The film is based on the novel of the same name that was published in and the author himself, Hubert Selby Jr. His story is one of bleak honesty and a depressing reality. While viewing the film, I was reminded of someone I used to know that became addicted to cocaine and ended up losing custody of her son because of her addiction.
I can recall walking down the streets of where I used to live and remember seeing people who appeared to be in a dilapidated state. I would often wonder what was going on with these people, curious to know what they were like prior to where they were when I encountered them. When the film concluded, that was the exact thought that was running through my mind- what were these characters like prior to succumbing to their addiction?
What was the pivotal moment when their life was changed? Requiem for a Dream is a perfect title for an absorbing and terrifying film. The performances are excellent including the Academy Award nominated performance from Ellen Burstyn.
Be warned, the imagery in this film is brutal, grotesque at times and truly unforgettable. In terms of horror, this is one of those films that can easily get under your skin. The story of four people who get too much into drugs, it poses several questions, not all of them about drugs.
One of them is, how stylized can movies become before they are so thoroughly stylized that they lose their narrative roots? It's rather like music in some respects. At one end of the dimension, which I won't try to name, there is a simple tune like, oh, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," which is easy to remember, fun to whistle, cute, and rudimentary although Mozart did some very odd things with it. At the other, three minutes and some seconds of silence.
In movies, at the simple end, we can have, say, a one-hour film consisting of nothing but the same shot of the Empire State Building.
At the other end of the dimension we might get something resembling what one sees in a kaleidoscope while stoned. Or maybe we come back to the Empire State Building; maybe it's not a dimension at all, but a circle. This one certainly hasn't lost touch with the events it describes but it's pretty highly stylized too, as far as the direction, photography, editing, and sound are concerned. Sometimes this stylization works to support the narrative and sometimes it doesn.
Sometimes it actually works against it. Example: all of the drugged-up scenes are in fast motion, including those involving, not just speed, but marijuana and heroin. The hyped-up action we get while Ellen Burstyn is on diet pills is evocative, peppy, full of accelerated business. But heroin doesn't work that way. And marijuana practically ablates one's sense of the passage of time so that, for instance, it sometimes seems to take half an hour to urinate -- so they tell me.
If you stop using speed abruptly you can get some wizard hallucinations. But no one hallucinates on heroin, although this film suggests they do. The result is that the stylization is sometimes over the top, not slowing down enough to give us a chance to take a breath. It's nerve jangling and leaves the viewer a neural shambles. The performances are fine, by everyone concerned. In particular, Jennifer Connoley has by far her juiciest role and, somewhat surprisingly, is up to it.
Burstyn is excellent too, her accent pretty well Brooklynized. But some of that shredding of sensibilities is unearned and unnecessary.
The editing is increasingly jumpy and shocking, though it never leaves us in doubt of where we are or who we are with. The score is a blend of mostly scratchy, unpleasant electronics and ordinary sounds with the gain on high -- each pill accompanied by a "plop" on the sound track, each flick on a lighter by a "pfft," and so on.
Sometimes it sounds like a Popeye cartoon. The photography too is highly distinctive. Fisheye lenses abound here. Cameras are fixed by harness onto an actor's body so that the actor's face and shoulders are immobile while the background seems to swivel around him and he walks and turns corners.
The effect is so disturbing that it keeps your eyes glued to the screen. I found Aranovsky's earlier film, Pi, plan irritating and depressing because of the high-contrast photography and other directorially imposed effects. This one is depressing too, but less irritating because, despite the high style, a story is being carried, and the story is about characters we care something about. They may be self absorbed, like the subject of "Pi," but they're hardly self confident.
Their weaknesses are pathetic but entirely recognizable. Ellen Burstyn wants to lose weight so she can look good in that red dress, just as she did at her son's graduation. She pursues the cultural ideal of slenderness and youthfulness. Her son and his pardners in euphoria pursue the cultural ideal of pleasuring one's self.
The drugs could be a neat stand in for the values that prevail in our community currently. Why else, except out of a desire to look good, would people buy a three-hundred-dollar simulacrum of a rowboat and use it so regularly? Why else, except out of a desire to feel pleased with one's self, would anyone buy a forty-thousand-dollar ten-gallon-per-mile Suburban Assault Vehicle with a revolving machine gun turret atop it? Look at me, everybody, I'm young, beautiful, and happy!
Of course I can't figure out why I'm alive, but I don't ask myself that question. This is an extremely innovative film, but the director has made clear his admiration of earlier movies, including "The Panic in Needle Park" the same general idea , "The Godfather" ominous oranges , "The Little Shop of Horrors" "Feed me, Sara! It left me saddened and panting for breath. I'm not sure I'd like to sit through it too often, but I certainly wouldn't have wanted to miss it.
