What do you think?
Rate this book
The Fountain
In three different lives in three vastly different time periods, one man, Thomas, Tommy, Tom, is desperate to beat death and to prolong the life of the woman he loves.
176 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2006
173 people want to read
About the author
Darren Aronofsky
56 books173 followersDarren S. Aronofsky (born February 12, 1969) is an American film director, screenwriter and film producer. He attended Harvard University and AFI to study both live-action and animation film theory, where he met long-time collaborator Matthew Libatique. He won several film awards after completing his senior thesis film, "Supermarket Sweep", starring Sean Gullette, which went on to become a National Student Academy Award finalist.
Aronofsky did not make a feature film until five years later, creating the concept for his debut feature, π, in February 1996. The low-budget, $60,000 production, starring Sean Gullette, was sold to Artisan Entertainment for $1 million, and grossed over $3 million; it won both a Sundance Film Festival award and an Independent Spirit Award. Aronofsky's followup, Requiem for a Dream, was based on the novel of the same name written by Hubert Selby, Jr. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Ellen Burstyn's performance. After turning down an opportunity to direct Batman Begins, Aronofsky began production on his third film, The Fountain. The film was released to mixed reviews and poor box office results.
However, his next film, The Wrestler, rebounded with positive reviews and healthy box office. Both of the film's stars, Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei, received Academy Award nominations. Rourke also won a Golden Globe for Best Actor and Bruce Springsteen won for Best Original Song for his title song. Aronofsky's next film, Black Swan, received further critical acclaim and many accolades, being nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, four Golden Globes including Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, a record 12 BFCA nominations and a DGA nomination.
Aronofsky did not make a feature film until five years later, creating the concept for his debut feature, π, in February 1996. The low-budget, $60,000 production, starring Sean Gullette, was sold to Artisan Entertainment for $1 million, and grossed over $3 million; it won both a Sundance Film Festival award and an Independent Spirit Award. Aronofsky's followup, Requiem for a Dream, was based on the novel of the same name written by Hubert Selby, Jr. The film received an Academy Award nomination for Ellen Burstyn's performance. After turning down an opportunity to direct Batman Begins, Aronofsky began production on his third film, The Fountain. The film was released to mixed reviews and poor box office results.
However, his next film, The Wrestler, rebounded with positive reviews and healthy box office. Both of the film's stars, Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei, received Academy Award nominations. Rourke also won a Golden Globe for Best Actor and Bruce Springsteen won for Best Original Song for his title song. Aronofsky's next film, Black Swan, received further critical acclaim and many accolades, being nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, four Golden Globes including Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Director, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, a record 12 BFCA nominations and a DGA nomination.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 21, 2019
Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain is an art gallery in book form. Anyone who's seen the spectacular masterpiece that is Aronofsky's film, released in 2006, will not be surprised. The Fountain, starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz is one of the most beautiful films in recent history, where Clint Mansell's incredible score perfectly complements the stunning visuals on display.
The film itself was a polarizing experience for moviegoers, but few could deny the film was visually stunning. For that reason alone, I feel I could recommend this book to not only fans of the film, but ones that weren't taken in by the story also.
This book contains some of my favourite images but it is not without its faults.
The formatting of the book has many images stretched across the two pages but the way the book is bound results in the images being compressed and parts of the picture obscured. The book is fairly small dimension-wise too, which means the images don't have as great an impact as they might otherwise have.
A larger book akin to the ones produced by Abrams for The Art of Star Wars series might have worked better for The Fountain.
Another note, although this is not necessarily a negative, is that there is no text in the book to accompany the images (with the exception of a handful of quotes embedded in the images), not even a foreword. However, a copy of the script is attached to the last page.
But, given that the film itself is one that has been open to interpretation, perhaps it's fitting that the images carry no description and can stand on their own.
Even so, these small issues don't take away from the book. A film like The Fountain deserves an accompanying book highlighting it's photography. And whilst I may have hoped for a better production for the book, it is nonetheless a worthy addition to any film aficionados collection.
The film itself was a polarizing experience for moviegoers, but few could deny the film was visually stunning. For that reason alone, I feel I could recommend this book to not only fans of the film, but ones that weren't taken in by the story also.
This book contains some of my favourite images but it is not without its faults.
The formatting of the book has many images stretched across the two pages but the way the book is bound results in the images being compressed and parts of the picture obscured. The book is fairly small dimension-wise too, which means the images don't have as great an impact as they might otherwise have.
A larger book akin to the ones produced by Abrams for The Art of Star Wars series might have worked better for The Fountain.
Another note, although this is not necessarily a negative, is that there is no text in the book to accompany the images (with the exception of a handful of quotes embedded in the images), not even a foreword. However, a copy of the script is attached to the last page.
But, given that the film itself is one that has been open to interpretation, perhaps it's fitting that the images carry no description and can stand on their own.
Even so, these small issues don't take away from the book. A film like The Fountain deserves an accompanying book highlighting it's photography. And whilst I may have hoped for a better production for the book, it is nonetheless a worthy addition to any film aficionados collection.
October 25, 2014
الكتاب ده عبقري. 3 خطوط زمنية مختلفة لنفس الشخصيتين. إيزابيل وتوماس المحارب الأسباني في زمن قديم أيام محاكم التفتيش، إزي وتوم عالم النيوروساينس في زمننا الحالي، تومي رائد الفضاء سنة 2500 وشجرة الحياة.
الخطوط ال 3 بتتضافر، بتتشابك، وبتلتحم ببعضها حتي يهيألك إن ال 3 خطوط هي خط واحد.
