With the Oscars coming up and my unconditional devotion for good films, today I’ll be talking about one of my favorite movies, which I also consider one of the best movies ever made. Keep in mind that recent history has proven the Oscars and best (or great) movies do not necessarily share a common ground.
Last weekend I hosted a party at my home and at one point we began playing “Guess the movie” by playing a soundtrack, and we bounced around most of the classic tracks from Disney films, to epics, to adventure, drama, and so on. At one point the song that was played was Requiem for a Dream‘s title song, which was immediately guessed by one of my friends in less than a second. Another friend was left startled at how fast the correct answer was given. I immediately told her: “Because that soundtrack gets embedded in your mind. That is how you know someone has or hasn’t seen that movie.” I lent her the DVD and invited her to enjoy the film. For those of you who haven’t seen it, I will not be spoiling anything. For those who want me to spoil something, I will briefly mention a couple of points talk a bit near the end of this entry.
Requiem is not just a good movie, or a great movie. It’s a powerful movie. It starts out without much fuzz and it even looks cheap at the beginning. It’s obviously an independent film, but just a couple of minutes into the movie, you are treated to something quite rare that only lasts a few seconds, but leaves crude impression right from the start. Also from the start, the movie is always backed up by the perpetual soundtrack of the Kronos Quartet, which is why the tunes of the movie get stuck in everyone’s mind so easily. Then there is the acting.
A young Jared Leto, who had just came from finishing “Fight Club” shines as Harry, the troubled son of retired widow Sara, who wishes for a better life and works hard -perhaps not in the most legal of ways- to achieve it in order to bring happiness for himself, as well as his girlfriend Marion, played by Jennifer Connelly. Most people believe Jen’s peak was her portrayal of John Nash’s wife in “A Beautiful Mind”, but I strongly disagree everytime I hear this assessment. I’ve always believed that you are witnessing an Oscar worthy performance, when an actor becomes one with the character they are portraying, and this is what Jen does becoming Marion: the most memorable moment is the bath-tub scene.
Then you have Marlon Wayans, fresh from the teen comical “Scary Movie” series, where he plays a pretty much one-sided dimensional character. In Requiem however, Marlon plays Harry’s best friend Tyrone, who has sort of a similar background as Harry’s, but less dramatic and more tragic. By the time the film had ended I had to double check it was in fact Marlon Wayans playing Tyrone, because I just simply couldn’t put together that the actor was the same guy had played the stoner in Scary Movie. Marlon has a nude scene with a profound impact because it humanizes the character in a way the viewer simply doesn’t expect it.
The show however belongs to Ellen Burstyn. And trust me, it’s not that Jen, Jared and Marlon do an average job, or a good job. Their performances alone are Oscar nomination worthy (or any award you may consider worth respecting). But Ellen, she just takes the entire film to a whole new level. Her performance is right there with Marlon Brando’s Vito Corleone, or F.Murray Abraham’s Antonio Salieri. Her character Sara Goldfarb, Harry’s mother, is unimpressive at first, even comical if you want. After say 15 minutes, somethings happens and she begins gaining strength. As the movie gets going, like a huge snowball falling from top of Mount Everest, she soon becomes a huge avalanche, with the dancing refrigerator scene becoming the “before and after” moment of the film. After that scene, Ellen reaches acting levels I have never seen in cinema from a lead female performance. The monologue scene left me breathless, and it will do the same to you. According to IMDb:
“During Ellen Burstyn’s impassioned monologue about how it feels to be old, cinematographer Matthew Libatique accidentally let the camera drift off-target. When director Darren Aronofsky called “cut” and confronted him about it, he realized the reason Libatique had let the camera drift was because he had been crying during the take and fogged up the camera’s eyepiece. This was the take used in the final print.“
… and just when you think nothing can top that scene, she continues raising the bar. I don’t want to give any specifics, but there are so many details on her character that everytime I watch the film, I am able to discover something new I hadn’t seen before.
