One’s identity with the world, with oneself, with others, and ultimately with society. (Conley and Taminiaux: 98)
To explore the topic of surrealism (chosen for the lecture of the last week), I chose the movie Requiem for a Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky. Inspired by the aforementioned description given by Katharine Conley and Pierre Taminiaux in their book Surrealism and Its Others, if we consider the expression of the surrealist artists as a comparison of themselves with the world, with themselves and with the society, then the film directed by Aronofsky and starring Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly serves as a good example to represent all three of these aspects. Starting from the end, the relationship between the film’s characters and society is described by the comparison between the life and dreams of the young Harry (Leto’s character) and those of his mother Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn). The clash between the two generations is reflected in the expectations of the two characters: Harry tries to differentiate himself and to escape from society, while his mother tries hard to be part of it. Michael Richardson in his book Surrealism and Cinema speaks of surrealism as a provocation against the concept of excellence that the bourgeoisie has, and as a revolt against a society perceived by these artists as decadent. (Richardson: 15) Harry is a drugs’ slave to the point of “looting” his mother’s house to resell the items and be able to buy more of it. On the other side, the mother, troubled by the absence of her dead husband and frightened by the behavior of her son, spends her days in front of the television, following a television program with prizes. Both are slaves to something, Aronofsky distorts reality by showing how what makes Sara an addicted can become deleterious exactly as the drug that his son takes. When she is called for the program and then is no longer contacted by the producers, she enters a downward spiral that leads her to completely lose her head. Hence, the ” moral” is: putting your hopes on addictions does not lead anywhere. The view that the director shows of the reality is extremely negative and pessimistic and rather disturbing and frightening. We are all in the same boat and we are all slaves to bad habits, manipulated by something.
I hope you brought a friend with you because you’re going to have trouble getting home after watching this film. It’s very upsetting. I’m sorry. (Ellen Burstyn, 2000)
The aims of surrealism in terms of the film’s visual choices is to captivate the viewer and drag him deeper into the narrative: the story is told through a series of real-world images that follow one another as if in a dream, disorderly, disruptive and very raw. (Levy: 109) The introspection of the characters is brought to light by amplifying their own foibles and showing them increasingly eroded by these, emotionally and physically. The more obsessed Harry is for the drug and Sara for fame, the more their relationship with other people and with the world becomes difficult. Both are fascinated by the idea of a better life, and they see the possibility of this happening in the false hope given by the drug (Harry and the girl Marion who plan to make a better life attempting a career as drug dealers) and television (Sara waiting for the day when she will receive the call to be part of the TV program that will change her life). Illusions that are in fact not very different from those that are instilled recently by television programs such as reality shows and talent shows, which do nothing but create shortcuts for success obtained with really poor effort and little merit, to the face of those who break their back and work for what they love. The idea that everyone nowadays has an obsession to escape reality brought to the surface by Aronofsky is very impressive and certainly gives food for thought. The idea that everyone seeks to fill a hole, if we stop and think about it, can question the reason why we do even more than half of the things we do. How would we behave if we were completely free? And can anyone of us actually be considered free?
What’s brilliant about Selby (the author of the novel that inspired the film, e.d.) is that he shows us that anything can be an addiction to fill that hole when we’re trying to escape reality. It can be TV, it can be coffee, it can be sex, it can be someone saying ‘I love you’. I wasn’t really interested in junkies and the word heroin is never mentioned in the movie. So for me, it was really about how anything could be a drug. (Darren Aronofsky, 2000)
References:
Aronofsky, D. (2000) Requiem for a Dream, Artisan Entertainment: USA
Conley, K. and Taminiaux, P. (2006) Surrealism and Its Others, Yale University Press: New Haven
Richardson, M. (2006) Surrealism and Cinema, Berg: Oxford and New York
Darren Aronofsky Online (2000) Aronofsky Darren: Requiem for a Dream, Talk Recorded by Alistair Harkness from UrbanCinefile.Com concerning Darren Aronofsky’s pre- and post- film speech for “Requiem For A Dream” [ONLINE] available at http://aronofksy.tripod.com/interview26.html [ACCESSED ON 02/02/2014]
Levy, S. (1996) Surrealism: Surrealist Visuality, Keele University Press: Edinburgh
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