هل الكتاب بيتكلم هن تناسخ الأرواح؟ هل الكتاب بيتكلم عن رحلة توم مع شجرة الحياة اللي كان اكتشفها توماس علشان يلاقي إزي في النيبولا؟
مافيش تأكيد من الكاتب ولا حتي من المخرج التنفيذي بعد ما اتحول فيلم. فقظ صرحوا إن الوضع قابل للتأويل.
علي كل، الكتاب رائع.
الخطوط ال 3 بتتضافر، بتتشابك، وبتلتحم ببعضها حتي يهيألك إن ال 3 خطوط هي خط واحد.
هل الكتاب بيتكلم هن تناسخ الأرواح؟ هل الكتاب بيتكلم عن رحلة توم مع شجرة الحياة اللي كان اكتشفها توماس علشان يلاقي إزي في النيبولا؟
مافيش تأكيد من الكاتب ولا حتي من المخرج التنفيذي بعد ما اتحول فيلم. فقظ صرحوا إن الوضع قابل للتأويل.
علي كل، الكتاب رائع.
August 23, 2008
this book is really beautiful. even if you didn't dig the movie, which i'm sure you did, if you have any taste at all.
to me, anything that has to do with the fountain of youth.....................show me the way, give me a lead, throw me a line.
im there.
aronofsky does a great job in the script. the future, the past, the present. we all want to be hugh jackman searching, battling, struggling for that...........that
to me, anything that has to do with the fountain of youth.....................show me the way, give me a lead, throw me a line.
im there.
aronofsky does a great job in the script. the future, the past, the present. we all want to be hugh jackman searching, battling, struggling for that...........that
March 2, 2022
I love everything about it. The pictures, the additional art and the screenplay. Happy I found this one!
February 20, 2023
a beautiful companion and collectors item for fans of the movie. includes the final script as a booklet embedded into the back of the book that can be removed and read on its own.
December 2, 2014
I don't think making something vague and constantly making allusions to death and eternity makes it deep, and I don't think having quasi-incomplete-looking drawings of mildly repulsive-looking people (seriously, they all look smudgy and kind of deformed and the colors are rarely constrained by the shaky lines...) constitutes beautiful art. I'm a fan of color, and while I can appreciate muted smudgy misshapen things for their own distinct form of beauty, it's a little tiresome and definitely not essential as a stylistic choice for the entire story.
There were definitely decent moments, and the panels were occasionally pretty, but it seemed kind of like a hollow attempt at being "epic" to me. The scenes set in Spain dragged on, and the dialogue was embarrassingly melodramatic--which I guess is a part of comic books, even if they are pretentiousing it up and calling themselves "graphic novels."
Also, I didn't really see the Spain storyline as being "true," which seems to be the accepted interpretation of it. I kind of just saw the modern-day storyline as the real one, the Spain one as the woman's story and the futuristic one as the man's way of coming to terms with his mortality. Which is interesting, I guess, but could have been better executed, especially if the vagueness of these stories' interrelatedness was unintentional.
There was something fundamental missing from every aspect of the comic book: the dialogue was flat, the drawings looked incomplete, the narration was minimal and redundant, the characters' motivations were unclear, and the sound-effect words in the panels were hilariously cheesy when they were probably intended to be cinematic (e.g. the part where they're battling up a pyramid thing and the word "doom" is written all over those pages. subtle.)...
So The Fountain pretty much failed. Which is a shame, because I think it had potential (potential that was occasionally--but oh so rarely--showcased). Maybe if Clive Barker had done the illustrations, it would have turned out better... (I can imagine him doing some pretty glorious stuff with the trees, and definitely adding some vibrancy to this dull and overrated book.)
P.S. I reviewed this edition, even though it wasn't the one I read--I read the one with the writhing naked people on the cover--because this cover art is more along the lines of what I consider visually appealing.
There were definitely decent moments, and the panels were occasionally pretty, but it seemed kind of like a hollow attempt at being "epic" to me. The scenes set in Spain dragged on, and the dialogue was embarrassingly melodramatic--which I guess is a part of comic books, even if they are pretentiousing it up and calling themselves "graphic novels."
Also, I didn't really see the Spain storyline as being "true," which seems to be the accepted interpretation of it. I kind of just saw the modern-day storyline as the real one, the Spain one as the woman's story and the futuristic one as the man's way of coming to terms with his mortality. Which is interesting, I guess, but could have been better executed, especially if the vagueness of these stories' interrelatedness was unintentional.
There was something fundamental missing from every aspect of the comic book: the dialogue was flat, the drawings looked incomplete, the narration was minimal and redundant, the characters' motivations were unclear, and the sound-effect words in the panels were hilariously cheesy when they were probably intended to be cinematic (e.g. the part where they're battling up a pyramid thing and the word "doom" is written all over those pages. subtle.)...
So The Fountain pretty much failed. Which is a shame, because I think it had potential (potential that was occasionally--but oh so rarely--showcased). Maybe if Clive Barker had done the illustrations, it would have turned out better... (I can imagine him doing some pretty glorious stuff with the trees, and definitely adding some vibrancy to this dull and overrated book.)
P.S. I reviewed this edition, even though it wasn't the one I read--I read the one with the writhing naked people on the cover--because this cover art is more along the lines of what I consider visually appealing.
August 20, 2007
This is an amazing, very artistic book that is meant as a companion to the film. When I first bought it I thought it was going to be an actual novel that the movie was based on but it's a photographic companion, with the screenplay. Apparently there was never a novel in the traditional sense, more of a graphic novel that was always destined to be a confusing, wonderful, poignant film.
November 14, 2007
When I checked it out from the library I thought it was the graphic novel, but its just a copy of the script with pretty pictures from the movie.
July 8, 2008
Utterly breathtaking collection taken from the most visually stunning movie of the decade.
January 5, 2016
There is a weird philosophy in this story. Whatever it is , it's perfect
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews