“Pi” (1998)
Darren Aronofsky’s debut film still plays on my mind.
After re-watching this distressing psychological horror again over the weekend I though it only right and correct to re-visit the following article I originally wrote nearly a decade ago, and which is contained within an entire career retrospective on director Darren Aronofsky linked at the bottom of this spoiler free appreciation of his debut film. I’m just endlessly fascinated with this oft disturbing paranoid breakdown and the themes contained within it and whilst my writing has certainly improved over the past nine or so years, my personal visceral reaction still stands all these years later.
“When I was a little kid, my Mother told me not to stare into the Sun”.
This highly disturbing debut feature from Aronofsky was also written by the Director with lead actor Sean Gullette and Eric Watson, is entirely in black and white and reputedly made on a budget of just $60,000. Hand held and Steadicam shots dominate a seemingly two toned film, one of clarity and pristine shots and one of murkier, dirtier and darker obscured shots which is both intentional and a motif for the film of duality, paranoia and suspicion. The obvious theme and motif for the film is as suggested by the film’s title Pi and the mathematical equation of 3.14159, a constantly recurring number and the ratio of a circle’s circumference to it’s diameter. “Max Cohen” (Sean Gullette) is an obsessive and compulsive number theorist who constantly sees recurring patterns in numbers, ratios and, as the film progresses, life as a whole. The film opens with Max immediately confronted by a young girl called “Jenna” (Kristyn Mae-Anne Lao), calculator in hand asking for his answer to a complex mathematical equation to which he answers almost immediately. As he walks away she asks another and again Max, without the aid of a calculator, answers immediately however this first meeting is the first in a series of meetings and events that shape Max’s life and becomes both a theme for the film (of life and history repeating itself in a constant loop) and the introduction to a sparse set of main characters. The film as a whole has just 29 credited character roles of which only six are main characters and a constant throughout this short 84 minute film.
Max’s life continues to loop through a repeating pattern of looking through a spyhole on his front door, locking and unlocking this front door, encountering Jenna and sitting in his local park ruminating on the constant geometric and mathematical patterns in life. There is a constant accompanying narration from Max throughout the film, diary notes almost, spoken aloud as “Personal Note” or almost Eureka moments noted as “New Evidence”. He also time checks these new pieces of evidence or notes which, with the film as a whole, become more and more surreal. His life continues on a loop as more and more evidence becomes evident in every single interaction, as everywhere he looks, everyone he meets is connected in a spiral of continuing patterns. From his obsessive, compulsive behaviours of spyhole/unlocking his door to sitting in the local park, train journeys, telephone calls, searching his cupboard for reference books, sat at his computer entering mathematic code searching for a 216 digit number that will unlock the universe, his fractured and bizarre meetings with his neighbour and blindingly horrific and graphically portrayed headaches. The film envelops you from the very beginning so the nature of Max’s deterioration and the graphic breakdowns he frequently has is torturous and shocking. Framed up close and frantically cut amidst a pulsing, throbbing soundtrack they jolt you from an already surreal narrative and are never built up to. They are instant, graphic and shocking.
Every repeating action and interaction quickly becomes more odd and surreal and certainly more jolting yet gripping as the audience. Max’s frequent games of “Go” with “Sol Robeson” (a magnificent Mark Margolis) is the film’s heart and soul amidst the mental carnage. Sol is Max’s Mathematics Mentor and Father figure but both men hold each other in great esteem. Their simple games of Go (black and white checker board with a grid matrix for placing white and black stones) is both brilliantly framed by Aronofsky and another piece of Max’s “evidence”. Here Aronofsky excels by himself repeating similar themes throughout, of continual zoom close ups on every picking of a stone to placing it on the board, to collecting another stone, repeat, repeat, repeat! Framed from above and close ups on both Max and Sol as their games progress, it’s Tarantinoesque in it’s continued simplicity of close up shots on inanimate objects to tell the story. Sol himself is as obsessive as his young protégé with mathematical equations and how the very nature of the Pi formula envelops every part of life, but for the good of his health and well being has now effectively retired. He too was seeking that unique 216 digit number that Max is now obsessing over but finds peace and tranquillity within his small apartment, his family and his constantly referenced new pet fishes as he presciently warns Max “Have you met my new fish my niece bought me? I named her Icarus after you, my renegade pupil. You fly too high, you’ll get burnt too”.
