To The Wonder, and Beyond

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“An old trick in a new dress is always a pleasant change.” - Harry Houdini

Terrence Malick’s “To The Wonder” does not tell a revolutionarily original story. In fact, it revisits an age-old staple of story archetypes – of love’s genesis, of love’s lifespan, and of love’s demise. And yet, for exploring such an well known narrative arch, Malick somehow manages to make his iteration noteworthy. 

Neil and Marina (Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko) meet and fall in love in Paris. Neil asks Marina to move back to Oklahoma with him, and she agrees; her young daughter comes along. The environmental shift highlights the first crack of their relationship’s many fault lines: Marina feels out of place and empty, though only her daughter articulates this feeling. Eventually, Marina’s visa runs out, and she goes back to Paris with her daughter, and Neil observes without protest. 

Their separation physical and emotional separation is seemingly short-lived, but long enough that in the interim, Neil begins a relationship with an old acquaintance, Jane (Rachel McAdams). Back in Paris, Marina no longer has custody of her daughter and feels even more isolated in her home country. She looks to the US for a fresh start, and Neil agrees to marry her so she can get a green card. While the marriage is strictly legal, the arrangement contributes to Neil and Jane’s relationship ending. 

Neil and Marina’s emotions do not reignite initially, but over time the emotions creep through cracks in the walls that each builds against one another during the interim. Love gushes forth again, though both are more sensitive to the overarching realities stacked against their relationship’s sustainability. And like all things beautiful and fragile, their relationship eventually ends, and both go their separate paths in acts of necessity. 

Most movies rely heavily on dialogue to convey the passion and pain that comes with every relationship. Not Malick: here, dialogue is nearly devoid, serving as sparse anchors redirecting the current of emotions and storyline Malick’s desired endpoint. Details are quietly present, and long pauses encourage the viewer to infer pieces of information tying everything together. The subtleties and nuances of relationships are conveyed primarily through audiovisual techniques, the image compositions of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and musical compositions of composer Hanan Townshend meshing into a cinematic union. Few narrative facts are spoken throughout the movie, yet the film manages to flow in a manner that feels both logical and effervescent. The result is what the greatest of silent films were able to accomplish decades prior: engrossing narratives by omission of dialogue and amplification of sight and sound. Eisenstein and Chaplin would be proud. 

Images of water and waves, lulling in and out, highlight the beautiful temporality of Neil and Marina’s relationship: when they are in synchrony, their love is a beautiful symphony of sorts; when they are out of synchrony, their differences come into full light, the cacophony of unhappiness exploding more and more violently each subsequent time. Additionally, juxtaposed images of sinking earth and unlimited skies that breathe of sunrises, sunsets and sweeping bird flocks further delineate Neil and Marina’s crucial differences: the former resigns to reality’s grounding, and the latter dances atop life’s singing sea. 

Converse to popular convention, the most beautiful images in Malick’s film are cast in shadow, while the most ugly are seen in stark daylight. In shadow, everything is mysterious, intriguing, uncertain, undefined, and indefinite: anything and everything is possible. Blaring light serve to remind of realities at play, the fantastical replaced by fact, disillusion and despair jarringly illuminated and present. Shadows of ancient trees versus modern lawns of dead, dried grass: the differences couldn’t be more apparent. 

While some viewers may want more defined answers, I appreciate Malick’s unwillingness to make the answers obvious, leaving hints with only the few spoken sentences scattered throughout. 

In watching Malick’s film, I found solace in the subtleties conveyed in lieu of past grievances and emotional turmoil. I’ve learned from personal experience that when it comes to relationships, many spoken words are easily the most meaningless if they are uttered without weight. To hear “I love you” over and over again, while perhaps comforting, could also distract from less sincere current lining the lips. Intonation and body language are dead giveaways to whether or not verbal presentation is or isn’t a facade, and I’ve found that those who speak much often do so to mask their own moments of inadequateness and insincerity. More often than not, words do not fully communicate the emotions underlying a couple’s tie to one another; in fact, I find the most meaningful aspects of a relationship are much more subtle, graceful, and quieter. 

A kiss on the cheek; a sideways glance; a tug of the shirt; a slight curl of the lips – subtle, small, yet more significant than a hollow “I love you” put on repeat. 

This is the beauty of Malick’s audiovisual endeavor, a story where a relationship’s life is conveyed more through subtle action than dialogue could ever hope to accomplish. As a result, “To The Wonder” feels more like a memoir montage and less like an actual story pivoting on the genesis and self-destruction of a relationship. 

But isn’t that how relationships work? Ultimately, emotional experiences always outlast details and dialogue in our respective memories. 

