The cause of addiction is that the drugs work all too well when you first take them.
The euphoria and mind expanding potential is not glossed over in in Darren Aronofsky‘s 2000 movie Requiem For A Dream but neither are the gruesome tales of misery and despair that follow.
The film is based on a novel by Hubert (Last Exit To Brooklyn) Selby Jr, a man who knows all about the whys and wherefores of getting hooked as he was dependent on painkillers and heroine for the early part of his life.
Selby kicked his habit before he was 40 but the notion that addiction is something that goes with youthful delusion and naivety is dispelled in this novel/movie.
The most heartbreaking character is that of Sara Goldfarb (played brilliantly by Ellen Burstyn) as the widowed mother of Harry. In her lonely existence, daytime television is her only comfort and when a cold caller says she has won a place a game show her life takes on a new purpose.
Her dream is to appear on the show wearing the red dress she wore for her son’s graduation ceremony – the moment in her life when she was most happy.
For this dress to fit she needs to lose weight but finds traditional crash diets impossible to maintain. In desperation she seeks medical advice and is prescribed amphetamine pills and sedatives to diminish her appetite.
These ‘uppers’ initially give her abundant energy followed by periods of depression when the effects wear off.
Her downfall is interwoven with that of the more conventional addict’s stories of Harry (Jared Leto), girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) and friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans). Their dream is to make enough money through drug dealing for Marion and Harry to set up a fashion business and Tyrone to make his mother proud of his independent status. Their downward spiral from recreational drug use to full scale dependency is as inevitable as it is depressing.
Visually, the movie matches the restless energy of all the characters and the thrill of the fix with a rapid-fire sequence of images – a technique that has been called hip-hop montage. This term is appropriate for a movie that owes a lot to the shooting style of chart music videos which are largely tailored for viewers with low attention spans.
It’s a filmmaking style I find hard to love as what is exciting in short doses but can quickly numb the brain when overused, not unlike the effect of drugs, I guess.
Clint Mansell.
The movie’s horrific climax is a brain-blitzing sequence that hops between the radical hospital treatment and public humiliation that befalls all four characters
Thankfully life doesn’t always imitate art and dreams don’t always end as bleakly as they do in Aronofsky ‘s movie.
A happier before and after story surrounds Clint Mansell, the man behind the movie’s superb soundtrack. I was surprised to learn that Mansell was the lead singer and guitarist of pop-punk band from the English Midlands, Pop Will Eat Itself (PWEI), a band I vaguely remember seeing at London’s Marquee club in 1989. They have reformed a couple of times but effectively disbanded in 1996 .
Afterwards, Mansell wound up as a punk without portfolio in New York before chance meeting with Aronofsky led to him scoring his movie Pi and every one of his movies thereafter including The Wrestler and current hit Black Swan. It’s a heart-warming story I like the idea of a man from the Black Country (where my Dad was born) making a splash in Hollywood .
The key music for Requiem For A Dream is Lux Aeterna (“the eternal light”) featuring the sublime Kronos Quartet; this is a live performance of this piece:
