It feels like ages since I've posted about actual moviemaking around here. I was a fan of Darren Aronofsky's Pi, and a fleeing refugee from the theater of Requiem for a Dream, but I have to give props to his vision and instinct for making his new film, The Fountain:
No matter how good CGI looks at first, it dates quickly. But 2001 really holds up. So I set the ridiculous goal of making a film that would reinvent space without using CGI.Palenque?...
Aronofsky and his crew flew to Central America to consult with legendary Mayan experts like Moises Morales Marquez, who has guided scholars through the ruins of Palenque for half a century. They made a pilgrimage to the Guatemala location used by George Lucas for the rebel-base scene in the original Star Wars film, high in the crumbling temples of Tikal.
...
The microzoom optical bench furnished Aronofsky's film with something neither a computer nor an old-fashioned matte painter could deliver – chaos, in all its ultra high-definition fractal glory. "The CGI guys have ultimate control over everything they do," Parks says. "They can repeat shots over and over and get everything to end up exactly where they want it. But they're forever seeking the ability to randomize, so that they're not limited by their imaginations. I'm incapable of faithfully repeating anything, but I can go on producing chaos until the cows come home."
Steve Silberman interviewed Aronofsky for Wired [wired via bb]