“There will be many who find "To the Wonder” elusive and too effervescent. They’ll be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply. I understand that, and I think Terrence Malick does, too. But here he has attempted to reach more deeply than that: to reach beneath the surface, and find the soul in need.“ - Roger Ebert

A special thanks to my good friend Kat, who I saw "To The Wonder” and discussed with afterwards. Our conversation greatly contributed to what I was able to articulate above. 

Note to readers: I ended up omitting a lot of what I had in mind, mostly because I want to leave more substantial writing for when “To The Wonder” comes out on DVD so I can rewatch and capture screenshots to further illustrate what I’d like to discuss. 

Links: 

Emails with Ebert

It started ten years ago with a Google search. 

“Oh HELL no." 

Roger Ebert, acclaimed critic, cofounder of the famous thumbs up-down trademark, premiere pulitzer prize winning writer of countless columns, a championing and damning voice for thousands of films that graced the silver screen – had just done the unthinkable: he’d given not four, but three and a half stars to The Return of the King. 

"You sir, are WRONG." 

He had to be wrong. No one in their right mind would give Return of the King, the greatest of all great movies that was impervious to imperfection, a non-perfect score. How DARE he proclaim that this masterpiece of a fantasy narrative be a half star inferior to Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

Unforgivable. Absolutely, wholly, unbelievably, unfathomably, unforgivable. 

"You think you’re so cool huh? You think that some insomnia-curing film like Master and Commander is superior to Return of the King? Your credibility is DEAD to me, you hear me? DEAD. Like my interest in British naval ship stories which, for your information, is boring. Bravo-Oscar-Romeo-India-November-Golf – BORING." 

The insanity couldn’t be overlooked, and compulsion unhinged a inquisitive madness. 

"Well mister three thumbs and a half man, let’s see what OTHER films you’ve written about! Let’s see if you and I are on the same page about what makes a good or bad movie! Let’s see if you’re even qualified to BE critic!" 

The train had left the station, and it was unstoppable. Not that I knew that at the time, nor do I ever plan on getting off of it any time soon.

…

Reading Roger’s columns on a weekly basis started off with a inherent desire to feel validated for my likes and dislikes, or to shoot mental daggers in his general direction whenever I felt he was wrong, wrong, and Oh So Wrong. But no matter what he said, no matter how much I disagreed with his final say, no matter how many eye twitches some of his star ratings triggered, I kept reading. 

I read, and I grew. 

After two years of weekly column visits, it suddenly hit me that I no longer cared about his star ratings, nor were my disagreements with his opinion increasing my blood pressure; at what point this had occurred I’m not entirely sure, but the self-awareness was something of a life changing moment. I had been reading before, but now I was really reading. 

It wasn’t about likes or dislikes, stars or half stars, validation or the like: it was the content, his honesty, his conviction, and his conveyance of it all.

I was reading to understand, to learn, to push past the familiarity. And Roger was generous enough to offer such an avenue on such a regular basis. 

Roger’s prose and love for film was infectious, and I found myself writing short film reviews in 2008 after Wall•E and The Dark Knight made waves. Scratch that – I finally summoned up the courage to articulate my thoughts with multiple flicks of the keyboard. In retrospect, my reviews were clumsy, flawed, and amateur at best, but I’d written them in a small leap of faith. A small leap, but an all too important one that was the precedence for what would come in two years. 

Perhaps coincidentally or not, 2008 marked the year Roger began his online blog, Roger Ebert’s Journal. It was such a simple title, yet an effectively honest one at the same time. A legendary writer that I’d been reading religiously for five years, a man who I admired for his thoughtful, intelligent opinions and film recommendations, had entered the blogosphere. And he was reading all of the comments that flocked to it. 

I may have been slightly intimidated from initially joining the conversation. 

I read, I wrote, and I hesitated. For months I hesitated like a deer in headlights: what could I possibly say to a man I respected, admired, essentially idolized? What right did a nobody like me have to even litter his comment system with anything? More to the point, what insight could I possibly offer for an already insightful film icon? 

I continued to read, but now I was perusing his blog’s comments section more and more, and what I saw was something I didn’t think was possible in the age of trolls and snark: intelligent, thoughtful, and sincere responses from all over the world, all unified in the pursuit of mindful discussion. And Roger was personally responding to a select few of them. 

Still I hesitated, but courage also welled up over the course of a four months. And then an opportunity arose. 

August 30th, 2008 – I had randomly clicked on my Google Reader account, and there it was, brightly displayed on my screen: Roger had just updated his blog with a entry titled "How to Read  Movie.” I clicked instantly, and saw that there no comments. 

Perhaps the lack of comments, or a desire to be one of the first commentators, or a combination of both eliminated my hesitation from writing a response. Whatever it was, I found myself devouring the essay, striking the keyboard with flicks of my fingertips, and pressing the “submit” button before the hesitation flooded back. The only blip of pause I had was deciding whether or not to spell out my full name in the submission box: I wanted to write it out, but something internal compelled me to instead type in a more anonymized version. Maybe it was my fondness for pen names that I’d inherited from my parents, or maybe I simply liked the way it looked on screen. 