Tweekums 7 February In the summer four residents of Coney Island dream of better times. Widow Sara Goldfarb spends her days watching self-help programmes on television; then one day she gets a phone call inviting her to be on a show Unfortunately she is a little too large for it; dieting doesn't work so she turns to pills. Her son Harry and his friend Tyrone are regular drug users who have a plan to fund their habit and raise money for a better life by turning to dealing Harry's girlfriend Marion is also using and resorts to prostituting herself to get her fix.
It must be stated that this film isn't easy viewing; in the opening scene we see Harry taking his mother's television to pay for a fix. Then, even as things are getting better for him, we see his mother drawn into a different but no less dangerous addiction As summer turns to autumn things get much grimmer and one wonders just how bad things will get Director Darren Aronofsky's use of rapid cuts captures the manic urgency of the addicts' lives. They really make us believe in their characters as their lives descend into a nightmare.
Overall I'd certainly recommend this but prepare to be disturbed. Jared Leto plays Harry, a junkie who, along with pal Tyrone Marlon Wayans , hopes to make a killing buying drugs and reselling it on the streets; meanwhile, Harry's mother Sara Ellen Burstyn becomes dependent on uppers in a bid to lose weight ready for an appearance on a TV game show.
As time passes, Harry winds up with an infected arm, his girlfriend Marion Jennifer Connelly resorts to prostituting herself for her next fix, his mum goes completely loopy, and Tyrone ends up in prison. I understand that, having graduated from film school, a young director will be keen to show off some of what they have learnt.
In Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky goes all out, chucking in everything including the kitchen sink. Not one second goes by without a 'cool' film-making technique being thrust in the viewers face, whether it be split screen, time lapse, rapid repetitive editing, or Snorricam. It's all there, to such an extent that it pulls the viewer out of the film, as opposed to immersing them which I believe was the intention.
Aronofsky is so enamoured with his clever visual trickery that he neglects to develop his characters beyond the basics or tell a decent story beyond the bleeding obvious: that drugs are bad. One can see right away Aronofsky's attraction to this material: told from each of the four addicts' perspectives, it's one long, brutal spiral downward, climaxing in a fury of sucker-punch editing.
Burstyn received the film's only Oscar nomination for her bravura portrayal of Leto's television and weight-obsessed mother from Brooklyn who slowly starts to crack apart from uppers Leto says to her, "I can hear you grinding your teeth from over here!
Not a pleasant experience, but full of showmanship. Aronofsky seems to have learned from the best, pulling a Kubrick-esque barrage of tricks from his cinematic manual to create both a narcotizing and a nervy effect. The lulling, deluded daze these characters fall into isn't romanticized--it's seen as a trap; soon, they're just rats in a maze, filmed by Aronofsky through a fish-eye lens.
We get insight into the sickness of drug addiction, but little sympathy--perhaps that's why the film isn't moving on a gut level Burstyn, for instance, already lives in what looks like lower-middle class hell, and the kids have no direction right from the start.
As a case study, the movie does falter due to the content of style over substance; however, as a visceral experience, it's a flamboyant triumph. TxMike 29 June There are lots of people in this film, but it is the story of only four of them - Sara Ellen Burstyn , who gets scammed into sending an application with money, no doubt for a TV appearance, then needing to lose weight, getting in with a shady diet doctor, eventually getting hooked on pills and turning into this monster of a person who no longer can relate to the world.
Harry Jared Leto , her son, along with Marion Jennifer Connelly , his girlfriend, and Tyrone Marlon Wayans , his friend, all get caught up in the drug culture. He repeatedly steals Sara's TV set, wheels it down to pawn for drug cash, she goes behind him and pays to get it out of pawn. They get wise, buy some good stuff, cut it, make a good profit, repeat the cycle, eventually hoping to get rich.
But their "habit" clouds their judgement, they get screwed, they drive towards Florida to get more stuff, are arrested at a hospital stop miles south of NYC, Harry has his arm surgically removed because of use-induced infection, Tyrone ends up in prison, Marion has to prostitute herself to get drug money, Sara has shock treatment and is never herself again. Each tragedy, each shattered "dream", a result of drug use.
And the whole film is the "requiem" for those dreams. I'm sure some of all these things happen some time, but in all I found this to be just a bit of a caricature of how the drug culture ends the functional lives, sooner or later, of all who get mixed up in it. Thus the title of the film. Jennifer Connelly has always been beautiful, but as she matures is also turning into one of our finest female actors. Although Burstyn received the Oscar nomination, I think Connelly's performance was the best in this film.
Like most of the "mature" voters, I rate it "8" of 10, unlike all those "under" voters who rated it "9" and "10" because of the "gee-whiz" factor, or maybe they could identify with the characters more than I can. I didn't always care for the strange way the movie was filmed, although much of it was necessary for telling this story. The first time I saw Tyrone running in the alley with the camera somehow attached to him, I thought that was neat and unique. However, as they used it for several other scenes, I began to focus on the camera technique rather than the story.
