Requiem For A Dream (2000) Stylistic Junkie Noir Masterpiece

Film Noir's original coinage was in the late 1930s.
It was coined by conservative right wing newspapers in Paris to describe what they deemed subversive films, coming out of the leftist popular front. Addictions have been covered in Classic Film Noir. In fact when the original Films Noir renaissance began after WWII, of the handful or so American films that hit liberated Paris theaters in 1946 one of those so described  American Films Noir was Lost Weekend about alcohol addiction. Man With The Golden Arm and Stakeout On Dope Street covered heroin addiction. There are others.

Requiem For A Dream opens with a TV show. A sort of reality contestant promo infomercial. Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn), the audience in her Brighton Beach Apartment. Her son Harry (Jared Leto) is as my buddy's JB's Montana rancher father would say is a "Dope-A-Dick," mainlining on heroin, Big H, horse, etc., etc. He wants his mom's TV. He's trying to pawn it again. She has it chained to the steam radiator.

Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn)

Harry (Jared Leto) 

Tyrone (Marlon Wayans)

Marion (Jennifer Connelly)

Harry's done it before. Harry weedles the key out of her to unlock the lock. Harry gets Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) to help him haul it off, they roll it out of the apartment stand and all.  Rolling it onto the sidewalk they gotta go through a chorus line of old yentas sunning themselves in front of the apartment house.

They roll it around Coney Island.  Harry and Tyrone finally get some doe, score some H and get high.

Dreams. Marion (Jennifer Connelly) is Harry's girlfriend. She is a coke addict. Harry and Marion have a dream to open up a clothing store showcasing Marion's designs. Tyrone's dream is to make it big, get out of the hood and make his momma happy. Harry, Marion, and Tyrone decide to cut out the middleman buy some heroin and distribute the junk themselves.

All of these sequences are punctuated with very stylistic quick cuts of the various steps or effects of getting high, either showing the snorting of cocaine, the parts of an outfit used for geezing junk, or say the dilation of a pupil.

Getting high

A lighter to heat junk

Cocaine

Rolling a bill to snort

A quickly dilating pupil

Sara, meanwhile, receives a call that she has been chosen to appear as a contestant on one of her favorite game shows. Sara's dream come true. Excitedly she tries on one of her favorite red dresses and finds that it doesn't fit. She's gained a bit of weight. She decides to go on a diet regimen but the temptation to eat what she has in her refrigerator is way too strong. Sara gets from one of her gal pals the name of a doctor who prescribes amphetamines. She begins to lose weight and discovers that she has a lot of energy. Harry figures out from the various telltales that she is becoming a speed freak. He tells her to stop taking the pills.

Sara's addiction/hallucinations 

Sara Goldfarb: I'm somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me. Soon, millions of people will see me and they'll all like me. I'll tell them about you, and your father, how good he was to us. Remember? It's a reason to get up in the morning. It's a reason to lose weight, to fit in the red dress. It's a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow all right. What have I got Harry, hm? Why should I even make the bed, or wash the dishes? I do them, but why should I? I'm alone. Your father's gone, you're gone. I got no one to care for. What have I got, Harry? I'm lonely. I'm old.
Harry Goldfarb: You got friends, Ma.
Sara Goldfarb: Ah, it's not the same. They don't need me. I like the way I feel. I like thinking about the red dress and the television and you and your father. Now when I get the sun, I smile.

Harry Goldfarb: [Harry has just found out that Sara is on diet pills] Does he give you pills?
Sara Goldfarb: Of course he gives me pills. He's a doctor!
Harry Goldfarb: What kind of pills?
Sara Goldfarb: Uh, uh, a blue one, a purple one, an orange one...
Harry Goldfarb: I mean, like, what's in 'em.

Harry Goldfarb: Hey, Ma? You on uppers?
Sara Goldfarb: How come you know more about medicine than a doctor?
Harry Goldfarb: Believe me, Ma: I know.

Tyrone while doing a dope deal is caught in a crossfire between the Mafia and his clients. He escapes injury but is arrested by the cops.

Mafia hit

beatin' feet

Harry uses most of the money they've made so far to post Tyrone's bail. The local supply of heroin drys up, The boys are desperate. When Tyrone hears about a large shipment of heroin coming up from Miami, Harry asks Marion to prostitute herself out to her psychiatrist for money.

"Getting the money is not the problem."

Marion: Getting the money's not the problem, Harry.
Harry Goldfarb: Then what's the problem?
Marion: I don't know what I'm going to have to do to get it.

doing it

used....

Marion scores some cash and the boys go to make a dope deal. It all goes Noirsville. Sara ends up in the psychiatric ward after she thinks her refrigerator is attacking her. The Miami heroine deal is cut short, Harry and Tyrone are again facing the prospect of going cold turkey.

"I fucked that sleaze bag for you...."

Harry: [about the failed drug score] See, everything was going good, and then some dumbass junkie...
Marion: Did what? Some dumbass junkie did what? You mean, you fucked it up!
Harry: What the fuck is wrong with you?
Marion: You promised me that everything was gonna be okay, remember? I fucked that sleaze bag for you and I put myself through fucking hell for you?
Harry: There's nothing out there!
Marion: I don't give a shit! You fucking loser!

This forces the boys to head on the road to Miami to the source. Harry's increasingly gangrenous arm forces them to stop along the way at a hospital where a doc blows the whistle on the two.  Back in New York City, Marion desperate begins to sell her body, playing hide the sausage orally with a pimp Big Tim (Keith David) in exchange for heroin and eventually starts performing in live sex shows.

Big Tim (Keith David)

 Big Tim: I know it's pretty, baby, but I didn't take it out for air.

Marion going down

apres sex

Big Tim: You know what I like best about paddy chicks? They give good head. But black broads don't know nothing about no head. I don't know why. Maybe it has something to do with some ancient tribal customs.

Noirsville  

under the boardwalk

All the characters have their individual dreams shattered.  The stories above have been told before, bad shit happens, but it's the way director Darren Aronofsky, cinematographer Matthew Libatique, and editor Jay Rabinowitz along with the music of Clint Mansell depict that "bad shit happening" that's both manic and stylistic. It's the outstanding juxtaposition between beautiful images and degrading subjects shot in a manner where even broad daylight sequences in Coney Island seem alienated and claustrophobic that's a true work of art.

All the actors give powerhouse performances realistically portraying their respective roles. Screen caps are from 2015 Bluray. A trip, 10/10.