Whatever it was, from that moment on I was Q. Le. And I’d finally responded. 

Now I just had to wait for Roger to read it, and to see it published. I was nervous, but excited at the prospect. Even if he thought my response was barely a step above stupid, and there was the possibility of him screening it out entirely, at least I’d finally summoned the baseless confidence to write something, anything. I may never do it again, but at least I’d tried.  

About twelve hours later, I re-visited his blog, and there it was: my comment was the first one published, and he had personally responded to it. (Link)

My jaw dropped, my heart may have skipped a beat, and the world was silent for a few milliseconds. 

Then I ran around my apartment, flailing my arms and babbling incoherent garble like a blubbering idiot to the mild bemusement of my roommates at the time. 

Roger had responded to me. He’d read my comment, and he’d replied to a nobody who had written something that deep down, I feared might be interpreted as precocious. But he’d responded nonetheless, and that was something I never dreamed of ever happening. 

I was elevated, and another gear clicked into full action in my brain. I couldn’t hesitate anymore, wouldn’t shy away anymore – my voice was out on the net, Roger had acknowledged it.

Before I knew it, I’d become a full-on participant in the wonderful world of his well-mediated discussion threads. Inhibitions and social anxiety attacks be damned, my mind refused to shut up, and the internet was going to deal with it like it or not. I wrote, thought, read, processed, mused, debated on full throttle – and I knew then and there that I’d been on a unstoppable train all along. 

When Roger first emailed me, I had a second arm flailing episode before all too eagerly responding. Even now I still can’t believe that he, THE Roger Ebert, took the time to write a small note to me every now and then. It was a privilege, even a stroke of luck that he’d found me worthy of a few extra keystrokes, but it was easily one of THE lifetime events that I’ll never forget. And sure, he’d emailed me about subtle satire I didn’t catch but hey, I wasn’t the only one. 

Yet it still took two years before I was confident enough to begin my own blog, to further explore the pathway that my previous attempt at film reviewing had opened. Family and friends had been encouraging me to begin for months, but it was really Roger’s response to one of my more personal comments that set off the trail blazing. 

(Link)

For two years, I’d been reading his blog, a personal space on the internet where he shared his thoughts, emotions, weaknesses, and strengths. It was time to reciprocate his generosity, and to demonstrate that I was capable of producing something after seven years of continuously reading and learning from his writings. 

And so I began this blog on May 5th, 2010. 

It began as a modest attempt to focus primarily on film and animation, and I decided from the beginning that I would not divulge information pertaining to my age, gender, or education level: I wanted readers to interpret my writing for its content, not for preconceived ideas associated with social identifiers. 

I also took a cue from Roger and made it very difficult for trolls to be attracted to the blog – and by difficult, I only introduced screened disqus comments about two months later. If someone wanted to be a vitriolic ass, they’d have to put in the extra thirty seconds to type out a message in the submission box. Unsurprisingly, this proved to be a rather effective method, and a rather intelligent decision for what was to come. 

When I finally shared my blog with Roger, he demonstrated his generosity once again by tweeting me to his followers – me, a newcomer to the blogosphere, and yet he still considered me worthy enough for a tweet. Again, I spent a good few minutes running around my apartment hollering, though by now my roommates had decided that I was a few differentials from crazy and found this behavior spontaneously normal. (Link)

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People around the world were now reading my thoughts, and I got a few friendly emails from thoughtful readers. This was a honor that only Roger could have blessed me with, and I was eternally grateful. Perhaps it was a coincidental twist of faith, but the first blog he linked me happened to be a modest essay on film composition, and it so happened that the first time I commented on Roger’s blog was on a essay on film composition as well. 

Life is wondrously circular like that, I suppose. 

June 29th, 2010 – I’d been aware of the controversy for months, but after deciding that I simply couldn’t keep silent, I spent the next few days researching and parsing out what would be one of the biggest endeavors in my life so far: 

I wrote “Facepainting,” an argumentative essay that sought to put the issue of casting Caucasians over non-Caucasian actors in a historical and institutional context. I wrote for hours before posting it; and then, in what was easily one of my most precocious moments, emailed Roger with a vain hope that he might read it, and perhaps provide some feedback as to what was strong and flawed in the post. 

He responded, like I’d hoped. 

He also tweeted it. 

My inbox was flooded for the next week. I received emails from supporters, detractors, and even news outlets that asked for an interview or an editorial on their website. The Last Airbender bombed both critically and box office wise, though this was never my intention to begin with: there was an institutional racism at hand that needed to be addressed, and Roger not only acknowledged it, but openly supported it. He understood his power as a public figure, and chose to utilize it in raising awareness for many causes, including one that hit especially close home to me. 