The ultra bizarre meetings continue on a loop as Max, as The Narrator, proclaims early on “Mathematics is the language of nature”. Avoiding telephone calls from “Marcy Dawson” (Pamela Hart) a Wall Street insider seeking Max’s mathematical genius, he also begins to evade Jenna’s repeated requests and most importantly of all he spurns his one true innocent helper, his next door neighbour “Devi” (Samia Shoaib). Continuing his loop of bizarre train journeys and manic walks these are juxtaposed with calming times sitting in his local park but equally these are juxtaposed with his stress induced and excruciating headaches and collapses. Ruminating on how his mathematical patterns constantly reoccur in the stock market is a key throughout but more important are the links to respected science and philosophical arguments. From the recurring circular patterns in sea shells, leaves and sunflowers to their link to the “Golden Spiral”, “Golden Ratio” and “Golden Rectangle” as, has been agreed upon for hundreds of years by eminent scientists, of Pythagoras’ theory, through to the inclusion of these mathematical theories within the paintings of Leonardo De Vinci and others. There are many more referenced but one in particular shapes the film and is fascinating in it’s simplicity and yet is commonly overlooked. The Fibonacci Sequence (starting with 0 and 1) is a simple equation whereby you add the previous two numbers to gain your next number, so from 0 and 1 you get 1, 1 and 1 you get 2, 1 and 2 you get 3 etc. These sequences of numbers and geometrical/mathematical patterns are found throughout life and through the film lead us to our last main character.
“Ben Shenkman” (Lenny Meyer) continues to loop into Max’s life until finally they acknowledge a common shared fascination with numbers and number patterns. Ben grabs Max’s attention with the repeated, looping patterns found within the Torah, the Hebrew language and specifically Kaballah. As their friendship grows so does Ben’s motives until culminating in two bizarre and surreal rituals where Max and his theories are key and their significance to Kaballah fully explored. These two meetings bookend a final 35 minutes of the film that is some of the most visceral, gripping and tortuously surreal minutes spent watching a film. Max’s physical and mental decline is graphically portrayed against a background of ever more surreal encounters, of excruciating breakdowns and torment but in the midst of a compelling story so very well told by first time Director Aronofsky. The camera work in his debut film has been oft repeated in his future films, a hand held camera following his main character everywhere up close and very personal, overhead shots encapsulating every nuance of the scene and especially here, a circular camera that spins around Max on a number of occasions to encapsulate the circular, looping nature of his life, our lives, and his spiralling decline. Supporting the Director is Oren Sarch’s intricate, often oblique and frenetic editing and Matthew Libatique’s amazing cinematography, the first of four collaborations between Director and Cinematographer. Completing an all encompassing feeling of isolation, compulsion, desolation and a life literally spiralling out of control while on a hopeless search for discovery is Clint Mansell’s original music score. Again the first of many collaborations with Director Aronofsky, the music used is a mix of quiet, melancholic tracks such as “I Only Have Eyes for You” through to high tempo techno/trance tracks such as “Drippy” by Banco De Gaia and “P.E.T.R.O.L.” by Orbital, through to “Angel” by Massive Attack. There are also incredible arrangements from Autechre and Aphex Twin with their eponymous track “Bucephalus Bouncing Ball”.
A very good debut film is encapsulated within it’s last act with touches of real greatness, a soundtrack that never lets up and accompanies the film brilliantly with engrossing editing and camera work that astounds on repeated viewings and which culminates in the film’s iconic shot of Max and his shocking final twist into madness before looping again to Max and Jenna, calculator in hand, enjoying the the circular nature of life in the local park.
Nature itself is constantly referenced throughout and for good reasons, some oblique, some less so. Pi is a truly horrific film at times but a brilliant debut feature from Aronofsky which it can be argued has shaped many films that have followed in it’s wake. The Matrix is an obvious easy comparison with it’s computer code and nature of reality references, as is a lesser known Jim Carrey film The Number 23. But this is a raw debut feature from Aronofsky that deserves the utmost praise and recognition for an intensity filled and draining film that never relents and always challenges even on repeated viewings.
Thanks for reading. Linked below are three articles commencing with the lengthy career retrospective on Darren Aronofsky and two of my most recently published spoiler free film appreciations:
