touching. He did mention of re-doing the movie into a new version by assembling the unused alternate scenes, which I think is unnecessary because the current version works just fine to tell the story.
There are many people who saw the movie but did not understand what the movie is about. This is because they lack the sufficient spiritual knowledge and understanding. Without having a deep understanding of various spiritual and scientific concepts, a person would not be able to decode and understand the fully meaning of the movie and therefore cannot appreciate and be conscious of the full intensity of the visual experience. But it’s about time the solution is made known to anyone who seeks it.
My Interpretation of The Movie’s Metaphors and Symbols
There are many themes dealing with Spirituality and Science that revolves around the characters of Queen Isabella/Izzy and Tomas/Tommy.
The Movie’s Main Theme of Spiritual Liberation Vs Physical Liberation– The movie begins with Queen Isabel of Spain knowing about the tree of life from the Mayan jungles and seeks to acquire its life-enhancing qualities. She seeks this to benefit Spain and to free it from its bondage. However, she desires to free it from spiritual bondage rather than only physical bondage. Thomas the conquistador only perceives the tree for physical liberation. The Queen talks about hope of the spiritual while Tomas talks about hope for the physical. She does not want Spain and humanity to be kept under the false rule of the Church but be free from its spiritual bondage, which is why the Church and the Inquisitor wanted to stop her from taking away their power.
The Theme of The Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve– The Queen perceives the Garden of Eden as a place where a soul can be spiritually united with another. She also perceives this place where one can exist in a deeper relationship with the Divine away from the physical bondage that Spain was facing. This theme is further explained on a deeper level as the movie progresses to the end.
The Different Color Symbols– The Queen wears gold that represents her close connection and desire to be with the Divine. The other characters such as Tomas the Conquistador, his group, the Inquisitor and Father Avila always wears black that represents their focus and being caught-up in the physical and non-divine matters of reality. The gold ring that she gave to Tomas also represents one’s relationship to divinity.
The Theme of Reincarnation– The movie’s scenes from 16th century Spain, modern day and from the future represents the past lives and future lives of the main characters, which is why they look the same in different time periods. it is also why the characters of Tom and Izzy repeat the same phrases throughout different lives.
The Theme of The Book of Life(Akashic Records)– Izzy writes a book that are actually true memories of her and Tom’s past life in 16th century Spain. She wrote the book to the point where both their past lives ended at Chapter 11 with the account of the death of Tomas the Conquistador by the hands of the Mayan guard. Her book’s Chapter 12 is now faced with the theme of her Death as she is reminded of the saying “death is the road to awe”, which is mentioned by the Mayan pyramid guard as well as the Mayan tour guide she met. I think the usage of ’12’ to represent an ending is also related to the Mayan’s ending of their calender.
The Concept of Twin Flames– The idea of souls who cooperate in pairs to experience the physical reality is mentioned. Tom and Izzy represent the 2 contrasting qualities of active and passive soul qualities from the Garden of Eden represented by Adam and Eve. The Garden of Eden represents the place where souls are able to have their original group consciousness with one another and with the Divine. The banish of Adam and Eve represents the leaving of contrasting types of souls to experience Duality in the physical plane. Tom represents the active aggressive part(Adam), Izzy represents the passive gentle part(Eve). Izzy felt that it is appropriate for Tom to continue writing the memories in the book for her, which symbolizes that the book is actually about the memories of both of their lives that reincarnates in different time periods.
