Requiem for a Dream by Darren Aronofsky

Requiem for a Dream is a psychological drama film that directed by Darren Aronofsky. I do enjoy watching the whole film and the way the director conveys the message in such way do inspire and amaze my experience in watching it. This film shows a lot of different style of cinematography and play around the editing part of the film.

Firstly, I enjoy watching the part where the characters consume the drugs and how the director chooses to present in using montages. For instance, when Harry, Marion or Tyrone is consuming the drugs which the film doesn’t really show the process of their drug taking. Instead, the director choose the another way to show this the process of drug consuming by using the montage technique, where they use a combination of some extremely short shots as an abstract of drug taking process. In this combination, the filmmaker used a few extremely short shots with the sequences of white powder within the plastic bag, cell enlarging shot, lighter shot, money rolling shot, shot of white powder on table, rolled-money paper sucking the white powder, body cell moving shot, eye pupil enlarging shot, etc. These shots do not means anything if places individually, but with the combination of these shots and the form of the film, we can understand that it is a process of the characters consume the drugs. I agree for the director’s decision of making this montage instead of just showing it in linear shots. This is because if the filmmaker does shows the drug consumption in linearly shots flow, it doesn’t really express much emotion or feeling when the audiences watch it. But with this montages series, it’s leaded us to imagine the feeling and reaction happened within them when they take the drugs. I believe this method able to enhance the narrative of the story other rather than common showing how people consume drugs. So that we audiences can experiences more instead of just understanding the content.

Besides that, throughout the whole film, I feel very energetic and follow closely to the story flow because of the pacing of the film. “Requiem for a dream” is a film that created high pacing cutting of the sequence with extremely short shots so that we audiences feel the sense of stressed addiction and loss of control of the character and story. A normal film will usually have average 600-700 cuts in a 100-minute film, but this film gives about 2000 cuts which shows that it is a very high rhythmic editing film (Requiem For A Dream (2000), n.d.). I think it is a positive response for having this kind of pacing or tempo for this film because it does creates an attractive sense that makes me wanted to follow the story flow. Let’s take colour as the metaphor for this film, a monochrome will describe as the story of the film if without any fast cuts or montage technique used within it, but with these techniques, it improve the way the story present and it is like colouring the whole film to a different style of story narration rather than just a simple linear editing technique kind of film.

This film has used a lot of split-screen editing art within the movie, you can even see it in the beginning of the movie where the argument happen between Harry and Sara. Split screen technique is normally used to allow the 2 or more stories happen in a same time to appear in a single scene together. So that audiences able to watch 2 different views in a same single scene to make the whole thing looks real to happen in a same time. It is also used to convey more visual language of the characters as we can’t put 2 characters in a single scene when they are having conversation in different location or far distance. Hence, split-screen enables us to look more closely and understand the detail of the character’s facial expression or gestures. Because character’s staging can be a silent messages behind the script where as a technique to express the emotion, feeling or the visual aspects that related to the story so that the narrative of the story can be enhanced. Some hidden messages are mean to be seen or interpret through visual expression, not just about script and dialogue.

Lastly, I found a different explanation toward the split-screen effect that used in the “Requiem for a dream”. In one of the film’s more romantic moments, Harry and Marion closely lie on a bed and the split screen is used in this scene to show the interaction between the characters. This is the part where it gets my attention to focus on it. The interaction between them with their conversations is shown in split-screen. I feel very satisfy with this scene, it not just showing us the relationship or connection between the characters, but the sense of touch while the character touching each other. The first screen shows the character who praises the another one and the second screen shows how the character appeases the another one by touching his/her face, body, etc. The cinematography shows sense of touch of the character, not just showing the emotion or the ambient around the scene. When I watch this particular scene, I can feel the sense of touch when Harry appeases Marion. In my opinion, I love the way how the camera, the split-screen and the actor’s performances work together to have interaction with audiences. It is the results on how acting works together with other film techniques to create a better narration of the story and watching experience.

Overall, these all techniques or style can be explained as the Darren Aronofsky’s personalities in directing the film. As most of the directors will have their own way of style in making a film and this techniques or style will becomes his masterpiece of artwork creation.

Reference:

"Requiem For A Dream (2000)". IMDb. Web. 14 June 2016. Retrieved from:               http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0180093/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv%3F&c=1#_=_

Bordwell, David & Thompson, Kristin (2010) Film Art An Introduction, 9^th ed., USA: McGraw-Hill, pp. 144

Bordwell, David & Thompson, Kristin (2010) Film Art An Introduction, 9^th ed., USA: McGraw-Hill, pp. 230