collected writings

Requiem for a Dream

Requiem for a Dream , based on a 1978 novel by Hubert Selby, Jr. follows the drug aided downward spirals of a single housewife and her son, remaining a darkly humorous film though faced with a realistically subjective viewpoint of drug addiction.

Sara Goldfarb (played by Ellen Burstyn, who garnered an Academy Award nomination for her performance), obsessed with a television game show, mistakenly believes that she has been selected to appear as a contestant. With high spirits, she pulls her favorite red dress out of the closet, only to find that it no longer fits. She embarks on a voyage of weight loss, cumulating in an addiction to dangerous mind-bending diet pills.

Meanwhile, her son Harry (Jared Leto) has already started down a similar path. He is convinced he will make it big peddling drugs with his pal Tyrone (played by Marlon Wayans - in a performance that separates him from his family's base comedy) and girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly). For Harry and Marion, pushing seems to be the easiest access to the drugs they so desperately desire; as the two fall deeper in love they fall deeper into a well of drug addiction.

Director Darren Aronofsky coaxes some vivid performances from his actors, who seem less and less themselves as the film continues. Burstyn's transformation from innocent matron to crazed and terrified addict nearly overwhelms the film. In the end, though, the performances are engulfed by directorial bravado. Requiem for a Dream follows Aronofsky's debut Pi (1998) in a search for a subjective viewpoint that harkens back to Hitchcock, and Karl Freund before him, who in the days of German Expressionism strapped a camera to an actor to simulate a drunken perspective.

Aronofsky continues this tradition to include extreme close-ups, strobe cuts, split screen, and fast motion to capture the essence of the drug experience. In a period of cinema where every film seems to have some aspect of the experimental indie / MTV aesthetical practices, Requiem for a Dream , like Pi before it, remain creative and independent.

Aronofsky's directorial style stands as proof that the camera can subjectively capture the human experience and provides that there will always be exciting visual imagery on screen.

Requiem for a Dream was given the worthless NC-17 rating by the MPAA; Artisan Entertainment did the right thing by rejecting the rating and asking theatres to enforce an adults only policy. However, the portrayal of the trauma and tragedy of drug addiction should find an audience among teens as well as adults. Requiem for a Dream does get harder and harder to take as the characters tumble faster in a drug-laden freefall, but Aronofsky's skill is demonstrated by the increasing reluctance of the viewer to turn away.