The gamble to not reveal social identifiers besides being Vietnamese had paid off: the article spread like wildfire, people were discussing institutional racism in the film industry, and while detractors tried to infer who I was, none of them were able to distract away from the more important issue at hand by dropping sexist, ageist, or elitist/common man rebuttals since they really had no idea who I was. The only people that knew the identity of this blog’s sole writer were family, friends, and Roger himself. (Link) (Link)

I opened up to Roger in his comments section more than I did in this blog, and he respected my wishes whenever I asked for him to not publish certain facts about me. He understood my desire for a certain level of anonymity, and while some other commentators asked about me, he never revealed the information I’d quietly shared with him. (Link)

Roger knew my name, what I’d studied, my age, whether I was in possession of a penis or not, but even then he never discouraged me from writing, reading, and discussing film; in fact, he was even more encouraging the more he knew about me, and even suggested different avenues of interest to satiate my insatiable curiosity. For this, I’m eternally grateful and indebted to him. 

Roger linked me two more times in the aftermath of “Facepainting” – “The Essential Critic (and why we need them)” and “Dear Mr. Parsons” – before moving on to linking better blogs from better writers. But still I wrote, still I read, and still I responded; likewise, he read and responded once in awhile. He was a busy man, and my life was (and still is) in flux. I began writing and responding less, though for a time I was still reading and thinking voraciously. 

Then I inexplicably stopped – writing, responding, and effectively thinking. And I’ve regretted it to this day. 

At first I attributed to working for an NGO in Vietnam for almost a year, and being alone for most of the time triggered bouts of depression due to separation and cultural isolation. Then, when I came back to the US, when mental vigor was still severely missing, I attributed it to being unemployed and being preoccupied with finding a sense of stability. Then, after five months of demoralizing job hunting, I found a job, and then I got another. But still I wasn’t writing, and while I responded only once, I’m ashamed to say that I wasn’t reading as much. I still read, but not to the same level of intellectual vivaciousness that possessed me before. 

The truth is that, while I may have told myself that cultural isolationism and unemployment rendered me impotent intellectually, there were much more personal forces at play, but I will not divulge one of the main reasons. I thought about revealing it here, but perhaps another day since, if I write about it now, it is likely to be a unnecessary distraction. For now, I’ll elaborate on the other core reasons: 

I was insecure, cowardly, lazy, and changing. 

I was intimidated by better writers who made up Roger’s Far-Flung Correspondents and At the Movies, and others who contributed to his blog and content in other ways. I wanted to meet Roger in person so badly, but I felt unworthy and insignificant in the shadow of aspiring filmmakers and articulate cinephiles that demonstrated more potential and knowledge than me. I was in awe, but I was also abashed. 

I stopped fighting with words. Of course I wanted to respond on multiple occasions, both in defense and leveled disagreement with Roger – the most striking episode was when he commented about Ryan Dunn’s death – but the disconnect between intention and action is what differentiates and defines people. In saying nothing, I was really no better than his detractors. 

I let myself stagnate. Unemployment was demoralizing, and I let myself stagnate into compounds of mindless escapism either in the form of television I didn’t actually watch or games I wasn’t even good at. The reality of instability was tough, but it wasn’t an excuse to undermine inquisitiveness. There is no excuse for a lack of curiosity. 

Lastly, I was changing. While I still found myself dissecting and analyzing (though it was solely conversational), I also found myself inching towards creating, to enacting my own knowledge into full-on creative works like I’d dreamed of doing since I was a child. Criticism and creativity are much more aligned than most acknowledge, and they even compliment each other; but at the time, it was difficult to maintain both mindsets without feeling a introspective disconnect. 

A combination of all the above resulted in my mind coming to a sudden stop, and what I consider the ultimate betrayal to Roger. Roger had supported and encouraged me from the beginning, and I’d let lesser forces stop me from reciprocating everything I’d learned from him, and more. This is something I will always regret. 

Of course, I made several attempts to get back to my previous self, but the ball only began to really roll about a week ago when I decided to post not one, but two blog updates five months after my previous post. I kept thinking that I still had time to reemerge and let Roger knows I was still around, reading and thinking; that I still had time to go back and finally respond to all of his entries that I’d wanted to respond to; that I still had time to send him a friendly email; that I still had time to eventually meet him at Ebertfest 2014 in person and introduce myself with the line, 

“I’m Q. Le, nice to meet you." 

But now it’ll never happen. 

April 4th, 2013 at 1pm – I had just walked back into the office after working in a basement for five hours. As I settled down into my desk, I saw that my close friend had message me. 

"Odd,” I thought, “She knows I’m working right now." 

I quickly looked at her message: 

"Roger Ebert!!!”

