Set Visit: The Fountain

Last Updated on September 1, 2024

Believe it or not, 7 years after founding this site and being invited (and covering) over 20 set visits, this was the first time that I, JoBlo (aka Berge Garabedian) actually went on a movie set myself. I’d prefer to let many of our more qualified personnel travel the world and check out the many cool film sets, and since I don’t really like to know much about movies before I see them, it had all worked out pretty well so far.

That said, when Warner Bros called and asked if we’d want to visit Darren Aronofsky on the Montreal-based set of his sci-fi, epic romance (yeah, they’re not sure how to describe it at this point either), entitled The Fountain, I couldn’t help but be swayed since:

1. I’m a huge fan of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM

2. I’m a huge fan of Darren Aronofsky, a man whom I believe will grow to become one of the greater filmmakers of his generation if he keeps playing his cards correctly

3. The film stars Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, both of whom I appreciate and…

4. It was right around the corner from my place

For those who don’t know what the background on this project has been, allow me to break it down to you in a very quick fashion by saying that Aronofsky has essentially been working on this project for the past 5-6 years and actually had the film ready to start shooting with a budget of close to $90 million a couple of years ago (with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett attached as the leads), with sets already built in Australia, but “stuff” happened, Pitt eventually dropped out and the entire project had to be re-imagined.

This time around, the budget is closer to about $35 million, the script has been re-written a little to cut out of some of the unnecessary sequences that would only balloon the film’s cost, and Jackman, Weisz and Montreal are the replacements (oh, and for all who adored her in REQUIEM and thought that she got robbed of an Oscar—me included—Ellen Burstyn in also in the film).

SO WHAT’S THE MOVIE ABOUT?

Officially, the film has been kept purposely “hush-hush” so far, and not much else was given up during our day on set, but we did manage to finagle 2 “plot outlines” to the film below, which should give you a good idea of what to expect. I like that! The less you know about projects as ambitious as this one…the better, I say! The day that we visited the set was its 56th day of filming, on a 66-day shoot. The film will likely be released at the tail-end of 2005 (late fall-winter). Below are two basic synopses to the film:

THE FOUNTAIN crisscrosses through three distinct time periods – in 1535, during an ancient Mayan war; the present day, following one doctor’s desperate search for the cure for cancer, and the far future through the vast exotic reaches of space. Interweaving these three periods, THE FOUNTAIN follows Tommy (Jackman) – warrior, doctor, explorer – as the feverishly tries to beat death and prolong the life of the woman he loves.

THE FOUNTAIN is an odyssey about one man’s thousand-year struggle to save the woman he loves and find the secret to eternal life.

WHAT’S THIS ABOUT A GRAPHIC NOVEL?

That’s right, the early screenplay, which was co-written by both Aronofsky and friend Ari Handel (oh, he’s not just a friend, the man has a degree in Biology from Harvard—Aronofsky’s also a Harvard grad—as well as a PhD in Neuroscience from New York University’s Center for Neural Science—his thesis explored the role of the basal ganglia in the generation of eye movements and led to the publication of 3 papers in the journal of Neurophysiology— show-off!), was also handed over to stylized graphic artist Kent Williams (“Wolverine: Havoc” and “Blood”), who has recently finished painting it up (yeah, his artwork is actually a lot more like a painter’s work, rather than a comic-book artist—check out some of his works).

Anyway, the graphic novel, which was being created as the film was still in pre-production, will also be released later on this year by Vertigo/DC Comics, before the film’s own release. Both mediums will be essentially be covering the same story, but the visions from each man (Aronofsky on the big screen and Williams on the page) will definitely be unique. According to our press notes, the novel will be “gorgeously painted, oversized and all about the timeless truths of life, love and loss.”

WHAT DID WE SEE ON THE SET?

To be honest, we didn’t really get to see a whole damn much. We basically showed up near the end of the film’s production and were shown a set on which they were shooting part of the last section of the movie, which takes place on a “Tree of Life space-ship”. Yeah, you read that right. The actual tree/set was huge and covered by a massive green-screen backdrop, which they would obviously be adding effects later on (see the “CGI? No thanks!!”section below for more on that). As soon as I walked in and saw this massively gothic tree, I thought SLEEPY HOLLOW and the tree from which the headless horseman would keep coming out (not in size, but in shape and feel). Anyway, the idea behind the “Tree of Life spaceship” is that the tree would apparently turn into a spaceship (in the third story of the movie) and be taking Jackman’s astronaut character through space. Should make for a very interesting chapter.