The Theme of Simultaneous Time and Simultaneous Lives– The movie reflects the theme of simultaneous time and simultaneous lives, which is why the scenes of the characters’ lives in different time periods are frequently interchanging throughout the whole movie. Simultaneous time and the related simultaneous lives are popular scientific concepts already seen in many science fiction TV dramas such as Star Trek:TNG(Yesterday’s Enterprise), Star Trek Voyager(Year of Hell Part 1 & 2), Voyager (Time and Again), Voyager(Timeless) and Enterprise(Twilight). The concepts of simultaneous time and simultaneous lives involve the idea that doing a certain action in present time can simultaneously affect the events in past and future time periods. In the Star Trek Voyager episode Year of Hell Part 2, the destruction of the time ship happens simultaneously with the changing of an event in the captain’s early life in the way that he took a walk with his wive rather than stay on to finish his work. This episode is similar to The Fountain movie in how both the about-to-be-dead wives ask their husbands to take a walk with them away from their work. In the Enterprise episode, the elimination of some of the virus in Captain Archer’s brain in the future also simultaneously eliminated some of the virus’ presence in his brain in an earlier time period. By completely eliminating the virus from his brain in the future, it changed the past and led to the beginning of a new timeline/reality.
In The Fountain movie, similar events and emotional reactions involving the different characters are constantly shown to happen simultaneously throughout different time periods lives. The death of Izzy is shown to be happening with the simultaneous death of the tree. The blackout in the lab after Izzy’s recent death that represents the deepening level of Tom’s denial of facing death is shown to happen simultaneously with Tom’s deepening denial of facing the tree’s death in the future.
The Theme of Denial– Izzy’s book is meant to continue with the modern-day accounts of Izzy’s death and how she will continue to live on spiritually after her physical death, based on the folklore from the Mayan tour guide she met. She insists that Tom writes out his experiences of her dying but he refuses because he is in great denial of acknowledging it as a valid/real experience and memory. This is why he cannot finish writing the book until he can resolve his denial of facing death.
The Theme of Karma– Tom’s denial of the bad/undesirable events in his life and his focus on wanting only the good/desirable events points to him being caught in the cycle of Karma. In all his past, present and future lives, Tom was fixated in preserving the lives of Spain, Izzy and the tree. In every life of his, he denies the facing of death but is obsessed with preserving life. Tom sees death as something bad/undesirable and preserving life as something good/desirable.
Because Tom has great expectations of how reality should be, he is greatly traumatized by the bad/undesirable events related to Izzy’s illness that fuels his discrimination between the good/desirable and bad/undesirable in reality, which leads him to then be again affected and traumatized by more of the bad/undesirable moments from Izzy’s illness. This cycle of Karma that makes one emotionally biased towards good and bad events continues to severely infect Tom like a never-ending disease up till the distant future where he is in his bubble spaceship.
The Different Color Symbols– Throughout the movie, Izzy wears white to represent her innocence or unbiased perception towards the nature of reality such as feeling neutral towards her illness and being unbiased/open-minded towards the Mayan legends. She is in direct contrast to Tom her surgeon husband. His wearing of black represents his mind being close-off to the rest of reality around him as though it is in denial mode, similar to the black-wearing Tomas the conquistador who was not in tune with spiritual concepts but shows much skepticism, which is also similar to the black-wearing Tom in the spaceship. Tom’s wearing of black also symbolizes his intense focus on the physical reality rather than on the divine(gold). Tom was shown to be so distracted by the physical events that he also got hit by a car. Izzy is not as open to connect with the Divine as the Queen was in her past life but she is wearing white as the symbol of her openness and desire to connect to the Divine(gold), which is seen from her wearing of the gold ring and the gold earrings at the museum that symbolizes her increased connection to the Divine as she learns more about the Mayan folklore. The movie is filled with gold lighting including the color of the Nebula, which represents the Divine being present as though it is watching over the different events taking place.
When Izzy was under the white light in the museum, under the white light on her death bed in the hospital, as well as being covered under the presence of white snow in winter, they all represent her openness connection to the Divine. This is similar to the Queen being bathed in the white morning light as a symbol of her strong connection to the Divine.