Perplexed, I wondered what Roger had to do with anything, but instinctively (and fearfully, at a subconscious level) did a quick Google search. And then I saw it: 

Roger had passed away at age 70. 

Roger was gone. 

To say that I was numb would be inaccurate – paralyzed, most definitely. Grief and despair flooded my emotions, and it was by some sort of miracle that tears didn’t well up and fall onto my face, hands, and desk. 

I ate lunch in silence, unwilling to believe that Roger was gone. I didn’t even taste my food; everything was mechanical. There was a great void, yet I still couldn’t – no, wouldn’t believe Roger was gone. 

No more daily tweets. No more movie recommendations. No more Facebook posts. No more blog posts. No more weekly movie reviews. 

No more stars. 

He’d left behind such a presence in writing, on television, and on the internet, it just didn’t feel right. A man who knows he’s dying doesn’t plan on starting a Kickstarter to get At the Movies back on air, or say that he’ll only be reviewing films he wants to, or – oh hell, I don’t even know. It felt surreal, and that’s all I knew. 

I’d ordered Roger’s autobiography “Life Itself” when he first announced and published it, and it is still sitting on my keyboard. I at least wanted to read it before Roger passed away, but even then I’d failed him in that respect. 

No, I thought. I can’t let it end like this. I owe him that much. 

I needed to say something. 

And so I sat down, and I’ve spent the last three days writing this. 

… 

Roger left behind a great void that I don’t believe anyone can ever replicate. But, as any wise soul knows, replication is pointless: Roger articulated his uniqueness – voraciously, vivaciously so. He continued to live even after cancer had thrashed his body and took away his ability to speak. He projected his energy both in real life and through the mediums of writing, television, and eventually the internet. 

Perhaps that’s why it felt so surreal to hear that he’d died: his presence is still strong on the net, forever archived to be read and reread. Even now, when I read his old entries, it doesn’t register that Roger is gone; I still hear his voice, his enthusiastic keystrokes that demonstrated how life isn’t limited to our bodies alone, but that if you have the capacity to live life with your full body intact, you’ll be full of regret if you choose not to eat that damn good hotdog every once in awhile; to get off your ass make use of your legs and feel the wind and daylight cool and burn your skin. 

To love in a unloving world, and to give in a ungiving world – he did this, and more. 

I have done foolish things, though easily the most foolish things include what I’ve described above, as well as a response that, while only meant to be a friendly segue for additional discourse about technology and its limits, sounds coldly pragmatic in retrospect, and severely missing the point. 

Roger, in his good graces, wisdom, generosity, and kindness of spirits, supported me from the very start. He understood me more than most people, and perhaps even more than I about myself. He forgave my shortcomings, and continued to guide me through the power of his words and wisdom. 

I’ll never meet him in real life, but at least I knew him in spirit and mind. 

Now, with these last few sentences, after having written this essay in tribute to Roger and what he meant to me, I find myself finally coming to terms with his leave of presence. Roger is gone, but his memory is forever forged in the hearts and minds of millions. 

I respected and loved Roger for all that he was. Even if our main difference may have been that he preferred British naval fiction and I preferred Middle Earth, or perhaps there was a greater void of difference that I wasn’t aware of, at the core he did something for me that I am eternally indebted to: 

He sparked my love for film and curiosity into a full fledged flame. Or perhaps he knew I was already aboard the train, and guided me to the point where I suddenly became aware of the train’s existence. 

Whatever the case was, I am eternally grateful to Roger. For his support, his discourse, for everything. I have severe regrets that will haunt me, but I’ll always take solace that in the end, I’ll end up back in the cosmos in some shape or form. Perhaps then I’ll finally be able to meet Roger and say, 

“I’m Q. Le, nice to meet you." 

Farewell Roger, and I hope your balcony view with Gene is a good one. I look forward hearing both of you have a ball of time talking about why you loved and hated the movies that will grace the silver screen for years to come. 

Warm regards, 

Q. Le

Originally published here on April 7, 2013. Full pictures available.

"Sunshine" and "The Fountain" – On Spiritualism and Secularism

Sunshine, 2007, directed by Danny Boyle

The Fountain, 2006, directed by Darren Aronofsky

Danny Boyle’s “Sunshine” and Darren Aronofsky’s “The Fountain” are two strikingly spiritual films – the former more surprisingly than the latter – yet the conclusions of either film couldn’t be more different than the initial similarities they share. 

“Sunshine,” released in 2007, revolves a group of scientists above the Icarus II (a rather appropriate allusion the Greek mythology) that is carrying a sizable cargo of nuclear explosives, hoping to reignite a dying sun and ultimately to prevent the end of human existence. “The Fountain,” released in 2006, revolves around a neuroscientist named Tommy who is trying to save his wife Izzi from succumbing to a deadly tumor.

