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The Fountain

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want to prepare it for FA status. Right now, it is GA on two WikiProjects and A-Class on another. I feel like it would require altogether minimal effort for it to pass FA (it's probably more-or-less ready right now) and I would be willing to do the work to get it there. I have spoken with the main contributor to this article--User:Erik--who is not available to work on it at the moment, but who gave me his blessing to go ahead and some further bibliographical sources to use in expanding and sourcing the article.

Thanks, —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Here are some thoughts I have to make the article more complete.
  • There should be critical analysis of the film; American Beauty (film) is a good example to follow. The references sub-page lists available references, including a linked PDF that can be incorporated right away. For the Pisters reference, I was actually able to get in touch with the author and get a PDF copy of the chapter. Email me, and I can send it to you. It's pretty cerebral, though! Be prepared for the challenge of simplifying it into layman's terms. (Also, I would move the Positive Psychology section to the new critical analysis section; it does not quite qualify as reception.)
  • Aronofsky recorded a commentary track that I believe is supposed to explain how he believes the film should be interpreted. While not actually published elsewhere, I'm sure it can be found somewhere online... since it comes straight from the director, I think it qualifies as a reliable source. It may help expand the "Narrative" section especially. The article used to have a "Plot" section, but I removed it due to the complexity of the overlaps. It required too much commentary on transitions between storylines, which led to interpretation. (Not a problem seen with most conventional films.)
  • One feature I've wanted to add to the article is a short video clip illustrating the film's visual effects. The Cinefex reference (listed in the sub-page) should add even more contextual significance to whatever clip we use. The best one may be a shot of the glass sphere traveling through outer space. It's good to use free images, but I think it would be a strong characteristic of the article to utilize a video clip. American Beauty uses one, so do some of the Star Trek film articles. WP:FILMCLIP has some guidance on this matter.
  • Not thrilled about "visually strong" as a descriptor. Can be reworded better - "impressive cinematography"? - or something?
  • When he looked over the books he used to research for The Fountain, he decided to return to The Fountain, feeling closer to it creatively more than the other possible projects. - two "fountain"s - be nice to not use one. ALso " closer to it creatively" is off-puttingly general and non-informative sounding.
  • Additional comments:
    • I find the use of only "level 2" headings makes the article look disorganized and also makes it harder to find where things are.
    • The article looks over-illustrated to me. I just have a continuous rows of infobox, images and videos on the right hand side of the page. This is of course due to me using a high resolution monitor and won't happen to the majority of readers but still stack-ups will happen for some readers. Try aligning some of the files on the left hand side of the page and maybe consider losing one of the special effects files.
    • Justin, I think the {{Film ratings}} template you created is a bad idea. 1) It further clutters up the article 2) It is redundant to the stating of the Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic ratings in the prose and we already link to those two websites which link to a lot more critics' reviews than the template supports 3) The {{Album ratings}} template was created by WikiProject Albums as a sort of intermediate template for moving from a list of reviews in the infobox to full-on prose. (this may have changed, they seem to accept {{Album ratings}} with prose) Basically, they were trying to kill just listing reviews instead of prose. 4) WikiProject Film has a good thing going. Right now, reviews are either in prose or not included at all. The creation of {{Film ratings}} will probably see simply listing reviews instead of prose creep in.
    • One of the categories is a redlink.
    • I highly recommend adding archive URLs to the citations. It ensures the articles will be accessible "forever".

- Kollision (talk) 08:42, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • New comments:
  • I am concerned about the overemphasis of the term "Last Man" in the article. This was indeed the working title for the film, but it was not used to identify the space traveler in most of the references that covered the film upon its release. It seems to constitute original research, especially when used in the plot summary. It's not as common-sense to use this term as opposed to conquistador or neuroscientist.
  • The addition of the video clip showing the special effects looks great! However, we do not need the second video clip. Wikipedia is supposed to be about free content, so it needs to be conservative about using non-free content. Descriptive text can be used to cover any information shared in the making-of clip; one can cite a DVD featurette.
  • There are an awful lot of images and figures down the right side of the article. Some suggestions:
  • I recommend removing the Hugh Jackman image because he is shown in the video clip, and you can put the Rachel Weisz image in the "Casting" section instead.
  • I like the collage of art from the graphic novel, I think it would be more appropriate at the graphic novel's article. As a non-free image, it should relate pretty strongly to the topic at hand, and the image does not represent the film.
  • The Aronofsky-Weisz image is particularly lacking in value and possibly misleading because what they're attending is not related to The Fountain. As an image of their backsides, it's not very illustrative of anyone or a relevant time frame.
  • I consider the film ratings template to be reductionist in nature, and I've seen requests for Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic parameters shot down for this reason. With these two main aggregate scores, I think that prose is acceptable; the approach is to give an idea of how the film was received, not to give a rundown of all existing aggregate websites' scores for a given film.
  • Aronofsky has a good picture on his Wikipedia article, and it could be used in the "Reception" section instead of the festival image or the film ratings template. For what it's worth, if you want to break up a so-called "wall" of text, you can use quote boxes. They're easier to implement in staggered forms.

