PI

US, 1998, 84 minutes, Black and white.
Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis, Ben Shankman, Pamela Hart, Stephen Pearlman.
Directed by Darren Aronofsky.

Pi is notable as the first feature film by director Darren Aronofsky, who was to make quite a career with such films as Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, E Wrestler, Black Swan, Noah. He also wrote the screenplay and invented the story.

Sean Gulette appears as an obsessive mathematician, not quite searching for the theory of everything but for a number that will unlock the mysteries of the universe. His reclusive character is locked in his own world of mathematics. However, his work becomes the target of two different groups, one investigating Hebrew cabals, the other Wall Street financiers.

The film was made with grainy black-and-white photography and has a distinctive musical score.

A very interesting debut film for Aronofsky which raises all kinds of questions of science, meaning, as well as of human nature and obsession.

1. The impact of the film? Critical acclaim? Realism and Surrealism? As drama, as psychological portrait?

2. The director, his career, his range of subjects?

3. Black-and-white photography, stylised, grainy film, saturated light, design and framing of scenes, Max’s room, the computer screen and figures…? The atmospheric score?

4. The title, maths, numbers, patterns, application of mathematical theory, maths as the language of nature, the use of computers?

5. Max, at home, waking, the story of his looking into the Sun despite his mother’s advice, his headaches, pills, injections? His voiceover, mathematics, his explanations? Interest in Wall Street and figures, checking the lists and figures, his predictiions? The books, the board game with Sol, Sol’s advice to stop thinking, to feel, using tuition?

6. Max’s ordinary life, encounters with people, the little girl and her mathematics, the neighbour and her concern about his hair, the food, the samosas? Issues of health? On the phone, searching, no breaks? Obsessive?

7. The Jewish background, Lenny and the discussions, Kabbalah, Max saying he had no religious intersts? The importance of good deeds and God? Letters and numbers?

8. The door, its being broken open, the light? Sol and his image of Max as Icarus, too near the sun? Sol and past investigations of pie, his strike, stopping caring?

9. Max in the subway, the man singing I Only Have Eyes for You, disappearing? The later man in the subway and Max snatching the newspaper?

10. Failures, reasons, his physical condition, drugs, his getting “no results”? Sol and the stories of Archimedes, the gold, the bath, displacement, volume and density, the nature of breakthroughs?

11. Marci Dawson, the phone calls, wanting to meet Max, continued avoidance, running away? The issue of silicon and the computer?

12. The Torah, a long line of numbers? Lenny explaining the letters and numbers of father, mother, child? The searching for a pattern in the Torah, Lenny urging Max to pray, reciting the Shema?

13. Max and the world as chaotic, moves towards more predictability?

14. The nature of Max’s obsession, 216? Sol saying it could be found anywhere if that was chosen? Sol advising that if Max discarded reason he was no longer a mathematician but a numerologist?

15. The blood dripping on the subway, the vision of the brain, pressing the brain, waking on Coney island, the shell and its spirals?

16. The neighbour, borrowing the iodine, to fix the computer? Max and golden spirals, rectangles, fingerprints and images, DNA, the spirals of the Milky Way?

17. The sun, the swirling, the spirals, Max on edge, Marci and the chip? The delivery and his not opening the door? The chip, using it, failure, madness, injecting?

18. The neighbour and her help, the landlady wanting to ousting Max? Shaving his head, the continuous phone calls?

19. Sol, the computer crash, aware of its silicon, nature, the suggestion that it had computer consciousness?

20. Marci, the surveillance, wanting Max’s information, the chase, the number in his head? Home, the bath and the brain?

21. His being with the Hasidic men, the Rabbi, Lenny, the rituals and images, wanting the number, the number in the Temple, the role of the high priest, the destruction of the temple by the Romans, the loss of the secrets? The priest going into the holy of holies, pure or impure dying? The name of God with 216
letters? The key to the messianic age? Max as not pure?

22. The visual collage?

23. Sol dying, Max going into breakdown, burning the page and finally drilling into his head, destroying his brain, the little girl and his inability to do
mathematical problems?

24. The story of an obsessive man, paranoia? The importance of mathematics and interpretation of nature and the universe?