Requiem for a Dream: Drug aesthetics in audiovisual processes

Abstract

Abstract Requiem for a Dream is an engaging three-act narrative presenting a sensorial take on the decaying experience of addiction. Using highly subjective representations of reality tainted by what can be refer to as a drug aesthetics, the second feature film directed by Darren Aronofsky is a four-way first-person account that revolves around Harry, a drifting young man who dreams of being successful, Sara, a widow who dreams of being on television, Marion, a psychotherapy patient who dreams of becoming independent, and Tyrone, an orphan who dreams of making his mother proud. Although there is not one single protagonist, Harry is the pivot figure connecting the four subjects: Sara is his mother, Marion is his girlfriend and Tyrone is his friend and business partner. The film is constructed with short alternating scenes of each character, merging its enunciation with these four individuals’ inner voices to depict how drugs – both prescribed and illegally acquired – affect their consciousness as they fall into addition. Requiem for a Dream can be placed in a category of drug movies that aim to explore the internal effects of substances as their main subject matter. Instead of dealing with historical or sociological aspects, it explores the highly subjective representations of the world tainted by what can be referred to as the aesthetics of drugs. Deriving from Elsaesser‘s definition of productive pathology (2009: 24–30), this article proposes to explore how audiovisual narratives, in dealing with altered and sensorial states of the mind, can amplify the possibilities of storytelling. In other words, how internally focalized drug movies expand the aesthetics possibilities of realism in film, playing with subversive uses of language while still sustaining a verisimilar discourse. The analysis will take two paths. First, based on the assumption that there is no objective access to the physical world except through subjectivity, the initial part of this article will present a reflection on the dichotomy of reality and illusion, proposing a new alternative by taking the perceptive alterations caused by drugs as a starting point to convey how social structures and morality play a definitive role in our understanding of realism in art. Secondly, approaching specifically the idea of drug aesthetics, the article will consider how audiovisual representation is affected when the subjective point of view is of a character with an altered state of mind. Exploring the mechanics used to translate the effects of drugs on consciousness into filmic form, Requiem for a Dream will be studied as an example of applying unorthodox methods of narration to expand an audience’s experience of a subject matter beyond dramatic storytelling and into a sensorial perception of the universe of mental stimulators.