The dynamic of both films rests on the idea of mortality, and on our pursuit of scientific understanding in attempting to delay the inevitability of death. Oddly enough, I found “Sunshine” to be a more spiritually moving film than “The Fountain” despite Aronofsky’s obvious religious allusions throughout the film; likewise, I found the “The Fountain” to be oddly more academic and secular than “Sunshine” despite Boyle’s obvious efforts at creating a feasible, scientifically-sound scenario. 

Spiritually Moving? 

When I say “spiritually moving,” I mean it in a different sense than “religiously moving” in that spiritualism isn’t bound by any religious institution or credence – it is simply an individual experience, and a personal one for the matter.

“Sunshine,” ostensibly a hard science fiction film, places its scientists against the backdrop of a dying sun that is nonetheless awe inspiring and utterly, beautifully elemental. The sun is such an incredible presence throughout Boyle’s backdrop that the experience of simply seeing it becomes almost like a existential ritual for one of the crew members aboard the Icarus II.

“The Fountain” jumps between history, fantasy, and present day, three timelines that are interconnected by the emotional trajectory of Tommy as he copes with mortality. Two of the timelines, the historical and the fantastical, provide a escapist contrast to the bitter, grittier reality that Tommy physically occupies. 

The visual effects in both films cannot be argued against: both tout some of the most fantastic, most awe inspiring landscapes that could possibly exist within cinema. Ironically, “Sunshine” is more successful in evoking a spiritual sensation than “The Fountain” for one simple reason: the specificity of the special effects themselves. 

In “Sunshine,” the primary visual effect was the sun, and the nothingness of the space in between. The sun was simply a massive, incredible tour de force that each of the scientists faced, and in its shadow of space each character reacts differently: some regarded it with fear, some with awe, some with rational, some with despair, and some with hope. Everyone copes with their own moral and existential qualms differently, and after awhile I couldn’t help but be moved by the image of the sun as well. The sun, in its massive, elemental depiction, was something to behold, appreciate, and ponder. 

In “The Fountain,” Aronofsky drew heavily from established religious symbolism that, ironically, actually detracted from the spiritual experience I can only assume he had in mind (this is separate from the emotional experience, which was a rather poignant one). There was less to be interpreted, less to be pondered about (there’s less to interpret about Adam and Eve, the Tree of Life, or passage from Genesis than a blazing, omnipresent sun); the film, with all its immense symbology and mythological-religious allusions, became more academic than spiritual by accident.

Since most of “The Fountain’s” symbology alluded to a previous mythological or religious interpretation, the film is essentially more eclectic than “Sunshine” and thus, ironically, Aronofsky created a less spiritually encompassing film than Boyle did. In fact, you could even argue “The Fountain” was more secular than “Sunshine” in some respects, at least in the academic sense. 

Divergent Conclusions about Science in the Scheme of the Universe

Both “Sunshine” and “The Fountain” pose the same question regarding mortality – to accept it or to overcome it – and both come to different conclusions that are both completely rational and understandable. 

The scientists of Icarus II “Sunshine” are given the task of reigniting the sun in order to save mankind after the Icarus I failed to complete its mission. It turns out that the captain of Icarus I was a extremely religious man that, after 16 months in space, concluded that the mission was sacrilegious (“I am Pinbacker, Commander of the Icarus One. We have abandoned our mission. Our star is dying. All our science. All our hopes, our… our dreams, are foolish! In the face of this, we are dust, nothing more. Unto this dust, we return. When he chooses for us to die, it is not our place to challenge God”) and kills his entire crew to prevent the success of the mission; eventually, he manages to board the Icarus II and attempts to stop the surviving scientists aboard the second mission from accomplishing their goal. Despite all of these setbacks, Icarus II manages to send their cargo of nuclear explosions into the sun, and mankind is saved. 

In “The Fountain,” Tommy goes through several stages of emotional changes as his wife Izzi succumbs and eventually dies from her brain tumor. As a neuroscientist, he works obsessively in his lab to find a cure for brain tumors, at some points even prioritizing work over spending precious remaining time with Izzi. It’s only after she dies and he has a emotional outburst (“Death is a disease, it’s like any other. And there’s a cure. A cure – and I will find it”) that Tommy finally comes to accept the inevitability of death as the ultimate outcome, and that life moves on in some form or another (Tommy plants a seed for a tree to grow upon Izzi’s grave at the very end). 

The conclusions of “Sunshine” and “The Fountain” contrast with one another like night and day, yet they are not at odds with one another. Despite the fact that “Sunshine” asserts that scientific understanding can overcome natural limitations and that “The Fountain” asserts that scientific knowledge will lose out to death, both conclusions about mortality, despite their inherent differences, complement one another. The reason is a simple difference between the emphasis on the collective in “Sunshine” and on the individual in “The Fountain." 

