REQUIEM FOR A DREAM

US, 2000, 101 minutes, Colour.

Ellen Burstyn, Jarrod Leto, Jennifer Connolly, Marlon Wayans, Christopher McDonald, Louise Lasser, Keith David, Mark Margolis.

Directed by Aaron Aronofsky.

A grim title.  And the film lives up to this title, a pessimistic elegy for the drug-shattered dreams of some ordinary people.  I came out of the preview with a nurse trained in a psychological unit who sadly reassured me that she had seen many patients like the characters in the film.  For her it was very real.

This is not a film for relaxing enjoyment.  Many audiences will find the going too tough, too close to the bone - or, perhaps, far removed from their everyday experience.  It is a film of desperation.

Some of us live neat and tidy lives.  Others of us can be thrust into the depths: loneliness, betrayals of relationships, accidents, illness, relations with drug addictions, suicide.  A film like Requiem for a Dream puts it all on the screen, challenging us emotionally as we share the despairs of trapped people.  Some years ago, Irvine Welsh's book Trainspotting was filmed vividly and cleverly, a glimpse into the world of addicts.  However, the central characters were young, offbeat, off-kilter, partly comic.  This time the characters are more ordinary, people next door.  And that makes it harder for us as well as more challenging.

While Hugh Selby Jr's original novel was published in 1978, it seems all the more relevant today.  Writer-director, Darren Aronofsky, had made a small-budget film, Pi, about the meaning of science and life.  This, his second film is about the meaninglessness of life.  Together, Selby and Aronofsky are reminding us of how the needs of people today, isolated in our cities, are met, deliberately or unwittingly,  by the drug culture and can end in disaster.

But the central character of this film, Sara Goldfarb, brilliantly played by Ellen Burstyn, is a widow nearing 70 who loves watching a hyped television personality with a self-help show.  She dreams of appearing on it.  When the letter comes, she begins to diet to fit into the red dress she wants to wear when she goes before the cameras and when everyone will love her.  A mercenary and callous doctor prescribes a course of pills which ultimately control her, leading to breakdown and shock treatment.  The film is an indictment of the drug culture and dependency of older citizens.

Sara's son, Harry, has graduated college but has become a heroin addict, along with his friend, Tyrone.  They begin to deal to make money to start a dress shop for Harry's friend, Marian, also an addict.  Their lives also collapse over a period of six months into prison, prostitution, illness and gangrenously infected limbs.  The cautionary tale is frightening.

The director uses a number of cinematic techniques: colour and black and white photography, split screen, hallucination and dream sequences to try to communicate the mixture of reality and unreality in these people's tormented lives.  There is also a powerful musical score, a blend of the classical and the contemporary beat.

This is a well-made film, a specialist film, one probably best discussed and related to our own social problems and the government, church and society agencies who struggle to deal with them.

1. The title, expectations? The grim tone of Requiem? Indications of dreams, American dreams?
2. Acclaim for the film of the time, Ellen Burstyn and Oscar nomination, early in the career of the directors and his subsequent career?
3. The New York setting, Brooklyn and Coney island, the streets, apartments, the beach? Drug dealing and buildings? Police, prison? The television studio? The musical score, the range of songs?
4. The film as surreal in its style? The basic realism? The visualisation of fantasies and dreams? Fade to white instead of black? The repetitions, the television show, on the screen, in the studio? The editing, fast pace, speeded camera? The recurring collage of the taking of the drugs and its and their effects? The overall effect of this kind of style?
5. The end of the 20^th century, American dreams, the older generation, ageing happily, family, some acknowledgement, watching television, self-help, enraptured by television? Doctors, prescriptions, pills, the impact, delusions, hospitalisation, institutions? The contrast with the younger generation, drugs and escape?
6. Sarah, Ellen Burstyn’s performance, age, widow, with the other women, sunning themselves in the street, gossip? Her relationship with Harry? His taking the television with Tyrone, Hocking it, his mother coming in buying it back? The observations of the dealer, warning her? His attitude towards Harry? Sarah and her memories of her husband, memories of her son, ordinary life, but watching the television and the show, caught up in it?
7. The television show, the compere and his enthusiasm, the audience, the captions on screen, the shouting audience, competition, winners? Sarah and the phone call, the opportunity to be on the show, her eagerness, wanting some moments of acknowledgement and fame? The red dress, unable to fit, getting aided to help her, Ada and the hair rinse, orange instead of red? And the red dress becoming part of the fantasy, imagining herself going to the show, the host, celebration, talking about her family? The fantasy then becoming more distorted? The characters entering into the room, disturbing Sarah? Her desperation, going to the studio, the confrontation, the staff, getting help, taking her to hospital, the drugs, treatment, the horror of the electric shock, the consequences, in the institution?
8. Harry, the drugs, friendship with Tyrone, sharing the drugs, getting the drugs, selling them, the plans to make money, the hidden box with the cash? Harry and his relationship with Marion, the sequence of the building, unlocking the top floor, the alarm and escaping in the elevator, the standing and watching the view of Coney island? Her personality, background, design? Yet the dependence on the drugs? The lyrical scenes with Harry and Marion together, but the drugtaking scenes, and the effect of the drugs? Marion, the dinner with the client, their discussions, the sexual encounters? Her growing desperation, the meeting with Big Tim, his behaviour, the sexual encounter, the return, the graphic touches of the orgies sequence? The consequences for Marion, disillusioned with Harry, harsh towards him, and attempted reconciliation?
9. Tyrone, the drugs, his girlfriend, the money, the police, the chase, his being caught, interrogated, behind bars, Harry and his infected arm, Tyrone and his future?
10. Harry, the drugs, spending the money, little left in the box, his injections, his infected arm? His collapse, hospital, the amputation of his arm?
11. His trying to see his mother, the visit?
12. The final images, Marion continuing, trying to work, but the personality collapse, the aftermath of the drugs? The sexual experiences? Harry, death? Sarah, the institution, losing her mind and herself?
13. The savage portrait of American dreams – and the requiem for the central characters?