Popular Culture Review Vol. 22, No. 2, Summer 2011 | Page 48

44 Popular Culture Review experiences often take the form of mystical encounters, feelings, and thoughts. He writes that his interviews, as well as other research, tend to find women “describing] the divine in terms of interconnectedness and boundlessness, and in terms of subtle exchanges between the realms of the holy and the human, nature and cosmos” (52). This falls in line with Izzi’s role in the film, save that her ultimate purpose, and the film’s message, does not preach union with or understanding of the divine with regards to a god or goddess by any name. Cynthia Eller, writing about feminist debates over representations of women, says of the divine feminine, “Statuettes, paintings, calendar, and jewelry abound, and many small woman-owned-and-operated businesses cater to this ongoing hunger for female symbology” (24). In The Fountain, woman becomes both the source of knowledge and of life. Although the image of the tree does keep in line with conceptions of the Earth goddess, the film goes beyond this. The Tree, Izzi, leaves the Earth behind and ends in oblivion. She thus sets a sacred example to be followed, but one which resists commonly held assumptions about representation and meaning. She is the mother who holds a dying child and soothes it into whatever comes next, rather than the woman birthing new life into the world. Aronofsky drew on ancient mythology, specifically stories of the World Tree in crafting his story. Of his inspiration for the film, Aronofsky states, “But I think one of the initial things was, ‘How come no one’s ever made a film about the Tree of Life?’ In Genesis, there’s two trees: the tree of knowledge and the tree of life. It’s something that’s been in human mythology forever. People wanting to live forever” (Murray). Indeed, the biblical story of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden emphasizes God’s concern that A dam and Eve would attempt, in the aftermath of having eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, to also eat from the Tree of Life. This would render them immortal and thus undifferentiated from the deity who created them. In terms of mythic motif, the Genesis story can be seen as one of a number of stories designed to underscore that it is the fate of human beings to grow old, lose vitality, and succumb to death.2 Aronofsky also says of his development of the story, “For me, one of the big things was the fountain of youth which I thought was a really cool theme. It’s an old theme and one of the oldest stories that mankind has been telling. It’s in Genesis with the tree of life. It’s in Gilgamesh and Ponce de Leon searched for it” (Epstein). Whether envisioned in tree form or as a literal fountain of youth, the notion of a means by which to stave off death remains a fundamental dream of human culture. Aronofsky’s film deals specifically with a story of the World Tree as a vehicle for immortality, and he is correct in that no film in recent memory has really contended with the myth. Yet, current culture continues to fixate on finding the means to delay or prevent aging and death. The anti-aging industry brings in billions of dollars per year selling everything from products designed to hide the external effects of aging to supplements and treatments marketed as a means to prevent the onset of aging, thus delaying