Because my husband and I are too cheap and lazy to get babysitters, we don't go out to the movies but wait for things to show up on video to watch them.

Last night we rented "The Fountain," which was a bizarre kind of science fiction movie that neither of us fully understood, but it had an absolutely beautiful soundtrack, written by Clint Mansell and performed by the Kronos Quartet. The final piece that played over the closing credits was a piano solo that was particularly beautiful in (of course) a new-agey sort of way. I ordered the soundtrack from amazon today, and I have googled as best as I could, but I can't find any sheet music for this soundtrack. The piece itself is called "together we will live forever." This is a slim chance, I realize, but I thought I would ask if anybody here knows of this music and a source for the sheet music for that piece.

Barring that, can anybody tell me what the tree in the bubble thing was all about?

You may find a few clues abou the tree in a bubble on the excellent IMDb site. It won't help with the music, however. The Kronos Quartet have a website; you could try emailing them.

The tree in the bubble I thought was some sort of spaceship to get the tree to the dying star.
The music was not that memorable to me, probably becuase of the intense visuals.

It was that "get to the dying star" part that was throwing me... wouldn't the bubble be destroyed by cosmic radiation long before it got there? And I didn't see any life support systems in that bubble... all he had was a tiny pond of (unfresh?) water. Where'd he get food etc. So then I thought the bubble was just metaphor and didn't really exist. And then I got a headache and went back to listening to the music.

My husband and I just watched this too. One interpretation we had was that all the "historical" events were the book she was writing, then you had the "present" and the 'furture" events were the last chapter he wrote of her book. He starts the book where he decides to go for the walk in the snow with her, he plants the nut/seed she gives him on her grave, this grows into the "tree of life" and he and the tree go off to live eternally.

I also enjoyed the piano solo from the movie. Had to go look up the piano theme running through out "The Painted Veil" too !

Hmmm.... that makes more sense than anything I've been able to come up with so far.

I guess one mark of a good movie is that it makes you think about it days after watching it.

Okay, I have wonderful progress to report on my quest: I found a great YouTube video showing a guy playing a piano solo adaptation of "Death is the Road to Awe" (which is another beautiful piece from the soundtrack to the movie). Check it out:

Piano solo arrangement of "Death is the Road to Awe"

What blows my mind is that the Lennon Aldort, the kid in the video, is only about 16 years old but transcribed this arrangement all by himself.

I emailed him and told him I really liked his transcription and was looking for sheet music to the other piece, and he replied that he had it!! He sent me the sheets for both pieces. His transcription of "Death" is way too hard for me at this point, but I would like to learn it sometime. The "Together we will live forever", however, is quite doable and once again I am tempted to skip work to go home and play the piano.

I think the three interwoven stories in "The Fountain" is open to interpretation. Here's mine, but skip the rest of this post if you haven't seen the movie, as it contains spoilers and wouldn't make sense unless you've seen it!

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I thought that the three timelines had different manifestations of the Tomas / Dr. Tom Creo / Tommy character. The Spanish Inquisition world existed in history (his wife's research), the modern-day environment with "Dr. Tom" was perceivable "reality," and the "space bubble" world was an "alternate reality" accessed through meditation (hence the yoga poses, tai chi moves, etc.).

When the "space bubble" Tommy decided that he must die, rather than clinging to the fantasy of immortality, he jumped off the top of the "tree of life" in the bubble, assumed a meditative pose, and prepared to face the end. But instead of falling, his body was transported in a new smaller bubble toward the dying star.

As he was transported, he meditated on what would have happened in the temple. He stayed with the meditation even as he was killed by the temple guardian.

This "death" proved to be only temporary, as he reappeared beyond the guardian, who apologized for attempting to kill the one who had been prophesied to visit one day.

Then Tomas progressed to the tree of life and consumed the sap, expecting to become immortal. Instead, this caused plants to grow out of his body, killing him in the process (again!).

Staying with the meditation and watching his own body die (rather than stopping the meditation at the moment of death, as he had done before), he achieved passage to the dying star and put on the ring ("put on the ring when you see Eden").