In "Sunshine,” Pinbacker acts in accord with his own belief, and while he has every right to his own beliefs, his actions affect more than himself since humanity is at stake. Pinbacker effectively tries to impose his own views on the rest of humanity, a view that essentially aims to cut off any survival instinct and effort from continuing to exist. The crew of Icarus II, regardless of their own philosophies, place their own individual impulses beneath the task that humanity has given them to perform – a task that reflects the desire of the majority, a desire to continue living. 

In “The Fountain,” Tommy’s efforts will ultimately impact humanity as a collective, but in the present his actions affect only a select few – himself, his colleagues, and Izzi. Death is inescapable, and that we spend a good deal of our lives attempting to delay its onset; however, Tommy initially refuses to believe this fact, and instead relentlessly tries to overcome the limitations of current scientific knowledge in order to cope with something completely out of his control. Izzi, on the other hand, comes to terms with her own demise, and spends her last moments in peace. Eventually, once he comes to terms with his grief, Tommy accepts his own limitations and the odds of life, and finally understands that there will always be a certain random, statistical aspect of life that he cannot control no matter how much knowledge her attains. 

“Sunshine” concludes that the collective desire to survive outweighs the individual qualms, and “The Fountain” concludes that an individual’s mortality is an escapable fact of life. “Sunshine” touts the capacity of scientific pursuit in understanding and overcoming natural limitations, and “The Fountain” reminds us that scientific pursuit has its own limitations as well. Both films are spiritual and secular, though to a degree “Sunshine” succeeds more in creating a spiritual experience while “The Fountain” succeeds more in creating a secular one. Ironic, to say the least. 

In Defense of Digital Readers, and Not

via Poorly Drawn Lines

I recently finished Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, a historical fiction documenting the rise of Thomas Cromwell in the court of King Henry VIII from 1500 to 1535 (quick Tudor history for those who hate dates as much as I do: things was around the time when Henry was trying to divorce Katherine so he could marry Anne Boleyn). Having borrowed the book a few months ago, I was rather determined to get through all 560 pages since the last thing you want is your friend to start thinking you lost the book. 

Given that I’m not particularly apt at Tudor history nor am I British, Wolf Hall was a difficult read: not only was I unfamiliar with a majority of the historical references, Mantel’s prose was the extra impediment to me reading as quickly as I usually do. But, I’m a stubborn reader, and after two and a half weeks of committed reading, I managed to read that very last page, the very last sentence, and very soundly close the hardcover book for the last time. Take THAT, historical fiction! I thought. 

What had gotten me through Wolf Hall was a mixture of literary mulishness, a masochistically self-imposed reading deadline, and most importantly the addictive satisfaction of turning pages, closing the hardcover shut, and watching the progression of my bookmark inch closer and closer from the beginning to the end of the book. Had I read Wolf Hall as a digital book, I highly doubt I would have managed to even get through twenty five percent of Mantel’s Man Booker Prize winning book at this point even. 

Currently, I own a large book collection and an Amazon Kindle. There’s an appeal to both physical and digital versions of reading, though I’m inclined to say that on any given day, I opt for printed pages over a e-reader without any hesitation (even if cost is an issue, there’s always the local library (or your friends if they’re not disgruntled with you)). Sure, e-readers may be more ‘green’ than printed books, but by how much? After all, you’re manufacturing electronics that require electricity to continue being useful. Then again, there’s also the issue having too many books if you’re like me and have a difficult time not itching for a buy every time you step foot in a bookstore. 

But I digress. The main issue, of course, is the difference between having a physical copy of what you’re reading versus a digital, less infringing digital equivalent. Is it safe to say that digital readers are 'the’ future, just like how digital music, digital photography and digital filmmaking are overtaking their respective predecessors in the market? Or is it reasonable to believe that the old school of printed press, with its dog-eared pages, its coffee spills, its bug-crushing capacity, will persevere? 

A couple of months ago my friend Allan sent me a New York Times article that discussed the evolution of how we read, titled “From Scroll to Screen.” It’s an interesting article that I highly recommend to anyone, but here’s the general gist: 

Image via the New York Times, illustrated by Joon Mo Kang

  • The Scroll: you could only read and search linearly since you navigated by unrolling the scroll progressively
  • The Codex (aka what we currently associate printed books with): you can skip around passages with incredible ease; reading and searching can be linear and non-linear
  • The E-Reader: the most compact, capacity to skip between and search for passages limited compared to codex since there is only one screen

E-reader enthusiasts will probably argue that it’s easier to search on a digital book for certain quotes or to define a term, or that if you have a good reader like the iPad or Kindle, the digital reading experience can be a good one. True, but at the end of the day, the codex still has the advantage over the e-reader because it’s not restricted by a single screen. 

