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An Independent Spirit Wrapped up in a Big Budget Production: A movie that would appear to be more at home in theaters catering to independent films, The Fountain might be a tough sell with the average moviegoer. Aronofsky understood where that feeling’s coming from, but believes commercial audiences will give it a chance. “I think that there’s a lot of things that are very commercial at the core of the film, I mean besides Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weiss. I think the search for the fountain of youth is something that everyone’s interested in. You know, the best thing that people have come up to me and said after the movie is, ‘You know what, Darren? That isn’t a movie, this is an experience.’ That, to me, is just very exciting because they get transported. People are getting transported and that’s what you want, that’s you dream of, what you want to pull off.”
The Fountain at the Venice Film Festival: When Hugh Jackman was asked about the reaction to the press screening in Venice of The Fountain, he confessed to being shocked about the way the audience was so polarized. Of course, all the media reports focus on the fact there were boos heard in the audience and usually gloss over the equally important fact that they came from, according to Jackman, just 20% of the audience.
Addressing the reports in multiple media outlets of the negative reaction to his film, Aronofsky said, “I wish people had done a little more research about it because that’s not what happened. If you talk to any of the journalists that were in the room, half the audience was booing and half the audience was applauding and they were equal. Eventually there was an argument and they had to pull two people apart. And, to me, that’s an interesting story, that’s what the film is. It’s not that people were booing it. I mean, what happened is there was a review from the trades that was just very, very negative and a big attack against us and the AP picked it up and it became that was the story. Unfortunately, that’s what happened. I know I make divisive films. Requiem split the audience, and I imagine The Fountain’s going to do the same.”