Ellen was indeed nominated for the Oscars that year 2001, but she lost to the more Hollywood-esque oriented, Julia Robert’s Erin Brockovich. As I stated at the beginning, sometimes Oscars and Best are not synonimous. Believe me: as much as I respect Julia Roberts as an actress -including her performance in Erin Brokovich– there is a monumental gap between Julia’s Erin and Ellen’s Sara. In fact, I can rank Julia’s Erin performance equal to Jennifer Connelly’s Marion, with the slight difference that perhaps you may say Julia’s Erin was more of a lead character than Jen’s Marion. Still, I rank both performances quite evenly.
How Ellen was snubbed by the Oscars that year is beyond me, and is one of the reasons why I have never cared about the Oscars (or any awards). I guess Hollywood has a thing against independent films, and while Julia’s Erin was a good choice, it was also a better fit to the cliché of award winning performances based on real life stories (IE: Colin Firth in King Speech, Geoffrey Rush in Shine, Martin Landau in Ed Wood, and so on). In fact, now that I think about it, I would dare to say that Ellen being snubbed that year is the greatest blunder in the history of Oscars.
Darren Aronofsky’s direction is exactly what is expected from a director. He brings the film together and gives the audience a piece of art. There is a lot I can say about it, but I don’t want to take that pleasure from you.
Then you have details like the supporting minor characters. Like I said before, this in an independent film shot on a $4 million budget. It seems to me that Darren squeezed the best out of every penny to deliver the end result. The minor characters -who in any other film seem may be perceived as unimportant- in Requiem are as crucial and as important as the major characters, to the point that -like the film’s soundtrack- they leave a strong impression in your mind like the lead characters do. This is something that does not happen on other films. How much do you remember from the guy who introduces Strider/Aragorn to Frodo in “Lord of the Rings“? Or from the door bell in “There’s something about Mary“, or from the guys playing cards in “Titanic“.
Keith David, who has been known as someone who is in films for only a few minutes delivering two or three lines of dialogue and who throughout his career has been providing memorable minor supporting appearances in films (General Kinsey in “Armageddon“, Childs in “The Thing“, King in “Platoon“, Louis Fedders in “Men at Work“), delivers what arguably I may be his most memorable appearance. It’s kind of hard to top Childs and Louis Fedders, but by playing Big Tim in “Requiem“, he brings a whole new meaning to a gentle laugh over the phone. Trust me, when you watch the “laugh on the phone” scene scene you will either burst to death from laughing or throw a hammer at your TV set: you have been warned. Other supporting characters include Sara’s friends, who are equally powerful, although in their own particular way inside the story. I love the “if this is red, then what’s orange?” exchange.
Then you have the great Stanley B. Herman as Uncle Hank (according to the credits), who is better known colloquially as the “Ass-to-Ass Guy“. You probably haven’t heard of Stanley B. Herman before, and trust me you’ll probably never hear from him ever again. He’s in the film for… five seconds maybe? Definitely no more than ten seconds. However, his appearance is so memorable that his character has even created a cult-following. Years ago I read an article dedicated to Stanley’s memorable performance, in which the author wrote: “I’m not sure how he got cast to be the Ass-to-Ass Guy, but from what I can tell, it was the role he was born to play“. The author also stated that “Not since Boba Fett in the original Star Wars trilogy, has a character intrigued the masses so much with a bare minimum of screen time”.
Finally, there is the deaf mob-boss, the police officer at the coffee shop, Arnold, the cops at the prison… even Dylan Baker has a five second memorable appearance as well.
Combine all of this with the looping and haunting Kronos Quartet score, and the result is that Requiem for a Dream leaves a mark in your brain so strong, it would take two ammesia attacks for it to start dissappearing.
Imagine a mental beating with the same physical suffering ancient Romans inflicted on their slaves, relentlessly and endlessly breaking them until forcing their submission. That is exactly what this movie does to you. I have yet to meet someone who has been able to stand Requem without giving a minimal sign of grief. Requiem is the epitome of independent filmmaking: daring, crude, merciless, realistic and just when you think it will cut you a break, it keeps on pounding your mind non-stop. If you expect this film to take a pause and go easy on you for a minute or two, then you guessed wrong. It will go hard and harder until it breaks you down.
HR