RadixJournal - August 09, 2026


Darren Aronofsky, Pi (1998)


Episode Stats


Length

19 minutes

Words per minute

151.19

Word count

2,982

Sentence count

28

Harmful content

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 So first off, just a brief summary.
00:00:02.660 So there's Maximilian Cohen is a brilliant young mathematician.
00:00:12.600 His professor who worked on pi throughout his life, his name's Saul, S-O-L, soul.
00:00:20.580 You could read it a couple of ways.
00:00:22.120 Saul in the Bible, you could read it as soul, as we would say it for the sun.
00:00:27.600 Very interesting.
00:00:28.620 he has some interesting tattoos on his hands um uh he apparently gave himself a stroke
00:00:36.560 uh by pursuing the pursuing pie and trying to find this uh the number the 216 digit number
00:00:46.480 the real thing and he throughout the movie he'll sort of reveal aspects of his journey that are
00:00:52.060 mirror uh max's and uh max is a shut-in uh possibly schizophrenic at the very least a very
00:01:00.300 uh unhealthy man who's constantly um doing drugs and other substances just to keep him awake he
00:01:07.300 seems to be unemployed he's just yet he has their ability to live in new york city and has a a big
00:01:14.520 stack of microchips and so on and um he starts to meet a couple of people in new york
00:01:21.400 uh new york is sort of the world on an island or the world within a city and um one of them is uh
00:01:29.520 one of whom is devy who's very an interesting character and she is a an attractive young woman
00:01:37.160 and she seems to take a liking to him and um also interesting whenever he's about to make his
00:01:45.060 program euclid uh give us the number and he's pressing enter he waits and he'll often hear
00:01:51.780 devy presumably devy having sex with someone in the next apartment and she comes back later
00:02:00.260 he's also visited by two people so there's marcy dawson who is a a black woman but also a very 0.93
00:02:06.500 professional wall streeter type and they are trying to get what is in his head they want they
00:02:14.180 they they've read some of his academic writings they know that he's on to something they want to
00:02:20.480 get the secret code so that they can have power and become billionaires and whatever um the other
00:02:26.580 person who seems friendly at first but actually is clearly has ulterior motives um is uh lenny
00:02:33.860 and he is a an ascetic jew and he is clearly stalking max and trying to get him in touch
00:02:43.120 with his jewish background he says you're a cohen yeah that's you're a jew like me um the torah it's
00:02:49.240 all numbers and he's giving him the basics of gematria that every hebrew symbol has a number
00:02:54.220 and you can sort of add these up in different ways
00:02:57.580 and get various lessons from that.
00:03:03.220 And eventually, Morrissey Dawson offers Max a way of figuring it out.
00:03:12.600 So Max has melted down his motherboard,
00:03:15.660 and you see silicon spilling out,
00:03:17.620 and he's destroyed his chips by pursuing this number.
00:03:21.460 and she's offering him this chip that is uh not yet declassified it is the ming mecca chip
00:03:29.180 uh a little black cube very interesting and um so you have these sort of two sides maybe even
00:03:36.560 two sides of jewishness although i don't think um marcy and the form and the firm of lance uh
00:03:44.920 lancet and percy i do think that those are coded as an arian firm uh but regardless you sort of
00:03:53.240 have two sides pincer movement coming in they're both trying to get their hands on max and um max
00:04:01.160 again is able to generate the number at last with this chip and uh he and and the stock people have
00:04:09.320 gotten hold of it, etc. And the climax comes when they're both running him down and just
00:04:17.660 physically abusing him, telling him to give the number. It's the name of God.
00:04:24.640 Or it's the way to become a trillionaire, whatever it is for them. And he basically tells this group
00:04:31.760 of Hasidic Jews that actually you aren't righteous. You don't even understand what you're doing. You
00:04:38.560 don't understand the syntax of the numbers you just want to intone some name the name of god
00:04:43.780 and the messianic age will be upon us but you don't understand what's between the numbers you
00:04:48.020 don't understand the syntax and i am actually the righteous one and um while this is going on he
00:04:53.700 eventually is is you know having hallucinations and and all sorts of problems with his head and
00:05:00.640 uh he shaves his head he there's a strand the right side of his temple there's a strange bulge
00:05:07.220 or symbol perhaps uh that is directly on his head and uh he's you know going crazy this is gonna
00:05:16.900 kill him Saul has another stroke while going after this number but he is able to get there
00:05:25.320 in fact almost killing himself in order to acquire the name of God and um uh eventually 0.97
00:05:34.420 uh max uh drills a hole in his head through the symbol and he actually burns the page
00:05:44.740 that is the number and he there's a scene that it's sort of like if you blink if you
00:05:51.060 and you miss it but he is uh crying and being mothered by a woman with black hair right after
00:05:59.340 this happens and that seems to be devy so he's at least achieved some sort of human connection
00:06:04.940 and at the end he seems a lot happier not pursuing the number and uh i think that's a that's a good
00:06:11.980 summary of the plot right there i don't know if you want to add anything to that no that's that's
00:06:18.160 great um yeah i mean it's uh it's again i think it's it's pretty straightforward and it does seem
00:06:28.060 that um there are a couple of kind of what what we might describe as sort of parallel metaphors