Interestingly, to finish the story he had to meditate through three visions of his own death (jumping off the tree, in the temple, at the 'tree of life').

As he reached the dying star, it exploded in a "big bang." This symbolized rebirth - of the spirit, of the body, of the universe.

Hmmm...also plausible. I will confess to being completely baffled by the plants growing out of Tomas's stomach. In keeping with the legend he was supposed to become immortal, or at the very least, have the tree of life grow out of him. But flowers? Doesn't make sense.

Or maybe it just symbolizes the utter futility of achieving immortality... which one could argue that all THREE story lines concludes. Science can't save Izzy and she dies; the conquistador gets daisies in his stomach; and the Tree of Life itself dies before it gets to the dying star, and there's no reason to believe it was resurrected.

If that interpretation is correct, it's more than a bit of a bummer.

Incidentally, I'm making good progress on "Together..." I'll post a recording when I feel comfortable with it. I took one look at the piano transcription of "Death is the road to awe" and just laughed. I won't be tackling that this decade. (If you haven't watched the YouTube video yet, you should...it's an amazing piece of piano playing.)

The plants growing out of his stomach is a reference to the Mayan (or Aztec, I forgot) legend of the "first father" who sacrificed himself to create the world. In the movie they mention this and show a depiction of the Mayan guy with a tree growing out of his stomach (in the museum scene right before Izzy faints).

There is another reference in the movie when Izzy tells Tommy about someone whose father died and the relative beleived that the father would go on living in a sense, because they planted a tree at the grave, and a bird ate from the tree and flew away, so the deceased's spirit or whatever would be somehow carried on by the life of the tree and the bird.
Also, I think the tree was resurrected at the end, becuase it bloomed. And I don't think at all that the movie is about the utter futility of achieving immortality, I think it's more along the lines of immortality is not how or what you would expect. Consider the song's title: "Death is the road to awe"

That's why I was surprised it was flowers that came out of his stomach, not a tree... but you've convinced me about the message not being a gloomy "immortality is impossible" one but rather "immortality exists but in different forms than our current consciousness."

p.s. I told my husband I wanted "Death is the Road to Awe" inscribed on my tombstone.

I think jwjazz may have put it better than me...

Immortality in "The Fountain" isn't living forever on earth, but rather facilitating the cycle of birth -> life -> death -> rebirth -> ...

In a way, I did think the story suggested that it is futile to seek an infinitely long earthly existence. After all, Tomas/Dr. Tom/Tommy was repeatedly thwarted in his attempts to gain that type of "immortality." He only achieved an "everlasting life" on a spiritual plane.

Great movie, that was--saw it on opening day, and hardly anyone was there at the theater. I was pretty confused the first viewing, but after returning to the theater a few weeks later, it definitely made more sense.

"Immortality in "The Fountain" isn't living forever on earth, but rather facilitating the cycle of birth -> life -> death -> rebirth -> ..."

That sums it up very nicely, Colin!

I found a YouTube clip that plays the "Together we will live forever" piano solo piece I love so much in the background (various scenes from the movie are shown on the video portion):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjpMIhK9ego

Monica,

Just played the two U Tube numbers and would think that together with the movie, fine! But as solos rather a matter of personal audio sensitivity. Plus the affect of the movie at the same point in time.

The 'Death.....' music is very repetitive on the left hand too in my view, though the right hand melody reminds me of some classical?

This 'new age music' is great for certain minds isn't it?

Alan (swingal)

It is indeed, Alan. And you raise an interesting question: Would I have liked this music as much if I had not seen and been intrigued by the movie? I find a lot of soundtrack music to be rather boring, actually. For some reason these pieces resonated to me.

The original soundtrack version of the "Death..." piece did not contain the repetition you note, although I thought the young man did a great job in rendering a complicated piece into a piano solo and capturing the energy/intensity of the piece.

I'm getting very close to recording "Together we will live forever" but am waiting for my tech to come out and tune my piano.

http://www.musicr.info/Clint+Mansell/_/Together+We+Will+Live+Forever/

Have a look at this Monica.

Thanks, Gilbert! That looks like a great web site.