This is a review series looking at the films of Darren Aronofsky.

His first film, Pi was reviewed here.

This is a brief look at Aronofsky’s second film Requiem For A Dream which is controversial, challenging, and brilliant.

The IMDB synopsis reads: The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island people are shattered when their addictions run deep.

I must admit this is not exactly accurate, or maybe obliquely accurate. But close enough. It’s about drug use and addiction. Moving on.

Requiem for a Dream is the film that set the tone for Aronofsky’s career. It was his auteur announcement that his films and his career were not to be hollywood tentpole fodder. As such, in many instances he has been required to fight for funding and he has likely lost opportunities for quick green lighting of many of his passion projects. Regardless, when an Aronofsky film does hit the screens it is an event to be celebrated.

I watched Requiem for a Dream at least five times when it opened and then later on VHS or DVD. For the decades since I have not been inclined to watch it or search it out because it is just that fucking dour. It’s another film, similar to Natural Born Killers, that gets an R-Rating simply due to it’s tone. When I get the urge to watch an Aronofsky film, is one of the many that scrolls through my mind – and one of the first I quickly discard.

RfaD came on the heels of Pi, Aronofsky’s freshman post NYU Film School feature. Being such a huge fan of Pi, when RfaD was announced and scheduled for release, it became the most eagerly awaited film for me of that year.

The image that pops into my mind immediately when thinking about RfaD – is that of the two guys (Jared Leto and Marlon Wayans) pushing Leto’s moms (Ellen Burstyn) TV down the broken sidewalk. They have stolen it to pawn for drug money. Just like the movie itself, It’s an ugly: small, cigarette stained, old and heavy, seated on a made-for-TV wire-rack on small caster wheels. It’s a simple shot, full of emotion, it tells you everything you need to know about the film. It’s obvious where the movie is going and Aronofsky does not flinch. He never flinches. This is the same filmmaker to show his lead actor drilling into his own head using a powerdrill in Pi. In RfaD Aronofsky gives us the ups and downs of drug use in his self described hip-hop style and makes being an addict watchable. But rest assured, nothing good is going to happen as lots of godawful things are in store for our anti-heroes.

It might have been a directors commentary where Aronofsky said for this film he took the graph of a films basic story arc and inverted it. Everytime something good should happen, in RfaD, something bad happens.

Quck thoughs –

The music of RfaD is stunning and one of the best driving sountracks in memory. The work is truly amazing and sticks with me even today.

The game show within RfaD feels like something out of Verhoeven’s Robocop – “I’ll buy that for a dollar!”

Pi is still my favorite and most watched Aronofsky film. I always wished Aronofsky would take his hip-hop editing style and put together a film that was just not so god awful depressing. Sadly, after RfaD he abandoned the style all together.

One last item of note, the well known and now controversial comic creator Frank Miller, who has always been known to introduce famous elements of cinema into his comics, did just that with his first Sin City story. It’s easy to miss, but the RfaD edit of prescription bottle, cap pop, pills to hand, and pop into mouth made it into Miller’s Sin City: A Dame To Kill For. With the cops banging on Marv’s front door – he pops his pill bottle cap and then pills from hand to mouth in that exact same sequence complete with the RfaD sound fx. Marv then smiles his murderous smile and says, “Be right out.”

Miller and Aronofsky soon after collaborated on a Batman movie pitch. Their dark take on Batman (Batman meets Taxi Driver) was deemed “Too Dark” and likely R-Rated and as such was tragically turned down. Since then WB has to scrambled to replicate what would have been a dazzling, dark, very adult Batman.