Just noticed the article doesn't cover any of the awards the film won or was nominated for. This should be covered to pass the Featured Articles "comprehensive" criteria. - Kollision (talk) 15:16, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I had added the initial awards that had to do with the original score, but these are on the soundtrack article now. I would advocate a table outlining the awards, using the awards page at IMDb as a starting point but referring to more direct sources as citations in the article itself. I think that the original score nominations should be mentioned in both the film and soundtrack articles. Erik (talk | contribs) 21:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by David Fuchs

Overall, there's not too much to say that hasn't already. I agree with Erik about the second video clip, as that's the content the article should be explaining rather than linking to a non-free video. Use it as a source! The "Themes" section feels like it needs more third-party sources; what the filmmaker says is fine, but is there no scholarly comment on the work? The last paragraph of the reception section, for instance, seems like it's better added to the themes and elaborated on if at all possible.

  • Also on the theme on non-free content, "File:Clint Mansell, Kronos Quartet, and Mogwai - Death Is the Road to Awe.ogg" doesn't seem to have much justification per WP:NFCC. The caption doesn't seem to be supported by references and the sound itself is not specifically addressed, nor is the music in any great depth given that there is a subpage—that would be the place to put it if it was justified.
  • I see that you ripped off {{Video game reviews}} with {{Film ratings}}, but I don't think you really need to. Film ratings are even more subjective than video game ones and far less often given comparable scores or any metrics altogether. The text is what's important, so just axe the template.
  • This is partly cosmetic, but it might help manage the table of contents if you shunted "Production history", "Writing", "Casting", "Design", "Cinematography", "Effects" and "Score" under a "Production" heading, as well as placing release content under a similar level-two header, just to keep things neater and more hierarchical.
  • Some of the introduction to the "Narrative" section is redundant with what is described in the subheads below. You might just want to harmonize them a bit more and axe the subsections altogether, streamlining the separate plots somewhat.
    • All of the above, by the way, would help alleviate some of the issues throughout the article of image stacking. Most don't actually violate the MoS, but on larger displays it starts looking cluttered and not very aesthetically pleasing :)
  • The prose could use a workover, mostly in deleting redundant words and phrases and streamlining the flow. Things like "Newsweek reported how people received the film, "Its supporters admire the film's beauty and daring; its detractors find it overblown and hokey."[60]" could be slimmed to "Newsweek reported the film's supporters appreciated the film's "daring" and aesthetics, while critics considered it "overblown and "hokey"." I suggest looking over Tony1's grammar exercises as they are a lot of help.

--Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 20:55, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

David, regarding scholarly comment, the references sub-page lists some candidates (see Lord, Pisters, and Tseng items). One is available online, and for the Pisters one, I already sent the chapter PDF to Justin. The Tseng one will require more effort. Erik (talk | contribs) 21:06, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by VisionHolder
What can I say? It's my favorite movie, so I have to review this. Here we go.