The Theme of Denial — Tom lost his gold ring just when he was falling greater away from his spiritual/divine relationship to Izzy’s soul. Tom perceives the ring as a physical attachment to Izzy rather than spiritual/divine. Tom was working all day and night being a work monk, being concerned with survival of the physical. The ring disappears just as he went deeper in his ‘black denial’ of the bad/undesirable experience of his wife’s impending death, which then later continues into the far future as rings of black lines on his arms that represents the amount of time he is under the denial. His fall into greater denial is also seen from his return to the darkly-lit lab from the outside snow. The gold/divine ring does not return until Tom is ready to give up his denial and be ready to regain the divine/spiritual connection with Izzy.
After Izzy’s death, Tom went into greater denial by seeking to find the cure for death. He then chooses the Tree of Life as his substitution for Izzy’s presence. He imagines the tree’s bark and sprouts as substitutions for the skin and hairs of Izzy. He became obsessed with preserving the tree’s immortality by taking it to the Nebula so that it can live on, as a form of distraction from Izzy’s death, which is why he kept telling the images of Izzy to leave him alone while he caresses the tree in a mentally deluded way. At the beginning of the movie, the image of Izzy kept appearing to him until he relented in his denial of her death and gave in a little to her death– he told her to take him and show him how it ends which began the eventual recollection of his past as shown in the rest of the movie.
The Theme of The Soul Having a Physical Human Experience– Izzy keeps appearing to Tom in the spaceship telling him to “finish it”, which means she was telling him to face up to the events of her death and accept them as memories to be put into the book. She is telling him to finish up his experience of facing up to physical death in all of his lifetimes.
The Theme of Simultaneous time and Simultaneous lives– At the end of the movie as Tom was deeply saddened by the dying tree, Izzy appears as Queen Isabel to help Tom by reminding him about gaining freedom from spiritual and physical bondage. Tom being faced with the death of the tree and being reminded of Izzy’s death, realizes that the way to be free from his own spiritual and physical bondage is by removing his denial of physical death caused by his over-attachment to the physical. He realizes the meaning of being able to live forever with Izzy in the spiritual sense rather than in the physical. He then applies this realization in removing his past life’s denial of facing physical death from the perspective of Tomas and in earlier moments of his life from the perspective of Tommy.
The Theme of Creating New Timelines/Realities– When Tom finally chooses to face the bad/undesirable events of death, he was then able to face up to reality and ‘finish the book’. He is able to re-experience the different lives in the way that they were meant for him to experience, which then simultaneously creates different new realities or new timelines in different time periods. The reliving of one’s past lives with the same situations but made with different choices is clearly depicted by Tom going through new pathways from the old ones by leaving the lab to go after Izzy, and Tomas being able to go past the pyramid’s guard to experience the continuation of life after death. The future Tom also went through a passage hole in the bubble ship to separate himself from his old attachment to the tree.
The Theme of Denial –Tom was shown leaving behind his black denial by leaving the black lab and going into the white snow to approach Izzy. Tom in the future is simultaneously now shown to be dressed in white.
The Theme of Simultaneous time and Simultaneous lives– Because Tomas got to experience life being created from death on the Mayan pyramid, this simultaneously allows Tom to accept the concept of life being created from death, and helps in his acceptance of Izzy’s road to death and eventual passing. This is also the reason why he planted a seed in Izzy’s grave as he says goodbye to her. He also simultaneously got to accept facing his own death in the future.
The Theme of The Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve– The future Tom is now ready for the spiritual/non-physical marriage with Izzy(passive) in the Garden of Eden found in the spiritual realm. He is ready to unite spiritually with Izzy as Adam and Eve was united in the Garden of Eden. He is also ready to move into a close relationship with the Divine(gold) where Izzy is already at. This is symbolized by Tom putting on the divine/gold ring to replace the black mark of denial on his finger that represents his old attachment to the physical.
The Theme of Simultaneous time and Simultaneous lives– Tom’s choice to not be obsessed with preserving life simultaneously ends the possibility of his future self’s journey to the nebula. This is symbolized by the flashing out of the nebula as seen by Tom at Izzy’s grave.
