Just a Thought

Rating: 10/10 (20 January 2009)

I watched "Pi" for the first time in a number of years yesterday, and I was struck with a reference that I had never noticed before.
In Max's first meeting with Sol over the Go board, Sol asks Max whether he had gotten around to reading "Hamlet" (which Saul had previously recommended, presumably). It can't just be coincidence that "Hamlet", like "Pi", is ALSO about a "haunted" young intellectual who THINKS TOO MUCH.
Both Shakespeare's play and Aronovsky's film deal with the frustrations of trying to understand the fundamentally-irrational through the use of reason. In Hamlet's case, it means trying to reconcile a supernatural call for vengeance with Rationalist philosophy. In Max's case, it means trying to reduce all of Nature - even the True Name of God! - to a mathematical principle. Both Hamlet and Max are driven to (beyond?) the edge of sanity by their labors.
So Sol's recommendation that Max read "Hamlet" is not merely to give him something to take his mind off his work, but is in fact a veiled warning against the path he sees Max heading out on.
PS: I also wonder if it's a coincidence that Max's mentor is named "Sol"; Max is too close to "the sun", after all.