There’s also the issue of attention span. Like most digital devices, e-readers have the capacity to store thousands of books/articles; however, this tends to encourage a sort of reading ADD since one, we don’t have a physical sense of how far we’ve progressed in the book and two, it’s so much easier to just find another book/article to read if you get frustrated and/or bored with what you’re currently reading. This reading ADD is sort of like how we can peruse through our digital photographs, digital music and movie libraries a lot more quickly than searching through printed photographs, CDs or DVDs. Ask yourself: when was the last time you spent a serious amount of time looking at a photograph for more than a split second, or listened to an entire album without changing to a different one, or even watching only one movie in a sitting and uninterrupted by anything? 

I prefer printed books over digital equivalents to avoid reading ADD. Sure, I could switch between different books, but even that encourages less reading ADD than an e-reader since I have to actively search for something via my personal library, the local library, or the bookstore, as opposed to internet browsing. I’ve yet to read a book on my Kindle; I currently have two in my Kindle library, but that’s because one of them is out of print (David Bordwell’s Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema) and I got the other one for free from a friend (Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories about people who know how they will die). Besides these two reasons – it’s not available in print or it’s free so why not? – I don’t have much of an incentive to give up the tactility of turning pages in favor of staring at one screen and pressing a forward/back button. 

Alas, I haven’t even given e-readers a chance at this point. After all, why would I purchase a Kindle if I’m going to end up bashing it? 

E-readers are more than fantastic for writings that are published online – which, these days, is almost everything from news to blogs to academic resources. I read an average of five to fifteen online articles and essays per day, and oftentimes I get reading fatigue when I stare at my LCD-lit computer screen for long periods of time.

Once I bought my Kindle, I got into the habit of saving pdf versions of articles/essays I found interesting, uploading them to my Kindle, and enjoying them without the distraction of internet surfing/computer multitasking (it also helps that unlike the iPad, the Kindle uses e-ink technology, which puts less strain on my eyes). Once I’m finished reading an article/essay on the Kindle, I can easily delete or archive it for future reference. Gone are the days where I have a pile of printed articles, magazines or newspapers collecting dust on my desk, reminding me of how far I’ve fallen behind on my to-read list; now, I read in blissful ignorance of how many articles/essays I’ve downloaded to my “to read” queue on my Kindle. 

Additionally, for those still in school, e-readers offer a fantastic alternative to needing to print out pages of powerpoint slides, notes, required reading articles, and even textbooks. In fact, I think textbooks that are optimized for digital reading are ideal since they’re cheaper than printed equivalents (which is especially ideal for students struggling to stay in budget – I’ve bought textbooks in the past that nearly cost two hundred dollars), it’s lighter to carry around a digital copy, and once you’re done with the class, you don’t have to worry about what to do with your textbook, e.g. selling or storing it (textbook publishers frequently 'update’ the book editions to make more money, and I’ve run into situations where professors refuse to teach from previous editions even if the update is effectively null).

The only feasible downside I see to digital textbooks is that you can’t highlight or write as freely in them as you could with printed versions. Still, the prospect of carrying around a giant lump that costs too much and isn’t likely to be part of your 'favorite books’ collection seems less appealing than losing the capacity to highlight/write/doodle all over the pages of your textbook. 

I don’t believe digital reading should replace the learning experience for kids – in fact, I’m very much against it for one simple reason: imagination. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently recommended that babies under the age of two to not watch or be exposed to electronic media, citing: 

Studies cited in the guidelines say that parents interact less with children when the television is on, and that a young child at play will glance at the TV—if it is on, even in the background—three times a minute.

The study mostly focuses on the language development, and while they focus on television in the quote, I’m rather adamant about the benefits of reading without the distractions of someone else’s creative endeavor numbing kids from imagining things themselves (note: I’m aware that there are some printed children’s books where kids can physically interact with them, such as pressing a button for sound or pulling something to make a picture pop out. However, this falls back to the physical versus digital aspects of reading). 

Reading comprehension is one of the most important skills you need as an adult, and if you don’t develop a habit of processing information early, there’s a good chance you’ll fall behind. Traditional reading encourages this kind of development: without the reading ADD that you get from reading things on the internet or even shuffling through your e-book library every impulse you get, printed books basically force us to focus, and to really process (and even visualize) what each sentence, what each word weighs and means. 

I don’t know if digital reading will eventually take over printed press, but given its current limits (the codex still feels intuitive and less awkward than switching and searching in a e-book), I have my doubts about it, just like I’ve had my doubts about 3D  taking over 2D movies for quite awhile. However, unlike 3D movies, I do think e-readers have their use, and that they won’t disappear from the market anytime soon. But regardless of your preference, at the end of the day, reading is still better than nothing, and that’s a fact. 

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