Cinephilia and Beyond

So, I’ve spent WAY too much time doing this, but I wanted Darren Aronofsky’s commentary on his movie “The Fountain” remixed with the actual audio from the movie, so I could re-burn my DVD withe the director’s commentary as an extra audio track, like it should have been done from the studio.

But before we get to the download, let me just say that I’ve never been one to be too much of a “fanboy”, but in this case, I’ll admit it readily. I loved The Fountain. I honestly consider it one of the bravest and most astounding movies ever made. Aronofsky is a director who communicates visually as much as he does through dialogue, and that is pretty rare. He packs his movies full of symbolism and visual meaning like no other director of his generation.

Anyway, I have a lot of opinions about The Fountain, and some of its meaning, and I know that I am probably in the minority when I say that I believe that the only “fictional” part of the movie is the Conquistador portion of the movie. I believe that Tommy the doctor and Tom the space traveler are the same person. I believe that Tommy really does find the cure for death, and spends a lonely eternity searching for his wife’s soul, until he realizes that death is not the evil thing that he thinks is it. He finally stops being afraid of death, and realizes that the end of all his searching is the very thing he has been running away from: Death itself.

I could go on, but that is not the purpose of this entry in my blog. Maybe I’ll write more about my reasons for those ideas sometime later. But what we’re talking about here is me being a fanboy, and the fact that I decided to re-work Darren Aronofsky’s Director’s Commentary of The Fountain, and make it available for you to download…

A short time after the DVD of The Fountain was released, Darren Aronofsky recorded his own director’s commentary of the film and posted it on his website. For years I have been meaning to actually re-master it, sync it up, and re-burn it to my own DVD with the director’s commentary included on a track. And for years, I’ve been putting it off. Until yesterday.

First I ripped the DVD out into a full-res, uncompressed, 28 gigabyte movie file. Then I put the file into Soundtrack Pro and overlaid the Director’s Commentary on top of the original audio. Then I spend several hours dipping the levels, editing out certain sounds, and including the background audio of the movie a bit more than was in the commentary that Aronofsky made. I didn’t delete everything, sometimes because it would have been impossible (i.e. the sirens in the background at the end), and probably missed a couple coughs or a sniffle or two (sorry Darren).

So, after several hours in Soundtrack Pro, I finally had a completed AC-3 file that had Aronofsky’s commentary on it, at acceptable levels, and with the original movie audio underneath it.

And in the spirit of the internet, I am putting this audio file up for download for anyone who might want to make their own DVD with the director’s commentary on it. I only ask that if anyone asks you where you got it from, you point them here!

Now, I have purchased the DVD, and so should you. I ripped these files from the copy of the movie that I own. So should you. Especially for a movie like this – a movie that deserves far more accolade than it received. (And I know I’m not alone in this opinion, and I won’t apologize for thinking that the American public needs to stop feeding the Transformers monster and start demanding films that make us think).

At the bottom of this post is the file. Today I spend another hour in DVD Studio Pro adding the tracks, overlaying them, and then adding scripts to allow me to choose the audio for the main track. I now have my own personal DVD with both the regular version of the movie’s audio, and I can turn on Darren Aronofksi’s commentary track any time I want. (That file, however, I’m not going to post, for obvious reasons.)

So for whoever finds this post, and this blog, enjoy the commentary, and keep watching movies that make you feel and think, not just turn into a drooling consumer-zombie!

Download the mp3 file (231MB)
Download the ac3 file (324MB)