Director Darren Aronofsky’s film, Requiem for a Dream, ruthlessly depicts its four main characters, Harry, Marion, Tyrone and Sara’s, downward spiral into addiction and their inevitable ruin. Through unsettling montages, chock-full of disturbing imagery and eerie intense music, the audience encounters the horrors associated with these individual’s struggle to accept life’s harsh realities. Aronofsky suppresses nothing, in fact he delves deeply into the depths an individual goes through to, not only score their next hit, but to ultimately feel alive and worthwhile. At no point in the film are the four main characters depicted as especially privileged, however, it’s clear their lives had not yet fallen completely apart. They still had hopes and
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The goal of their drug use, at the beginning of the film, existed only as means to achieve a higher purpose, be it simply experiencing the joys of heroin use or taking diet pill to fit into an old favorite dress. The characters still wanted to better their lives and their situations. Unfortunately, this completely changes by the end of the movie. The final scenes illustrate all four characters lying in the fetal positon desperately trying to come to terms with where their choices had taken them which stands in stark contrast to the hope and love they initially displayed for one another at the beginning of the film. Aronofsky pushes his audiences comfort level through rhetoric by unveiling fast paced imagery and dark cinematography to his audience, thereby, forcing them to experience, up close, the ruin of four people’s lives via drug …show more content…
The tone of the film softens and the director splits the screen with close ups of each of their faces. They gently caress one another and sweetly express their emotions. However, as their addiction to heroine becomes stronger their relationship is ultimately tested. They become increasing dependent on obtaining their fix, no longer pushing off to experience pure joy, instead only using it to obtain relief from their ever mounting addiction. Each time a character uses drugs, the audience is exposed to montages composed of quick motions stops accompanied by sound effects depicting the character and their drug of choice. For example, when Harry prepares to inject himself, we see liquefied heroin heating, a flame from a lighter, the heroin bubbling, cotton, a syringe and then his pupil pinpointing and then dilating as we hear him sigh, “Ahh” (Curry 10). These addictions become progressively worse, the need for a fix begins to dominate the actions of the individuals as they resort to lewd acts and dangerous situations to ensure they achieve the high they so desperately need. Marion, a beautiful young woman, uses her body to solicit money and drugs from questionable characters. Her image becomes progressively darker towards the end of the film, no longer smiling and carefree with her hair down and he clothes light and breezy she now displays harsh makeup and dark clothing, her hair tied back
The goal of their drug use, at the beginning of the film, existed only as means to achieve a higher purpose, be it simply experiencing the joys of heroin use or taking diet pill to fit into an old favorite dress. The characters still wanted to better their lives and their situations. Unfortunately, this completely changes by the end of the movie. The final scenes illustrate all four characters lying in the fetal positon desperately trying to come to terms with where their choices had taken them which stands in stark contrast to the hope and love they initially displayed for one another at the beginning of the film. Aronofsky pushes his audiences comfort level through rhetoric by unveiling fast paced imagery and dark cinematography to his audience, thereby, forcing them to experience, up close, the ruin of four people’s lives via drug …show more content…
The tone of the film softens and the director splits the screen with close ups of each of their faces. They gently caress one another and sweetly express their emotions. However, as their addiction to heroine becomes stronger their relationship is ultimately tested. They become increasing dependent on obtaining their fix, no longer pushing off to experience pure joy, instead only using it to obtain relief from their ever mounting addiction. Each time a character uses drugs, the audience is exposed to montages composed of quick motions stops accompanied by sound effects depicting the character and their drug of choice. For example, when Harry prepares to inject himself, we see liquefied heroin heating, a flame from a lighter, the heroin bubbling, cotton, a syringe and then his pupil pinpointing and then dilating as we hear him sigh, “Ahh” (Curry 10). These addictions become progressively worse, the need for a fix begins to dominate the actions of the individuals as they resort to lewd acts and dangerous situations to ensure they achieve the high they so desperately need. Marion, a beautiful young woman, uses her body to solicit money and drugs from questionable characters. Her image becomes progressively darker towards the end of the film, no longer smiling and carefree with her hair down and he clothes light and breezy she now displays harsh makeup and dark clothing, her hair tied back