TELL US ABOUT THE TEASER THEY SHOWED YOU!

Most of our day on the set was spent in a room interviewing many of the people involved in the production of the film (see “What interviews will be forthcoming on the site?” section below for more on that), but at some point, we were all wrangled up and taken to another building in which they showed us an actual 2-3 minute clip from the film’s shoot so far. It wasn’t an actual “teaser” per se (in fact, it wasn’t…they told us that it was basically something Aronofsky just put together to show the cast/crew so that they can see how things were shaping up so far, and wouldn’t really explain the narrative much), but it was polished enough to see what we needed to see, and in my case…to get damn excited about!

The clip started off with Jackman leaning close into Weisz’s ear and whispering “Don’t worry…we’re almost there.”, which I liked. From there, it went into a variety of many very cool and
dark shots from various parts of the film, some of which featured a Conquistador-styled Jackman with a beard that made him look like Don Quixote, swashbuckling his way through an ancient time vis-à-vis those damn Mayans (who carry with them…fire-swords!), a more contemporary-looking Jackman working as a physician attempting to find the cure for cancer and a third incarnation of Jackman as a man with a pretty bushy beard in space (remember when Brad Pitt was growing his beard out and looked like Grizzly Adams at some point?). By the way, it might have been a coincidence or maybe a tradition or superstition of some sort, but Aronofsky himself had left his own beard grow out quite a bit, and looks like Grizzly Adams’ younger
brother on the set.

But, I digress.

Anyway, the rest of the clips were all very dark, featured lots of dark yellows and oranges, and had an obvious emphasis on style, overhead shots, and a couple of very cool transitional type scenes, whereby the camera would start showing the shot coming in “upside down” and then transitioning into “right side up” as it hit the camera. Hard to describe, but very cool and a nifty way to transition matters, which Aronofsky elaborated on to me in the section entitled “My brushes with Aronofsky” below.

When the clip finished, I attempted to start a “slow clap” and who knew…but it stuck! We all had a little laugh, as we applauded to ourselves in a room that featured only us, the two WB reps, producer Eric Watson and a couple of tech dudes. That done with, we asked Eric a few questions and he tosses us the answers, including:

• Rachel Weisz’s character is actually writing a book called “The Fountain” (…of youth) in the film – we are shown the title of the book in the film

• Watson said that the Spanish Mayan scene are likely to be the “most stylized” section the entire picture

• Hugh Jackman apparently adjusted, not only, his look for the three different characters that he plays in the film, but also his demeanor, as he would be “hunched over” as one o the characters, looked gaunt as another, etc…

• Jackman apparently lost about 15 pounds during the actual production (ultimately, to look more gaunt” as his last character in the film)

• Watson said that many people has noted that the characters played by Jackman and Weisz certainly “look like they’re related”, but don’t necessarily look like the same person

When asked about the total number of transitions in the movie (they would be switching from one story to another), Watson couldn’t say with certainty, particularly since that process would likely be better evaluated in the editing phase of the film’s post-production. He said they would obviously be attempting to make the transitions as “seamless” as possible, but that they story was definitely more on the complex side of the tracks.

MY BRUSHES WITH ARONOSFKY

I’m not really a “gushing fanboy” of anyone anymore, but I do truly appreciate many, many actors, directors and producers in the biz, and Darren Aronofsky was one of those dudes. So as I arrived a little later than the others on set (there was a Montreal snow-storm and there had been a miscommunication in the time of our meet earlier in the morning), I was whisked right onto the “Tree of Life spaceship” set, and introduced to the man himself, Darren Aronofsky, who was just walking around like your regular “JoBlo”, Saints cap on his head and bushy beard on his face.

He shook my hand and when I told him what site I was from (“JoBlo.com”) nodded and asked if that was the one with the logo – at which point, I put up my logo’s “thumbs up” and we both smiled (or maybe I was just smiling by myself…who knows…the man was a relaxed dude, is all I know). For the rest of the day (we stayed there for about 8 hours total), we ran into Darren all over the place, particularly on the “Tree of Life spaceship” set, and each time, he was cool, courteous and accommodating. He even pulledmus over to a few computer screens every now and again, and showed us some shots from the “space” shots that they’d come up with so far.

