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Pi movie storyline. Max Cohen is the story’s protagonist and unreliable narrator. Unemployed and living in a drab Chinatown apartment in New York City, Max is a number theorist who believes that everything in nature can be understood through numbers.
He is capable of doing simple arithmetic calculations involving large numbers in his head, a skill that impresses Jenna, a very young Chinese-American girl with a calculator who lives in his apartment building. Max also suffers from cluster headaches, as well as extreme paranoia, hallucinations, and social anxiety disorder. Other than Devi, a young woman living next door who sometimes speaks to him, Max’s only social interaction is with Sol Robeson, his old mathematics mentor who is now an invalid.
Max begins making stock predictions based on the calculations of his computer, Euclid. In the middle of printing out its picks, Euclid suddenly crashes after spitting out a seemingly random 216-digit number, as well as a single pick at one-tenth its current value. Disgusted, Max tosses out the printout of the number.
The next morning, he checks the financial pages and sees that the pick Euclid made was accurate. He searches desperately for the printout but cannot find it. Sol becomes unnerved when Max mentions the number, asking if it contained 216 digits. When Max questions him about the number, Sol indicates that he came across it many years ago. He urges Max to slow down and try taking a break.
At a coffee shop that he frequents on a daily basis, Max meets Lenny Meyer, a Hasidic Jew who coincidentally does mathematical research on the Torah. Lenny demonstrates some simple Gematria, the correspondence of the Hebrew alphabet to numbers, and explains how some people believe that the Torah is a string of numbers that form a code sent by God.
Max takes an interest when he realizes that some of the number concepts Lenny discusses are similar to other mathematical concepts, such as the Fibonacci sequence. Max is also met by agents of a Wall Street firm who are interested in his work. One of the agents, Marcy Dawson, offers Max a classified computer chip called “Ming Mecca” in exchange for the results of his work, which Max eventually accepts.
Pi, also titled π,[a] is a 1998 American surrealist psychological horror-thriller film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky in his directorial debut. The film earned Aronofsky the Directing Award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay and the Gotham Open Palm Award.
The title refers to the mathematical constant pi.[b] The film is notable for its covering of an array of themes including religion, mysticism and the relationship of the universe to mathematics. The story about a mathematician and the obsession with mathematical regularity contrasts two seemingly irreconcilable entities: the imperfect, irrational humanity and the rigor and regularity of mathematics, specifically number theory.
Produced on a $68,000 budget, the film was financially successful at the box office, grossing $3,221,152 in the United States despite only a limited theatrical release. It has sold steadily on DVD. Pi was the first ever film to be made available for download on the Internet.
Themes
Mathematics
Pi features multiple references to mathematics and mathematical theories.[d] For instance, Max finds the golden spiral occurring everywhere, including the stock market. Max’s belief that diverse systems embodying highly nonlinear dynamics share a unifying pattern bears much similarity to results in chaos theory, which provides machinery for describing certain phenomena of nonlinear systems, which might be thought of as patterns. During the climactic drill scene, a pattern resembling a bifurcation diagram is apparent on Max’s shattered mirror.
The game of Go
In the film, Max periodically plays Go with his mentor, Sol.[11] This game has historically stimulated the study of mathematics[12] and features a simple set of rules that results in a complex game strategy. The two characters each use the game as a model for their view of the universe; Sol says that the game is a microcosm of an extremely complex and chaotic world, while Max asserts its complexity gradually converges toward patterns that can be found.
Both Gullette and Margolis spent many hours learning the game at the Brooklyn Go Club, and had the help of a Go consultant, Don Weiner (misspelled as Dan), for the film.
Kabbalah
Early in the film, when Lenny begins talking with Max about his work, he asks if Max is familiar with kabbalah. The numerological interpretation of the Torah and the 216-letter name of God, known as the Shem HaMeforash, are important concepts in traditional Jewish mysticism.
Quran
Another religious reference is when Max is in the market looking for today’s newspaper, there is a recitation from Quran, in the background, citing Quran 2:140: “Or do you say that Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the Descendants were Jews or Christians? Say, “Are you more knowing or is Allah?” And who is more unjust than one who conceals a testimony he has from Allah? And Allah is not unaware of what you do.”
Pi (1998)
Directed by: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Sean Gullette, Mark Margolis, Ben Shenkman, Samia Shoaib, Pamela Hart, Ajay Naidu, Joanne Gordon, Stephen Pearlman, Kristyn Mae-Anne Lao, Lauren Fox
Screenplay by: Darren Aronofsky
Production Design by: Matthew Maraffi
Cinematography by: Matthew Libatique
Film Editing by: Oren Sarch
Makeup Department; Ariyela Wald-Cohain
Art Direction by: Eileen Butler
Music by: Clint Mansell
MPAA Rating: R for language and some disturbing images.
Distributed by: Artisan Entertainment
Release Date: July 10, 1998
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