Requiem

6 Pages 1536 Words

In Requiem for a Dream (2000), director Darren Aronofsky taps into several obsessions of American culture, chiefly the idea of happiness, which is frequently confused with entertainment. Amusement parks, money, and television all promise immediate gratification, an instant change from the boring ordinary to the fabulous extraordinary. More than anything, though, they promise happiness. Not only a stark meditation on drug-taking, Requiem for a Dream is a meditation on various forms of consumption. Advertising promises products that not only simplify but better one’s life, a return to infantile security and comfort – the American Dream stripped to its consumptive core.
The constant message that something external to ourselves will solve everything is a backbeat of modern life. Adapted from Hubert Selby Jr.’s 1978 book of the same title and co-scripted by Aronofsky and Selby, Requiem for a Dream offers an unpleasant glimpse of how awry the whole system can go. It never lets up, culminating in a crescendo of meticulous editing and off-beat shots to show a modern, garish hell.
The New York City Coney Island Cyclone roller coaster is one of the first images of the film, setting both the tone and pace that will dominate throughout – and watching it feels like riding down a chute in an open car, a skewed version of the amusement park ride. The story concentrates on four characters, with Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) and her twentyish, drug-addicted son Harry (Jared Leto) at the center. Widowed and alone, pudgy Sara comforts herself with sweets and television. She watches only one program, the Tappy Tibbons Show, a coarse amalgam of diet guru, religious zealot and audience participation program that’s like a post-nuclear Day of the Locust (John Schlesinger, 1975). Summoned by a telephone call to be a game-show contestant, Sara uses powerful diet pills to shrink into the self she wants to see on television.
Meanwhile, Harry and his ...