During the early evening, they were getting ready to shoot a complicated camera shot from the top of the “Tree of Life spaceship”, at which point I just happened to be standing near Aronofsky. He approached me and started explaining the shot to me. “We’re basically going to be shooting that camera down real fast, etc…”. I told him that I noticed that many of the shots from the “teaser” were overhead shots and he said that was done on purpose, a thematic tie in the story. I also noted that the shots of the camera starting “upside-down” and then switching over to “right-side-up” were also very well-handled and cool-looking in the “teaser” (that’s all I got, folks…I’m just a movie-nerd, what can I say?) and he explained that was done to keep in sync with the spaceship transitions, since he didn’t think those worked on a horizontal sweep, since the spaceship was spinning round and round, and that he wanted the other stories’
transitions, to keep that same motif. Very cool idea, my friend.

I then looked over at him and asked how happy he was that this thing was finally coming to a close (the project has been with him for 5-6 years and went through many trials and tribulations), and he smiled and said that he was so very glad that it was almost done. He said that he only had about 10 days left, after which he would be taking about 10 days off to “relax”, and then back into the editing room for more fun.

He seemed genuinely happy and relieved to be so far into the project, and I was genuinely happy for the man, who was very relaxed and unpretentious during all of his interactions with us. And yes, as a movie-nerd that I am, I did ask the Unit Publicist if I can take a picture with the man right before we left (I know it’s a “faux-pas”, but I had to try), to which she replied: “It’s
probably not something we want to do”. Pretty funny. She was right. And when all was said and done, as we like to say in the JoBlo.com side of things: Darren Aronofsky = one class act.

CGI? NO THANKS!!!

One of the very odd things that we were told during out meetings with folks on the production of this film was that Aronofsky was very adamant about his proclivity to use as little CGI as possible, as he believed that using too much of it would take away from the timeliness of the film. It’s to note that films like THE MATRIX might be seen as riding the wave of “technology” as much as others like 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, since one film’s technology might be seen to be outdated by future generations (can you say bullet-time?), while the others look and feel still holds up as a science-fiction classic (how much CGI did Kubrick use for 2001?).

That said, they utilized a manual technique performed by a man named Peter Parks, who used these tiny petrie dishes, chemicals and a solution dropper, to create some really eye-catching effects that looked damn cool on the screen (they showed us a slew of them on their Apple computers and they were quite impressive). I’m talking black holes, space lights, fiery skies, meteors, lots of cool looking shit that might have been do-able as CGI, but honestly would likely not look as cool or organic. Yeah, I said it. Anyway, I guess we’ll all have to wait and see how it will look on the bigger screens (the ones that count).

WHAT INTERVIEWS ARE COMING UP?

Other than this basic set teaser round-up, we will be posting a number of interviews with many of the main players behind this film’s production over the next little while, including a nice, big
interview with writer/director Darren Aronofsky himself as well as a bunch of stuff with producer Eric Watson, composer Clint Mansell (the same man who came up with the very awesome score for REQUIEM), production designer James Chinlund, Jeremy Dawson and Dan Schreker from the visual effects, co-writer and creative consultant AriHandel and cinematographer Matthew Libatique.

I’ll warn you right now though, none of them are particularly forthcoming with any specific information about the film’s secretive plotline, but they were more than open about their ongoing devotion, passion and dedication to the project, all of which agreed was to become something very special. From what I saw and heard…I can’t say that I disagree. This film is now officially in my top 10 of MOVIES TO SEE in 2005!

CONCLUSION:

For my first ever set visit, I had a pretty good time, despite not seeing anything being filmed or meeting either of the two stars — I apparently missed Hugh Jackman earlier in the morning, although he apparently just passed by for a “meet and greet” rather than a sit-down interview, and Rachel Weisz was simply not filming on the day we dropped into town. That said, everyone who we did meet was cool as heck, the set we did see was pretty damn impressive, the teaser we were shown was very, very slick and made me want to see the movie like…tomorrow (!!) and Darren Aronofsky, the master of the cinematic ceremony entitled THE FOUNTAIN, was very outgoing and provided me with enough about the film, to whet my appetite for a lot more and then some! Hopefully, my report has given you a nice overview of what to expect as well, and hopefully the upcoming interviews will further inform you on what else the film has to offer. Thanks to everyone at Warner Bros for the invitation, everyone on the set for being so nice and Cara
Leibovitz, the Unit Publicist, for providing us with a nice, packed day of movie coolness.