Pi

Production

Artisan Entertainment released Pi in July 1998 after Darren Aronofsky’s debut feature won the Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was shot on high-contrast reversal black-and-white 16mm stock for roughly 60,000 dollars and edited by Oren Sarch.

Story

Maximillian Cohen, a brilliant and severely migraine-prone mathematician, works in a Chinatown apartment full of homemade computer parts and is convinced that he can find a pattern in the New York Stock Exchange’s data. His search attracts a Wall Street firm and a Hasidic numerology group.

Reception

Pi grossed about three million dollars on its low budget and established Darren Aronofsky as a major American independent director. The film also began his ongoing collaboration with composer Clint Mansell, whose electronic score helped define late-1990s indie psychological cinema.