Requiem
for a Dream (2000)
Darren Aronofsky, the indie film wunderkind
behind 1998's wonderful experimental hit "Pi," creates
a sophomore effort that is equally as amazing, dazzling
and intense as his debut. Repeating some visual refrains
from his first film and opening his vision to include
color, traditional drama and even more spectacular
cinemagraphics, Aronofsky concocts a vast treatise
on addiction that will stagger the viewer. His film
is continually visually amazing with each and every
frame a well composed and engrossing picture that
never ceases to engage and draw in the viewer. This
wonderful ocular carousal seems achieved by Aronofsky
with limited budget and no real silicon induced trickery.
Aronofsky simply utilizes a marvelous eye for picture,
a beautiful colorful cinematography that appears to
be shot on 16, awesome sets and costumes, beautiful
and talented actors and perfect editing and music
to create a world and a vision that will astound and
affect the viewer. This is groundbreaking filmmaking,
nothing less than what we would expect from the talented
man who brought us the extraordinary film "Pi."
The acting in "Requiem for a Dream"
is top-notch. The most wonderful and beautiful thing
in the film is the performance by Ellen Burstyn. Allowing
this consummate and talented actress from Hollywood's
revolutionary past to come forth yet again and create
a fascinating, multidemensional and poignant character
is a great gift from Aronofsky. The film concerns
addiction and the script by Hubert Selby, based on
his novel, juxtaposes the face of youthful abandon
which leads to heroin addiction with aged loneliness
and despair, which leads to the addiction of prescription
pills. Aronofsky may take the film into an overwrought
and far too dramatic conclusion but the journey there
is truly visionary. Burstyn, as the sweet but desperate
matriarch, continually amazes us with her daring and
challenging performance. Her work here is nothing
short of Oscar worthy and if a nomination does not
come it will be a true shame. Burstyn's marvelous
talent permeates the film elevating the already perfect
actors around her to the heights of real genius. The
scene she shares with lead Jared Leto, in the film's
midsection, is one of the most touching and poignant
between a mother and son in recent memory. Leto soars
sharing the frame with her. Even those young performers
with whom she does not appear, Marlon Wayans and Jennifer
Connelly, seem graced by her spirit here. Wayans provides
one of the most subtle and touching performances of
a young black man to grace the silver screen in quite
some time and Connelly's spiral into whorish degradation
is nothing short of masterful when touched by the
film's complex and compelling essence created by Aronofsky
and Burstyn.
Evolving from his earlier film consciousness
and retaining much of the cinematic verve that he
showed in "Pi," Aronofsky creates a visual world that
is able to tell a story with vignettes and moments,
often less than one second long. His quick cuts and
affected images propel and carry the story. His quick-cut
edits which underscore the addiction of the characters
reflects the kinetic actions that are as much a part
of addiction as the high. Popping pills, cooking heroin,
injecting, the dilation of the pupils, the coursing
of blood through the veins, these images speed through
the film and are repeated endlessly much as addiction
itself is a repetition of the day to day business
of finding and taking drugs. Aronofsky began this
visual technique in "Pi" and continues it here where
it becomes even more apparent, repetitious and punctuated.
Aronofsky also uses split screen techniques in the
film, often to highlight two character's feelings
on a certain situation but just as frequently to distinguish
the utter loneliness and fear of his characters. When
Leto and Connelly appear in bed together yet are separated
by split screen, Aronofsky highlights not only their
true distance from each other as people but also the
duality of nature inherent in the characters as drug
addicts. Touching, loving and tender, verbally and
physically, the characters are really only facades,
saying what sounds like truth to them. It's compelling.
Aronofsky also uses fish-eye lens and camera tricks
to underscore addiction, withdrawal, psychotic dementia,
feelings of repulsion and degradation, and more. Each
moment, each technique perfectly chosen and executed
to give the film a never-ending feeling of life out
of balance, of people desperate and needy.
Color and sound is likewise principal
in the film. Aronofsky, with "Pi" alumnus DP Matthew
Libatique, creates a visually stunning world, full
of natural beauty that is constantly threatened by
the onslaught of television mentality, junk food hunger,
psychic withdrawal and drug addiction. It's no accident
that the film begins with the natural lush greenness
of spring and denigrates into the harsh cold reality
of winter. Everything dies here, all hope, all dreams
and all life. As the title implies, this is the dirge,
the saddening remembrance of that dream, the dream
of life. The visuals continually emphasize this loss.
Sound propels the film with an audacity
and it's modern predominance that again shows it's
juxtaposition to daily life. Leto is shown to be interested
in music and has numerous turntables in his apartment.
Like a young man of modern times, he is influenced
and involved in modern music and it's culture. Aronofsky
shows this visually moreso than sonically. Audibly,
the score by Clint Mansell, utilizing the saddened
strings of the Kronos Quartet, remind us throughout
the film that it all must end in tragedy. The virtual
flight of the musical score here highlights each and
every frame of the picture as does the sound effects
and silence that Aronofsky employes. No director,
perhaps since David Lynch, seems as in tune with the
aural landscape as well as the visual one in his films
as Aronofsky does here.
"Requiem for a Dream" ends in a overtly
dramatic and far too literal way, at least for the
main characters. The resolution of Wayans and Connelly
is handled far more subtly and perfectly. But still,
with this minor flaw, Aronofsky has crafted a revolutionary
film, a work of remarkable depth and breadth, a vision
of color and light and sound, a world where characters
(and therefore actors) are as important as story,
and where editing and technique tells as much story
as dialogue and plot. Watching Aronofsky weave this
magical plot, juxtaposing a rather typical story of
youth against the rarely seen harsh bitterness of
the loneliness of the aged reminds us brutally of
the possibility for loss in life. The dream is a dream
of a happiness in existence, of love and acceptance;
here that dream dies. Like the lifeless and abandoned
rollercoaster that looms over the neighborhood in
Aronofsky's New Jersey setting, all forward momentum
is stopped. With drugs, loneliness, despair and heartbreak,
the need for an amusement park ceases and the dream
seems only a vacant, distant memory. Only at it's
memorial do we begin to sense the loss.
Note: Also with Louise Lasser, Christopher
MacDonald, Keith David and Dylan Baker.
Edited by Jay Rabinowitz. The film
contains close to 2000 cuts.
The budget for the film was $4.5 million.
The film was consistently given an
NC-17 rating by the MPAA who insisted that a sex party
scene in the final reel be edited. Artisan and Aronofsky
refused and instead opted to release the film sans
rating. This is yet another case of the MPAA refusing
to see a film as art rather than pornography (the
scene is no worse than something in "Eyes Wide Shit,"
although far more gritty than that film). How long
are we as Americans going to allow this archaic and
subjective system of rating films continue? If you
want your teenagers to stay off drugs, take them to
this film. Aronofsky's next film may be "Batman: Year
One."