  • First off, I agree with nearly every point made in the reviews above, and many of these points have not yet been addressed: too much non-free content, need for archived web citations, the need to cover awards, etc.
  • The "Narrative" section is unreferenced. See an example given earlier in the review for a sample of how to do this: American Beauty (film)
  • With the narrative section being written as an interpretation by the article's author, I don't know how to handle multiple interpretations, especially if the only citation is the film itself (see previous point). However, here are my disagreements. Please don't take any of it personally.
    • Since I don't have access to the source, does it actually say that the future narrative is set in 2500? I know there's no date given in the movie itself. Just wondering where that number came from.
    • "It is unclear what actually occurs within the reality of The Fountain..." — Actually, I beg to differ. Having discussed this film with many friends, family, and philosophers, I think the movie is very confusing for most people, but if you pay attention to the details, it's quite clear what supposed to be reality and what isn't. It's all made clear at the very end of the film.
    • "..the Conquistador may be only a character in the wife's unfinished novel" — I think it is quite clear that the Conquistador is only a character in the wife's unfinished novel. The only way I can even imagine people getting the idea that this element of the story is supposed to be a true event is if you make the unfortunate mistake of watching the trailer. I can't think of a single event in the movie itself that suggest the 16th century narrative was real. It was clearly from the wife's book.
    • "Once he arrives at the ziggurat, he is stabbed in the stomach, but the priest narrowly avoids killing him when he notices that Tomas is carrying a ceremonial dagger that fulfills a Mayan prophecy. The priest has a vision of the space traveler floating before him and asks Tomas to slit his throat." — This is not true. I just popped in the DVD and re-watched the scene to double-check myself. Not once did the priest even look at the ceremonial dagger. Instead, he held back when he saw the Conquistador for what he would become (the future Tom)—an enlightened being, which is represented by his Buddhist pose. I interpret this to mean that Izzi (unintentially?) left the story at a seemingly impossible point. If Tom couldn't see her point, then he would die in darkness. If he did see her point, the flaming sword could be stopped, although the Conquistador stumbled blindly forth, the Mayan priest (and Izzi) had faith that Tom would awaken to enlightenment in the end. The dagger had absolutely nothing to do with it. ... Now, my DVD does not have the director's commentary. If the director himself says otherwise, then so be it (...and I'll be very disappointed).
    • "He is motivated by his wife Izzi's brain tumor, which has caused a rapid decline in her health." — I don't think Izzi's health was declining rapidly. Near the end (the last day or so), she had admitted to losing sensitivity to hot & cold, but she wasn't bed-ridden or wasting away. She was in the hospital for maybe a day. Brain tumors kill you quickly. I know. There was a guy I knew at a former job of mine who was almost 50 years old, lively as could be, and was excitedly talking about his upcoming retirement every time I spoke with him. I went for a 4-week trip to Australia, and by the time I got back, he was dead and the funeral was past. Between the time of his first symptoms to his death, only a week went by. Although Izzi seems to have lived for longer than that, she seemed to be in the same boat: full of life and health, but only having a very short amount of time left when the disease did turn up (in the form of seizures).
    • "She has written a book which apparently tells the story of Tomas..." — please strike "apparently" per my comments above.
    • "...but when she collapses at a museum, she becomes convinced that she won't live long enough to finish the book..." — Referring to the DVD, I don't get this impression. I think by the time she gives Tommy the gift of pen and ink to finish the book, she either knows that he needs to finish the book or that the two of them need to finish the book together (as a lesson for Tommy). We don't know enough about the history of the book. It sounds like she's had quite a bit of time to research it, traveling to Mayan ruins and so forth. But at some point, the story became a parallel to her life: a struggle to survive with her Conquistador fighting tirelessly to help her. Later, she came to terms with her own mortality, and I think it's quite clear that she was using the story as a way to help Tom come to terms with mortality, too. She may have originally planned to write the book entirely, telling him the answer to the riddle. But by the end, she was clearly wants Tommy involved in the writing of the last chapter, either with her, or more likely, alone (after she's gone). When she gives Tommy the gift, the dialog goes:


Therefore, I don't think she's handing the task over to Tommy because she knows she doesn't have time. Instead, I'm pretty sure she's doing it because he needs to come to the realization on his own.
    • At the end of the "Tommy the neuroscientist" section, there should probably be a short sentence saying that following the funeral, Tommy uses the pen to tattoo a ring back onto his finger. In fact, the ring is an important element of the story, but does not seem to get any mention in the article. If you want to discuss it, particularly the role it plays at the very end, I'm open for that.
    • In the "Tom the space traveler" section, you forgot to mention his ritual of "communion".
    • If anything, it's the "Tom the space traveler" narrative that sits as a questionable "real event" in this movie. Here's how I see it: The true present tense in this story is sometime after Izzi's death... possibly days, weeks, or even a year or more. You only see Tommy in the true present tense at the very end of the film when he plants the seed on his wife's grave. The future Tommy is how he envisions himself going on with life after his wife dies. He sees himself beating death and clinging to the hope that somehow his wife's fictional "tree of life" can be be restored by reaching the "Xibalba nebula", thus restoring her. He sees himself blinding performing symbolic rituals to keep himself tied to the memory of his wife. He meditates to find peace. But in the back of his mind (both in his envisioned future self and his real present self), he knows that he has to do what his wife asked him to do: finish the book. At the start of the movie, he gives in and and asks her to show him. Consequently, he flashes back to the "Tommy the neuroscientist" narrative and sees the past for what it was, as a way to glean whatever clues he can find. When his wife dies in his memories, his fantasy of taking the tree to Xibalba dies as well, leaving him at a loss. But having reflected on the events of her last few days, and finally seeing the connection between the fictional queen and Izzi (as well as the Conquistador and himself), he finally understands what his wife wanted him to see: This his fear of death was holding him back, and that accepting the certainty of his own mortality was the key to finishing his wife's book.. as well as coming to terms with her death. I recommend re-watching the climax where it goes:


As Tommy finishes the book, he merges his wife's story (of him as the Conquistador) with his own story of himself, as the newly enlightened man. And, most importantly (IMO), he goes on to regret not spending more time with Izzi during her final days. (Hence he sees himself running off to follow her in the snow rather than staying to do research like he had done in real life.) The point being that he should have savored very moment of life and not have feared her death. To conclude, he comes back to his own (real) life and goes to Izzi's grave to plant a seed over it to show that he has come to terms with her death and her rebirth (in a Buddhist sense). ... Again, this is my opinion. I'm used to writing articles with hard, reliable sources, such as academic journal articles. If we have a difference in opinion on how to interpret the movie, then I'm not sure how to resolve it. Personally, I would love to explore the rich symbolism in this movie and examine every detail. Although the director said that the movie can be "solved it in several different ways", I feel the director wrote a specific story (which can be seen by careful scrutiny of the symbolism and other details), but he felt that if people interpreted certain elements differently, then it didn't matter... as long as you come to the same conclusion.
  • Material from "Cinematography" is duplicated in "Visual effects".

Otherwise, the article looks pretty good to my untrained, "entertainment Wiki" eye. It's well referenced (but didn't have time to check the references, and pretty thorough, minus the points mentioned above. I would love to see it pass FA sometime soon. If you need help developing it, just let me know. – VisionHolder « talk » 03:53, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Visionholder, we have some guidelines about writing plot summaries for films; see WP:FILMPLOT. I wrote a lot of the article, and Justin wants to take it all the way. However, before he started working on it, I had removed the actual plot summary (like the kind you would see at American Beauty) because it was subject to too much interpretation. In the current "Narrative" section, I only had the first paragraph. Justin added the other paragraphs in their subsections, and like you pointed out, there are interpretations of the primary source. per WP:PSTS, we should stick to basic descriptions, and this is possible for most films. With this film, though, I don't think it is as possible and would prefer that there was merely a synopsis and not the full summary we currently have. What do you think? Erik (talk | contribs) 16:23, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree up to a point. The problem is that I suspect that most visitors to this page are coming her to figure out "what the hell the movie was about." (I have yet to meet a person who understood the film the first time through. Most people I talk to don't even know where to start in terms of explaining what they got out of it.) We need to keep it short and to the point, but we also need to give some direction (which will be an interpretation, of course). I think if we can agree on the main points, we could write something that is very succinct, but very straight-forward for our visitors. If you want, I can list a set of key points, and if we all agree, then I could write or modify the existing synopsis based on those points. – VisionHolder « talk » 23:30, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We would not be able to provide the direction if it is our own interpretation. We would need to depend on secondary sources, possibly the academic ones that studied it closely. Justin, did the director's commentary include a full explanation of the film? If so, that would be worth citing, and we can save the academic coverage for an analytical section. Erik (talk | contribs) 23:37, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Commentary Embarrassing admission: I never listened to it. As I explained to Visionholder, I just moved and I don't have reliable Internet access, so this will have to be a back-burner thing for me, but I am willing to work on it and take the advisement of the peer review. Whenever the comments close and the direction this should take is clear, I'd be happy to work on it with or without further input from Erik or Visionholder. I don't own the article and I'm happy to see anyone else increase its quality. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:06, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That would be a good one to use. However, were there any good review of this movie? I find it hard to believe that every critic hated it. (And, honestly, I'm not sure they all hated it as much as they failed to understand it.. and therefore lashed out at it. Critics have very large, fragile egos, typically, and are very sensitive about their superiority in interpreting and evaluating films.) I remember after the film came out, people were giving it a 9.x on the IMDB ratings, so although it was a flop, there were quite a few people who enjoyed the film. I'd be completely shocked if there were no positive reviews at all. – VisionHolder « talk » 23:30, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think that in general, it was perceived as a flop. Metacritic does show positive (green) reviews. The Premiere one is already used in the article. I think it's more accurate to say that it was a divided reaction, where Aronofsky's subsequent films have been more praised in general. Erik (talk | contribs) 23:37, 7 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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