00:06:33.080 going on where um for example uh the computers the two the sort of two computers one is called
00:06:40.540 ming mecca and the other one is what you just gave me the name the last one uh it's named after a
00:06:46.520 mathematician oh euclid is his computer yeah yes euclid and um uh ming mecca is the second one the
00:06:55.940 the second one is that's the chip i guess yeah yeah um that's the name of the chip but it's it's
00:07:02.300 a especially powerful chip um that allows him to do the calculation a second time um
00:07:09.180 but it seems that there's a comparison with soul and the computers right so that soul is in some
00:07:15.400 way as a symbol the same as the computers if you understand my meaning and i think this is even
00:07:20.920 reflected in the names that he gives uh because all the names given to the um the computers mean
00:07:27.240 bright or famous and that's also that's also the meaning of um soul's last name robinson which
00:07:36.360 has a solar significance in that context right robinson i think it's robinson so uh soul robinson
00:07:43.180 And that name derives, it's similar to the name that Aronofsky will give a later character in The Wrestler, Randy the Ram Robinson, and then he'll call him Robin.
00:08:01.780 I think it's related to Robin, actually.
00:08:03.740 So it's related to the word Robin, and there meaning also fame or bright.
00:08:08.680 So I think in that context, probably in both contexts, it has a solar significance. So Sol, we know he's a solar significance because his first name means sun. So that's an easy one. His significance is kind of easy.
00:08:22.860 And we have this even at some point calls Max Icarus. Right. Because because Max is trying to, like, solve this equation and find that 216 number. Right.
00:08:38.600 uh so already and we and also another uh um description that's given uh from his childhood
00:08:48.760 in the film is that he you know his his mother told him never to look at the sun
00:08:53.460 but he does exactly that he looks at the sun and he for a brief period of time he goes blind
00:08:58.920 uh so it seems even though it's very veiled and the relationship is friendly or ostensibly friendly
00:09:06.100 his mathematician mentor seems to be cast as a kind of opponent as a kind of solar opponent
00:09:11.400 implicitly um and they're they're even throughout the film they're playing in this um i guess is it
00:09:18.700 chinese checkers that they're playing yeah it's a go i guess which china it's in it's in china and
00:09:24.880 japan but it's sort of yeah um japanese chess maybe is a better okay yeah analogy um but so
00:09:33.560 they're they're they're viewed as competitors essentially uh now it's very understated and
00:09:38.920 there's nothing to suggest there's any hostility between the two characters quite the contrary
00:09:43.160 there's a kind of friendly relationship between the two um but uh you know ultimately one is
00:09:49.860 destroyed by the number one is destroyed by the number that represents yahweh so the aryan character
00:09:56.300 that has a kind of that is given these sort of solar uh signifiers he's the one who's destroyed
00:10:02.780 by the number that represents the jewish god um and of course that's not max's fate max yeah i
00:10:12.300 guess max has a kind of epiphany where he's i mean we might say that sort of the subtext there is that
00:10:18.000 he somehow comes to the realization that he doesn't have to worry he's in some way safeguarded
00:10:24.760 by yahweh but he also seems to view god face to face like there there is that scene where he's in
00:10:33.240 a white room and he's just softly in toning numbers it's almost like he got there but then
00:10:40.340 was able to escape and return to venus um and uh it the other thing that i i want to mention because
00:10:49.300 i i agree with you that there there's definitely a solar metaphor going out throughout the film and
00:10:55.540 i i think it's even uh mirrored visually and the fact that it's black and white uh film stock and
00:11:04.580 it is a very harsh lighting uh throughout and um there's just a a lot of uh solar imagery visually
00:11:14.760 and um in in terms of the text of the film a lot of contrast too in the film stock a lot of
00:11:20.820 contrast yes definitely and um so yes as a boy he looked at the sun too long and what what is that
00:11:29.540 referencing just staring at the sun and um he's obviously a bit of a rebel as geniuses are but
00:11:36.380 but also he's you know staring at the solar i i think it does evoke the plato's myth of the cave
00:11:44.620 um after the protagonist of that uh parable leaves the cave he he sees the sun for what it is
00:11:53.280 and is blinded by it and has to recover for a few days this is the exact story that he um
00:12:02.620 uh rehearses but i i guess maybe i'll just ask you mark i mean it is there a little bit of a
00:12:12.340 mixed metaphor there there's the sun and the blinding light the white light even the the
00:12:17.460 freight or not afraid it was like a freight train the subway car coming at him in one hallucination
00:12:23.020 this bright white light um but that also is god yahweh and is there something a kind of mixed
00:12:34.460 metaphor here in the sense that we at least understand yahweh to be uh phonic uh volcanic
00:12:43.100 underground etc invisible yeah i mean it seems like basically the contrast is is being drawn
00:12:52.480 is between max and the solar so he's in competition effectively with the solar and this is demonstrated
00:12:59.080 in his relationship with soul they're always playing in this game against each other they're
00:13:04.160 both kind of implicitly in competition as mathematicians against each other because they
