The Fountain by Darren Aronofsky Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $10.65 You Save: $9.34 (47%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $7.60 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Fountain
Book Review: A Truly Epic Love Story!
Summary: 5 Stars
On the surface this graphic-novel appears a complex sci-fi, but at its core this is a beautiful and moving story of love and loss, life, death, fate, and coping with mortality.
Apart from the fantastic story, the book is in itself a peice of art, with wonderfully evocative illustrations by Kent Williams.
If the upcoming film is even half as good as this graphic-novel, were all in for a real treat.
Book Review: The Fountain
Summary: 5 Stars
Indie film director Darren Aronofsky teams with painterly comic artist Kent Williams to bring his long troubled script to life. The original film was cancelled by the studio during pre-production, considered too risky a venture for big budget film. In a twist of artistic fate, the adapted story that appears in this graphic novel has now been re-adapted for cinema. The film stars Rachel Wiez and Hugh Jackman. The blurb on this graphic novel version contends though, that it offers a wider scope and is a more complete version of the story than the film will offer - "the ultimate directors-cut".
So what is it about?
A man called Thomas, who spends a thousand years questing to save his love. The story intercuts three eras, the 16th century, with Thomas as a Spanish explorer fighting the Mayans in the hope of claiming a mystical treasure. A contemporary story, in which Thomas is desperately fighting to save his wife Izzi, who is dying from a brain tumour. The final era is set in the far future. Thomas is speeding towards a dying star, his only hope for saving his wife.
Is it any good?
I've not seen any of Aronofsky's films, but it seems clear from this work that he is nothing short of a visonary. This is not a plot driven narrative, it is a triptych poem about love, death, obsession and a bit of self mutilation. The three stories are skilfully woven. The far future story is the hardest to pull off, it is deeply introspective, and jettisons the usual science fiction trappings, which makes it verge on the surreal. This works very well because the spiritual and emotional elments of the story float free.
This is definitely a work that requires some reflection, and probably bears fruit from a second and third reading. Kent Williams provides a canvas that is pure emotion, one of those artists who balances draftmanship with fine art sensibilities, powerful stuff, and perfectly suited to the subject.
The Fountain is a beautiful, lyrical comic work, adult fiction is the truest sense. Highly recommended.
Book Review: Clashing fountains
Summary: 2 Stars
Before Darren Aronofsky turned "The Fountain" into a beautiful movie, this exquisite story of life, death and love was made into a graphic novel. But the graphic novel is a stumbling experience, whose beautiful dialogue and heartrending situations are
The story follows three intertwined storylines -- a conquistador named Tomas, who is battling the Mayans, and thinking of Queen Isabella back in Spain. Then there's a doctor named Tom in the present, who is struggling to save his dying wife from a brain tumor, by using an extract from a strange tree.
But death cannot be pushed away, and Izzy succumbs to her cancer -- but Tom won't accept it. It the future, Tom is transporting the tree to a distant nebula, struggling to defeat death once and for all. But is death an end, "nothing"? Or will he fulfil Izzy's last request and finish her book about Tomas the conquistador, and the Tree of Life?
It's an exquisite story, full of moving emotion and mystical connections -- everything from Christianity's story of the tree of good and evil to Mayan myths show up in Tom's journey. This is illustrated through the rings in each story -- tattooed, gifted and wedding -- and the eerie, surreally beautiful climax.
And Aronofsky tackles the ultimate question of life -- is death an end, or a beginning? Does the existance of death give us greater life? And can love reach out beyond the grave?
Unfortunately, Kent Williams' artwork simply doesn't measure up to the exquisite storyline. It feels like a bunch of your basic graphic artists were collaborating in their different styles, only to hit a deadline and turn in the unfinished work. He captures delicate moments -- such as Tomas kissing Isabella's ring -- but the rest of the time, I felt it lacked.
Sometimes there's no background, just aqua splashes or colorless sketched figures. Some of the characters look like photographs cut-and-pasted, and with tacky surroundings merely added in, while at other times they are fully sketched and detailed. And worst of all, it's hard to follow the story because the characters never look the same. Every few pages, they change appearance radically -- Izzy even changes ethnicity for a few panels.
"The Fountain" has a brilliant story, but Kent Williams wasn't up to the task of bringing Darren Aronofsky's beautiful story to life. Too bad, because the story itself is full of bittersweet purity.
Book Review: A beautiful, lyrical comic work - highly recommended
Summary: 5 Stars
Indie film director Darren Aronofsky teams up with painterly comic artist Kent Williams to bring his long troubled script to life. The original film was cancelled by the studio during pre-production, considered too risky a venture for big budget film. In a twist of artistic fate, the adapted story that appears in this graphic novel has now been re-adapted for cinema. The film stars Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman. The blurb on this graphic novel version contends though, that it offers a wider scope and is a more complete version of the story than the film will offer - "the ultimate directors-cut".
So what is it about?
A man called Thomas, who spends a thousand years questing to save his love. The story intercuts three eras, the 16th century, with Thomas as a Spanish explorer fighting the Mayans in the hope of claiming a mystical treasure. A contemporary story, in which Thomas is desperately fighting to save his wife Izzi, who is dying from a brain tumour. The final era is set in the far future. Thomas is speeding towards a dying star, his only hope for saving his wife.
Is it any good?
I've not seen any of Aronofsky's films, but it seems clear from this work that he is nothing short of a visonary. This is not a plot driven narrative, it is a triptych poem about love, death, obsession and a bit of self mutilation. The three stories are skilfully woven. The far future story is the hardest to pull off, it is deeply introspective, and jettisons the usual science fiction trappings, which makes it verge on the surreal. This works very well because the spiritual and emotional elments of the story float free.
This is definitely a work that requires some reflection, and probably bears fruit from a second and third reading. Kent Williams provides a canvas that is pure emotion, one of those artists who balances draftmanship with fine art sensibilities, powerful stuff, and perfectly suited to the subject.
The Fountain is a beautiful, lyrical comic work, adult fiction in the truest sense. Highly recommended.
Book Review: This isnt a graphic novel.
Summary: 4 Stars
This isnt a graphic novel. I bought it and discovered that it is in fact, just a book of stills from the movie and a script at the back. It's quite a beautiful book, but don't buy it if you're looking for the graphic novel counterpart to the movie.