Pi (1998)

Darren Aronfsky knows how to work a theme: The artist/lover/addict who drives himself/herself mad or dead with dark passion. “Pi” is his first chapter in his seemingly endless, bottomless Bible of Woe. Made in 1998, filmed in stark black and while and featuring unknowns, our story focus on Max (Sean Gullette), a paranoid math genius obsessed with breaking a hidden code within the Stock Market. Max’s story begins with him already long broken: When he was six, he stared at the sun, and it blinded him for days, and fried his brain. Forever. He fears about every human being (a bad trait in New York City), and ingests meds by the handful to calm his nerves and quiet the metal-grinding sound in his brain. He owns a power drill. When some shady people come looking for Max, to get the coded secrets of Wall Street, his crumbled psyche shatters. This is a rough, messy, amazing film, shot on a shoestring budget, full of razor ends, a work of pure art. The audience has its own code to break: When does Max sink into full madness, a prison as endless as 3.1415926535… A