Because Tom spent all of his time with Izzy till her death, he got to fulfill her request to finish the book before she died. In the ending scene, Tom was with Izzy in a white-lit room representing both their openness/unbiased/neutrality towards facing and accepting the good/desirable and bad/undesirable aspects of reality. He said to her without any fear or denial that “everything’s alright”.
The End
Feel free to post your comments.
http://www.facebook.com/groups/111702785583735/doc/356599954427349/
Nice work, David!
Since Aronofsky’s site no longer has a link to the isolated commentary, I will post a link here for download: http://www.weisbrodimaging.com/blog/?p=79
man you r a life saver
David, you are my new favourite person! 🙂
The Fountain is my very favourite film ever (closely followed by ‘Perfect Sense’ and ‘Mr. Nobody’) and I can’t wait to watch the film tonight with this director’s commentary.
Thank you so much!
X0tkZw A round of applause for your blog post.Really looking forward to read more. Want more.
I truly appreciate this post. I’ve been looking everywhere for this! Thank goodness I found it on Bing. You have made my day! Thank you again! 😉 😉
Thank you for this audio!
I’m a big fan of the movie and the directors work, and thought you deserved the comment!
This movie is about someone becoming the bhudda. The buddha claimed all the suffering in the world is caused by 3 things. Greed Anger and Ignorance. The 3 parts of this film show the 3 types of suffering. From trying to steal eternal life for ones self, being angry with mortality from the death of a loved one and the ignorance of not realizing life and death are one in the same. At the end he finally becomes enlightened, connecting to his inner buddha (shown when he transforms his body into the final lotus position). Thus, sacrificing himself as he did (when the buddha died it was said the tree he was under bloomed and all the flowers flourished.)
I realize this is a comment to a very old thread, but hopefully you’ll see it. I’ve been looking for the mp3 of just the commentary and haven’t been able to find it. I downloaded your mp3 and have a legit copy of the DVD and will listen to the two of them. I’m still looking for the original commentary mp3. Do you have any suggestions for where I can locate that? Thanks.
I really appreciate the work that went into this. All these years later, I found a remix of the film on youtube and it really made me appreciate The Fountain in a way that took it from somewhat of a disappointment to a moving piece of cinema. Thanks again!
Just finished running the movie and your commentary (well, Aronofsky’s) that I found on YouTube, simultaneously. What a great experience! Thank you so very much for all your hard work and for putting on YT as not sure I’d have found it otherwise. As does the movie, the commentary gives much food for thought! Great for my 2nd watch out of many to come.
I’m not sure where a copy of the original commentary is available – I know that it was taken down from Aronofski’s website. I’ll take a look at home and see if I have the original one floating around somewhere. If so, I’ll post it. So sorry I didn’t see all these comment before – it was buried in a pile of spam comments that I just got around to sifting through!
Thanks so much for hosting this! I somehow didn’t hear about this commentary track until now, eight years later (!), and Aronofsky himself isn’t offering it any longer; you have my gratitude. 🙂
Thanks a lot! One of my favourite movies, absolutely wonderful.
Thank you! The Fountain is the most powerful movie I have ever experienced!
Thanks a lot. i really dont know what to say, i was looking every where for this and you have really done this, its here in your website.
I really thank you for this and i wanted to say i also loved your website and your photos
keep working please…
If you love movies with Symbols and meanings please watch “The Fall” directed by Tarsem Singh. I have decoded each and every scene of the movie. My tongue can drop about talking of this movie.
[…] Darren Aronofsky Director Commentary Aronofsky recorded his own director’s commentary, and then this other awesome guy edited it into the audio track from the movie. Get the thing David Weisbrod […]
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Hello, got audio version that last 1:36:54 while your file is 1:36:30. I then have to delay audio by 24 seconds or it does not matter ? Many thanks for your dedication; I really appreciated it
[…] Download an MP3 or AC3 of the audio file here:http://www.weisbrodimaging.com/blog/2… […]
please update the link
That link is no longer valid! I’ve updated the link in the post.
