Thoughts on Pi

Monday, July 5, 2010 6:29 PM By Simon


-Aronofsky's first film, before his quality as a director became so controversial.

-Or, as very controversial.

-There is something very German Expressionist here. The symbolism, the big picture, the vaguely pussy main character (neurotic, possibly schizophrenic math genius Max Cohen). Just strikes me a such. I mean, definable shapes even litter the background as mathematical equations and results.

-I noticed that, as the movie went on, and Max became more and more paranoid (for good reason, he had at least three different nefarious organizations tailing him at some point), the black-and-white image got fuzzier and fuzzier, until everyone became a silhouette.

-I learned a lot about math today. Good for me.

-Next year, I'm totally convincing my mat hteacher to let us watch this.

-In other, non-awesome-movie related news, I have finally joined the ranks of the Netflix army. I'll be contributing to the official downfall of Blockbuster, thank you very much. Do I feel bad? Yes. You know why? Half the movies made count on DVD revenues to recoup their budgets. So if everyone watches the movies online, the studios will cut more and more movies that are considered risky, only release ones guarenteed to recoup in box office alone, and boom, the end of intelligent society as we know it. Think about that shit, ya'll.

-I will get back to my motherfucking book now.

EDIT: A hearty thank you to Castor at Anomalous Material for the giftcard that enabled me to buy this lovely film.

5 comments:

Alex said...

I haven't seen this in a while but I remember really liking it for its start imagery and wild premise, plus it's a lot easier to deal with than Requiem for Dream. It's apparently riddled with inaccuracies though, so it might not be entirely appropriate for a math class!

July 5, 2010 at 9:11 PM
Colin Biggs said...

It was definitely odd, but it showed promise. Plus, it doesn't kick you in the stomach like Requiem.

July 6, 2010 at 11:50 AM
The Taxi Driver said...

After watching this I realized that all of Aronofsky's movies are tied together by a similar narrative thread: they are all about desperate men trying to attain something that is just outside of their human grasp. It's interesting that his next movie will be about a female.

July 6, 2010 at 10:57 PM
Aaron Weiss said...

I loved Pi the moment I first saw it.

@Mike You're right about that particular element in his films.

July 7, 2010 at 8:36 AM
Derek Armstrong said...

Lovable despite being overly student film-y.

July 7, 2010 at 1:19 PM