Pi By Darren Aronofsky

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Pi – Darren Aronofsky In the movie Pi by Darren Aronofsky, the viewer observes the tale of a middle-aged genius mathematician who slowly loses his mind by devoting and concentrating all of his energy and time into the pursuit of a mythical number which is believed to be the most important number in all existence; this number would allow him to predict the future of the stock market, or even find the true name of God. The main character, Maximillian, has been obsessed with numbers since he was a young child after an accident in which he stared at the sun for too long; since then, he has believed that “mathematics is the language of nature,” and that “everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers”. Max has effectively shut out everything in his life by only focusing on the mathematical, quantitative parts of life while ignoring the beauty and simplicity of nature around him. As the story progresses, he learns of the existence of a number which holds a power that is too great for anyone to know of; naturally, he begins putting all his time into discovering what this number may be. The search for the number takes a huge toll on his well-being, as he begins to suffer from hallucinations and excruciating headaches; eventually the pain begins so overwhelming that he convinces himself to perform brain surgery on his own head – he drills into his own brain, effectively lobotomizing himself. The end of the film shows him finally enjoying nature, not caring one bit about the numerical aspects of it at all. Throughout this movie, Aronofsky is trying to tell the viewer that if one was to ignore the beauty of nature in exchange for spending all of their time buried in the pursuit of a (possibly inconceivable) goal, then they will only bring suffering onto themselves; there is no point in living a life in which one does not actually take part in the act
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