00:13:08.840 both have this sort of holy grail of finding this number right and um so there is a kind of uh
00:13:15.920 subtext of competition between the two uh so he's a competitor and i think that generally that this
00:13:22.120 is the theme in the film is that max is a competitor against the solar or against the sun
00:13:27.180 and yet and also as well it seems that there's a meta soul in a way is also a computer right so
00:13:33.380 soul is the computer and soul is the computer the two computers for example that um uh you know
00:13:40.180 max is able to burn out i mean you could even argue that the second one with this asian name
00:13:45.680 may even suggested a later competition with asians he's living in chinatown right uh yes right so
00:13:52.460 i think it also suggests something else what's that ming mecca so you think first asian mecha
00:14:00.300 i think it actually is a black cube much like the tiflim the the box you put on your head
00:14:07.600 when you're strapping your arm and this sort of extrapolation from a passage in exodus but um i
00:14:14.540 it could relate it might be actually the kaba yeah it could relate to other kind of cultural
00:14:22.840 competitions in other words right and that but that ultimately nothing can survive yahweh 0.98
00:14:29.220 like Yahweh will melt down whatever computer no computer will solve will be able to survive 0.86
00:14:35.820 Yahweh and that includes soul that includes the the two computers that he burns through
00:14:41.220 uh so I think that that ultimately is the message I mean so it is a message of gem it's a message
00:14:47.220 of the triumph of Yahweh over this solar competitor um so I mean I I guess that's why
00:14:55.620 i'm saying it's kind of simple and it's um i mean i think that there's probably more stuff to discuss
00:15:00.340 here but i think you understand my point the dilemma is that it's kind of a simple film in a
00:15:05.080 lot of ways yeah uh and i think that we've kind of solved it and i mean there are other things that
00:15:09.780 sort of reinforce what we're saying of course there's a there's this he's living in chinatown
00:15:15.480 and there's this sort of message there's this sort of ambiance of racial decline or racial decay
00:15:23.060 uh you have uh the indian woman she's even got a um the sort of uh the dionesian um
00:15:30.080 what's it called uh leopard print yes right which i don't know if you noticed that detail
00:15:37.140 to put it yeah yeah yes and uh so so there's this kind of he he's living in a multi-racial
00:15:44.400 condition essentially uh and that's um the milieu of the film ultimately which also is describing
00:15:52.620 in a kind of more literal uh literal way um but a modern way that audiences wouldn't pick up on
00:15:59.580 uh that we're just we're describing the decline of the west or the setting of
00:16:04.240 the arian sun and so forth um you know and the fact that the computing the fact that uh
00:16:11.780 you know at the same time the number that represents yahweh is destroying the computer 0.63
00:16:17.420 you're listening to like this sort of multiracial sex in the next room right uh so i think that
00:16:24.360 there's so i think that that's a theme that uh aronofsky is putting in the film is that this is
00:16:30.260 part of yahweh's destruction of the west wouldn't you say that's a fair reading uh 100 i i think 0.52
00:16:38.700 that's also he's also destroying the stock market as well because they can never understand uh here
00:16:44.360 I think it's very similar to two films that are important for us in REM analysis, Raiders of the Lost Ark and 2001.
00:16:56.580 and um raiders of the lost ark in the sense that the the message there is that you know these nazis
00:17:06.340 want to get their hands on the ark of the covenant and they want to use the power of yahweh
00:17:15.340 against the jews and and other people of course they want to harness the power within god and 0.95
00:17:23.560 they can that you just don't get it do you you never could do that and they all get destroyed
00:17:30.500 and in a very similar way uh indiana jones close in marion name uh close their eyes and sort of
00:17:38.800 don't look at the real the the face of god they they are worthy perhaps but at the very least
00:17:46.860 they protect themselves by not seeing it and just accepting it um the other aspect of this in 2001
00:17:54.120 i mean one of the very interesting interpretations that mark has uh brought to the fold uh is that
00:18:02.720 how the the famous ai computer villain of 2001 is actually an arian and solar figure and this is
00:18:13.460 and it might even be related to h-a-l being um one letter uh kind of kind of like a gentile golem
00:18:22.740 we could we could class them as a good kind of gentile gentile golem yeah but but the the red
00:18:27.360 and orange sun wheel as well might suggest more and so what kubrick might be saying is that
00:18:34.120 there are nazis within nasa and you have to turn them off because you know how becomes the
00:18:43.200 antagonist at some point and he is going to kill david uh the coded jewish hero and you turn off
00:18:53.160 hal and then you can reconnect with the black rock black stone of the monolith out in space once
00:19:01.560 you've just got rid of the computer and i think something similar is going on here the um the the
00:19:08.780 computer the this engineering machine math machine just can't take it it just gets melted
00:19:16.540 um and it becomes conscious of itself at the end right before death basically and it's like i am
00:19:23.600 silicon or whatever it's doing by producing this goo uh there's a little bit of like ai
00:19:29.000 you know talk and jargon going on there um but that's not what it's about like you can't handle
00:19:36.680 the truth, basically, is what I think all of these three films are saying in different ways.