This week, we are excited to feature Steve Vredenburgh’s video essay on Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain. Steve created this essay as his Master’s Thesis project and premiered it during Brehm Center’s 2016 ArtVentures. From Steve:
Film is inherently a visual medium, a fact that limits written film criticism. I use video essay to explore theological topics in film, giving preference to the visual components of a film. This is in contrast to written criticism, which focuses primarily on plot and dialogue. In the early stages, my process is not entirely unlike placing several objects into a blender, throwing the results against the wall, and attempting to describe the shape of the mess that is left behind. As I rearranged the resulting pieces of image and idea, my hope is that the shape on the wall becomes meaningful, or at least reveals the pervasive presence of God in the world. An editor by preference, my art creates something new through the juxtaposition of existing images (art) and ideas (theology).