I saw the DVD. It has one of the most irritating menu presentations possible, using a test pattern raster with interference.
Cute, but I soon found myself avoiding use of the menu. However, the picture and sound of the movie itself, in Digital Dolby 5. My God! It's always difficult to write reviews about perfect movies but I'm going to try. First, there are three adjectives which come to my mind to describe this movie and they're the ones which everyone thinks of: powerful, harrowing and heart-breaking and certain sequences remain engraved in the memories like for example, Jared Leto's wounded arm caused by drug.
To watch "Requiem for a Dream" is like being punched in the face. It's the kind of movie which can't leave indifferent. It is impossible to come out of this horrifying movie unharmed. It was made by a young director Darren Aronofsky whose previous movie "Pi" was very hailed.
I must admit that I wasn't fully convinced by this indie movie but here, without a doubt, the director entirely hypnotized me and I thank him for that. The movie was made from a novel written by Hubert Selby Jr. It isn't the first time that a work from this novelist is adapted for the screen. Indeed, in , Uli Edel had shot "Last Exit to Brooklyn" which developed a nightmarish and apocalyptic vision of a mankind who lived in hell.
Here, the movie focuses on 4 main characters. There's Harry Goldfarb. He, his girlfriend Marion Silver and his best mate Tyrone C Love plan to become high-rolling smack dealers. In the meantime, his mother Sarah Goldfarb has got her head in the clouds. She received a call and she learned that she's going to appear on television. At the beginning of the film, the 4 characters' hopes amazingly answers the shiny weather of the summer.
But as we usually say: best things have an end. Summer will go away to leave place to fall and winter. Just like the dreams will slowly but surely shatter and the 4 main protagonists will embark on an endless suffering.
A vertiginous descent into hell like we have never seen one and which will reach its climax in winter in the last half-hour of the movie. From this moment, the film presents a flood of incredible pictures; they are so painful so much that they make the view unbearable. However, you watch it flabbergasted with both repulsion and fascination. Darren Aronofsky invites us to a climbing in the morbid. Through, accelerated frenetic sequences, hysterical split-screens, parallel images, the director doesn't pull his punches to describe this diving in absolute horror for the 4 characters.
However, in his crazy making, there's none form of unwarranted nature. The features previously quoted may be disturbing but necessary to answer several things which aren't pleasant to hear like for example, to denounce the omnipresence of the consumer society. These abuses express themselves, here, by the crushing presence of objects, perfectly representative of this society like the television or the refrigerator.
The another goals of the film: to make us share the physical and moral sufferings of a drug addict, notably through the deterioration of their visual and sonorous perceptions. But also to show us in a straight-forward and rough way, the dependence of a drug addict on his drug. Aronofsky's message is simple to understand. There's not only the drug like cocaine or amphetamines that make dependent but also simple objects apparently harmless which can become dangerous like the television or the refrigerator.
They can destroy our faculties of reasoning and judgment. In a way "Requiem for a Dream" illustrates very well Brad Pitt's key cue in "Fight Club" : "things you own end up owning you On the other hand, if we put the stress on drug, the least we can say is that the moments of shooting, the withdrawal times are showed with a realism and bluntness rarely reached.
True, "Trainspotting" had already presented similar scenes but Darren Aronofsky isn't afraid to go further in daring. It would be unfair to neglect the terrific cast. Beginning with Ellen Burstyn who in all respects gives a dazzling performance. She renders very well the degeneration of her character. In the beginning, she is a normal old lady but in the end, she looks like a senseless living dead.
Then, concerning Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly well their sensitiveness and fragility are impressive. But the biggest surprise is Marlon Wayans. Who could have thought that he could be at ease in a comic role Scary Movie as well as in a dramatic role? These 4 actors make particularly harrowing the very last sequences of the film which show them forever in the depths of despair or madness where pain, humiliation and misery suffer into them. And then, during the final credits, we can hear the sea with a little of relief as if we had just made a nightmare.
But what is extraordinary in Aronofsky's work is that he manages to find a little place for humor which acts in an efficient way. In conclusion, this young film-maker has shot a film with a real emotional power.
I must confess that I almost shed a tear several times. It's not a movie for everyone and for the spectators who didn't watch it, I advise you not to see it if you are in a sad mood. It demands a strong stomach and I think the people who say they weren't afraid during the projection are liars. Don't forget your handkerchief. Quinoa 22 December And it helps that I saw it again, because on a first viewing I looked more for the performances, and liked it, but didn't really regard the actual cinematic technique for it with as much un-equaled regard as many others have at the time I considered it more of an MTV-styled take on a very powerful topic.
