Poll

Your Favorite Darren Aronofsky Film Is...

Pi
9 (11.3%)
Requiem for a Dream
26 (32.5%)
The Fountain
11 (13.8%)
haven't seen any
2 (2.5%)
don't like any
2 (2.5%)
The Wrestler
10 (12.5%)
Black Swan
19 (23.8%)
Noah
0 (0%)
mother!
1 (1.3%)
The Whale
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 79

Author Topic: Aronofsky, Darren  (Read 19551 times)

Junior

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Re: Aronofsky, Darren
« Reply #40 on: September 02, 2008, 04:37:23 PM »
We are overlooking the most important thing. Why does nobody like his best one? It's just me and one other person.
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sizifo

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Re: Aronofsky, Darren
« Reply #41 on: September 02, 2008, 04:53:58 PM »
I don't think manic depression fits with his paranoia (one of the primary features of his disorder, fueling his delusions, hallucinations and obsessive behavior), and he doesn't appear to cycle from one mood to another but rather grows progressively more disturbed over several days (in the spiral structure of the narrative).

I don't wanna get into a psychiatry discussion, because I don't know enough, but I'll take your word on the above. I was just wondering whether he really meant one disorder and not the other, and whether he meant a disorder at all. And you were very deliberate: it's a movie about schizo not about math, so I asked.

I also asked because, when I first watched it, I didn't really think all that much in terms of him being mentally  ill, but rather as someone who's putting himself through hell for an impossibly difficult problem. Also there is that balance in the film, he is meant to have been well before embarking on the problem, a talented phd student of the russian guy who is trying to prevent him from taking things to a point of no return. Whereas the psychiatric illnesses we've mentioned to me have a connotation of something you're born with, that you need to control with medicine rather than by choice.

As far as my maths comment: it's not about maths in that aronofsky is not doing a documentary about number theory. It's also not close as far as the methods of the man, in the way he works, and so on. In some sense in the details. But it definitely could be about maths allegorically.

The other element is that of "false gods".  There is a notion that he could be wrong, that it's all an accident, the russian guy tells him at some point that he's just "becoming a numerologist". For me that was where pride and paranoia came in. For this reason the religious parallel worked very well.

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Re: Aronofsky, Darren
« Reply #42 on: September 02, 2008, 04:54:18 PM »
We are overlooking the most important thing. Why does nobody like his best one? It's just me and one other person.

You are overlooking the obvious answer. :P

m_rturnage

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Re: Aronofsky, Darren
« Reply #43 on: September 02, 2008, 05:01:46 PM »
We are overlooking the most important thing. Why does nobody like his best one? It's just me and one other person.

Ah, the mystery of the box office receipts is finally solved. It was you!
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Junior

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Re: Aronofsky, Darren
« Reply #44 on: September 02, 2008, 05:04:45 PM »
We are overlooking the most important thing. Why does nobody like his best one? It's just me and one other person.

Ah, the mystery of the box office receipts is finally solved. It was you!

No, I watched it on DVD. It must have been the other one.
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m_rturnage

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Re: Aronofsky, Darren
« Reply #45 on: September 02, 2008, 05:24:36 PM »
I often wondered why there wasn't an SNL-style parody called Pie.

"When I was a little kid my mother told me not to smash the meringue into my face. So once when I was six, I did. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal. I was terrified, alone in that banana cream-scented darkness. Slowly daylight crept in through the bandages, and I could see, but something else had changed inside of me. That day I had my first toothache. "
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sdedalus

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Re: Aronofsky, Darren
« Reply #46 on: September 02, 2008, 05:25:10 PM »
I don't wanna get into a psychiatry discussion, because I don't know enough, but I'll take your word on the above. I was just wondering whether he really meant one disorder and not the other, and whether he meant a disorder at all. And you were very deliberate: it's a movie about schizo not about math, so I asked.

I also asked because, when I first watched it, I didn't really think all that much in terms of him being mentally  ill, but rather as someone who's putting himself through hell for an impossibly difficult problem. Also there is that balance in the film, he is meant to have been well before embarking on the problem, a talented phd student of the russian guy who is trying to prevent him from taking things to a point of no return. Whereas the psychiatric illnesses we've mentioned to me have a connotation of something you're born with, that you need to control with medicine rather than by choice.

It's been years since I've seen it, but doesn't he stop taking his medication (for his "headaches" caused by staring at the sun (which is surely a metaphor)) before his final breakdown?  As I see it, he believes his illness is what gives him the mystical/mathematical insight necessary to solve the mystery, and that this belief is also a symptom of his disease.  This self-reinforcing delusion ultimately convinces him to lobotomize himself.

Of course films are about many things and can be looked at in many ways, but my point was only that the film is surely much more about the main character's state of mind (however you label) it than it is about mathematics.
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Re: Aronofsky, Darren
« Reply #47 on: September 02, 2008, 05:26:55 PM »
I often wondered why there wasn't an SNL-style parody called Pie.

"When I was a little kid my mother told me not to smash the meringue into my face. So once when I was six, I did. The doctors didn't know if my eyes would ever heal. I was terrified, alone in that banana cream-scented darkness. Slowly daylight crept in through the bandages, and I could see, but something else had changed inside of me. That day I had my first toothache. "

 :D

sizifo

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Re: Aronofsky, Darren
« Reply #48 on: September 02, 2008, 05:34:36 PM »
I don't wanna get into a psychiatry discussion, because I don't know enough, but I'll take your word on the above. I was just wondering whether he really meant one disorder and not the other, and whether he meant a disorder at all. And you were very deliberate: it's a movie about schizo not about math, so I asked.

I also asked because, when I first watched it, I didn't really think all that much in terms of him being mentally  ill, but rather as someone who's putting himself through hell for an impossibly difficult problem. Also there is that balance in the film, he is meant to have been well before embarking on the problem, a talented phd student of the russian guy who is trying to prevent him from taking things to a point of no return. Whereas the psychiatric illnesses we've mentioned to me have a connotation of something you're born with, that you need to control with medicine rather than by choice.

It's been years since I've seen it, but doesn't he stop taking his medication (for his "headaches" caused by staring at the sun (which is surely a metaphor)) before his final breakdown?  As I see it, he believes his illness is what gives him the mystical/mathematical insight necessary to solve the mystery, and that this belief is also a symptom of his disease.  This self-reinforcing delusion ultimately convinces him to lobotomize himself.

Of course films are about many things and can be looked at in many ways, but my point was only that the film is surely much more about the main character's state of mind (however you label) it than it is about mathematics.

I agree with the 2nd paragraph. It could have been about him building the longest model train in the world, and not about maths. Obviously I didn't see it quite the same way you did, so I don't quite agree with the 1st. Can't say I remember the medication part, but you're surely right.

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Re: Aronofsky, Darren
« Reply #49 on: April 25, 2010, 08:03:13 AM »
Well, this poll is rather out of date.

1. Requiem for a Dream - brilliant, wrenching, amazingly creative
2. The Wrestler - great, especially Rourke of course
3. Pi - extremely weird and clever and interesting


... time passes ...


... more time ...


... checking watch ...


... wait for it ...


4. The Fountain - unwatchably stupid and awful

 

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