It shouldn’t matter. But I did the audio from the original DVD – not sure if the Blu-Ray or other versions of the DVD that have been published recently might be different? But it should work. I do not think that the studio has put any more cash into this movie – they have always looked at it as a failure.
Really appreciate your hosting this. Hope your bandwidth isn’t too high.
Thank you so much for this! It has been my favorite movie in years. Such a masterpiece. It has everything: science-fiction, romance, history, action, poetry, a complex narrative and an amazing soundtrack. Just perfect. Really apreciate your kind contribution.
So, I’ve spent WAY too much time doing this, but I wanted Darren Aronofsky’s commentary on his movie “The Fountain” remixed with the actual audio from the movie, so I could re-burn my DVD withe the director’s commentary as an extra audio track, like it should have been done from the studio.
But before we get to the download, let me just say that I’ve never been one to be too much of a “fanboy”, but in this case, I’ll admit it readily. I loved The Fountain. I honestly consider it one of the bravest and most astounding movies ever made. Aronofsky is a director who communicates visually as much as he does through dialogue, and that is pretty rare. He packs his movies full of symbolism and visual meaning like no other director of his generation.
Anyway, I have a lot of opinions about The Fountain, and some of its meaning, and I know that I am probably in the minority when I say that I believe that the only “fictional” part of the movie is the Conquistador portion of the movie. I believe that Tommy the doctor and Tom the space traveler are the same person. I believe that Tommy really does find the cure for death, and spends a lonely eternity searching for his wife’s soul, until he realizes that death is not the evil thing that he thinks is it. He finally stops being afraid of death, and realizes that the end of all his searching is the very thing he has been running away from: Death itself.
I could go on, but that is not the purpose of this entry in my blog. Maybe I’ll write more about my reasons for those ideas sometime later. But what we’re talking about here is me being a fanboy, and the fact that I decided to re-work Darren Aronofsky’s Director’s Commentary of The Fountain, and make it available for you to download…
A short time after the DVD of The Fountain was released, Darren Aronofsky recorded his own director’s commentary of the film and posted it on his website. For years I have been meaning to actually re-master it, sync it up, and re-burn it to my own DVD with the director’s commentary included on a track. And for years, I’ve been putting it off. Until yesterday.
First I ripped the DVD out into a full-res, uncompressed, 28 gigabyte movie file. Then I put the file into Soundtrack Pro and overlaid the Director’s Commentary on top of the original audio. Then I spend several hours dipping the levels, editing out certain sounds, and including the background audio of the movie a bit more than was in the commentary that Aronofsky made. I didn’t delete everything, sometimes because it would have been impossible (i.e. the sirens in the background at the end), and probably missed a couple coughs or a sniffle or two (sorry Darren).
So, after several hours in Soundtrack Pro, I finally had a completed AC-3 file that had Aronofsky’s commentary on it, at acceptable levels, and with the original movie audio underneath it.
And in the spirit of the internet, I am putting this audio file up for download for anyone who might want to make their own DVD with the director’s commentary on it. I only ask that if anyone asks you where you got it from, you point them here!
Now, I have purchased the DVD, and so should you. I ripped these files from the copy of the movie that I own. So should you. Especially for a movie like this – a movie that deserves far more accolade than it received. (And I know I’m not alone in this opinion, and I won’t apologize for thinking that the American public needs to stop feeding the Transformers monster and start demanding films that make us think).
At the bottom of this post is the file. Today I spend another hour in DVD Studio Pro adding the tracks, overlaying them, and then adding scripts to allow me to choose the audio for the main track. I now have my own personal DVD with both the regular version of the movie’s audio, and I can turn on Darren Aronofksi’s commentary track any time I want. (That file, however, I’m not going to post, for obvious reasons.)
So for whoever finds this post, and this blog, enjoy the commentary, and keep watching movies that make you feel and think, not just turn into a drooling consumer-zombie!
Download the mp3 file (231MB)
Download the ac3 file (324MB)