But now watching it years later I mean, despite what the date of this comment says I watch it, having gone through lots of other film-viewing experience, and I like it a lot more. In a way what's really mesmerizing and heartbreaking about the picture is that the contrivances are not based in the actual script or story- not that there isn't one or two that might be hard to not have in there- but rather a sort of fashioning of continuous cinematic contrivance.
In other words, Aronofsky pushes the bounds of everything that can be done with the camera and editing in terms of subjective-viewpoints, ideas through montage, and the power of abstractions in the realm of the main theme of the film- unattainable escapism.
One might be tempted to compare to Eisenstein with the montage, but unlike him Arnonofsky isn't putting forward a political message, but a societal one. While the cinematography by Matthew Libatique and the editing by Jay Rambinowitz give the viewer the whole subjective, jarring view of what it feels like in the first person to do these dangerous drugs, some of the time, all this being says, it almost goes by too quickly if you blink you'll miss the characters actually intaking the drugs, which are done in half second cuts.
Not that that's a bad thing, and in fact the techniques used here, which include fast-motion, camera-strapped-on-the-front-of-a-person shots, odd high-angle placements, and wild array of things done that I still wonder how one could think them up, are quite ingenious. Only one scene on a repeat viewing- when Sarah Goldfarb Burtyn is going totally off the deep-end in her apartment with the TV show spiraling around her- doesn't totally work for me.
I don't think I'll ever forget this movie.. Teen, 14 years old Written by Um ok July 22, Teen, 15 years old Written by imryantran May 14, Shocker is one of the most disturbing films in history. Forever memorable. This film is not for the faint of heart, as due to drug abuse, a group of adults will have to pay the price of their actions.
Many scenes caused the film to get an NC, and eventually an R rating. While it is a film that will certainly make you cry, there are many shocking situations, like electrocution, sexual torture, and grotesque images, this film's message can be concealed.
The memorable content the film contains will also make it highly recommended by many. Teen, 14 years old Written by Clorox bleach November 1, Very sad but important movie This will definitely make you sad after. It shows how drugs can ruin your life and I think they should show this at schools.
Yeah theres some sex but it is not that graphic. The most graphic parts are very quick. This movie would make you not wanna do drugs. I give this 5 out of 5 because it is well made. Teen, 14 years old Written by Films June 14, The editing is fantastic, as are the performances, but I wish I never saw this movie. It was brilliant, just horrific and awful.
If you find your child doing drugs, show them Requiem for a Dream. Mature teens only. Not that anybody would want to put themselves through it. Teen, 16 years old Written by lovelovelove June 3, I watched this movie and was shocked.
I was disgusted. I was scared. I was sad. The movie starts with people leading their normal everyday lives. For a few characters, that means getting high here and there. For one character, it means watching her favourite game show and trying to fit into a red dress. It seems tame enough, even when each of the characters become very heavily involved in drugs. But you're wrong if you assume that. The movie gets graphic and scary. Seeing people descend into horrific addictions is so painful and this movie shows it how it is.
Of course, I like different editing styles and am no stranger to the works of Aronofsky. However, this movie is not rated 5 stars for me because of style; it's rated 5 stars because it's scarily accurate. When I was a child, my parents were addicted to heroin. After talking to my mother about this movie, she told me that she watched it when she was young and now that's she's had the experience of falling into monstrous addiction, she will NEVER be able to watch the movie again. It's that upsetting to her.
That's how real and disturbing it is to her. The things these characters go through because of their addiction is awful to witness. Characters are chased by the Mafia, electrocuted, prostituted, nearly killed, and one character gets an infection in an injection site which becomes gangrenous and his arm must be amputated. Through all of this, though, the film shows the utter danger of ever touching an illicit substance and how deciding to try something like that can ruin your life.
Teen, 13 years old Written by thepes February 14, This title contains: Positive role models. Teen, 16 years old Written by pillowfields November 5, A Disturbing Masterpiece Aronofky's haunting drama featuring Jared Leto and Jennifer Connolly portrays the lives of four ambitious people who are gripped by addiction.
Filled with drugs and sex - it is a film that, in the nicest way, I never want to see again. A stunning picture that makes your stomach churn. Teen, 13 years old Written by Hunterdietz1 August 2, Disturbing I just finished Requiem for a Dream. I think I probably sat and just shook for an hour. The most upsetting and disturbing film I've ever seen. However, I will say it is a great movie to teach lessons about drug use and prostitution.
If your kid is under 14 I highly advise not watching this with with them. But,when they're old enough to handle it, make them watch it. It is truly a life-changing movie. Teen, 15 years old Written by Calebh03 March 30, A must watch for high school students.
There is a lot of overly sexual scenes but other then that this movie is a must watch for high school students so they can see what happens when you do drugs.
Trust me this movie will keep kids away from drugs. Watched it as a 10 year old Now I know why I shouldn't do drugs Teen, 13 years old Written by HouseTargaryen December 30,
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