Subversion of the Dominant Narrative Structure of Mainstream American Cinema in Aronofsky's Requiem/Or a Dream (2001)

Subversion of the dominant narrative structure of mainstream American cinema in Aronofsky's Requiem/or a Dream (2001)

Adrian Konik

Philosophy, Centre for Advanced Studies, University of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, -mail: [email protected]

In Requiem for a Dream (2001), Aronofsky uses certain techniques of critical cinema to make the audience aware of the "constructed-ness" of the represented material. In doing so he goes against the "norms" of mainstream American cinema that aim to "mesmerize" the audience and "draw" them into the narrative. There are distinct parallels between the techniques used by Aronofsky and those employed by Eisenstein in his critical cinema, namely the use of non-stable footage, to make the camera conspicuous, the use of montage of rhythm, to disrupt the continuity of the narrative, the use of "word play" in relation to the captions and the representation of footage in "reverse", which force an audience to engage critically with the material, and the use of "Brechtian" theatre techniques to alienate the audience from the text. However, Aronofsky does not merely mirror Eisenstein's use of these techniques but rather develops them in his own way. Also, Aronofsky does not attack capitalism and bourgeois axiology in the same way as Eisenstein, but rather aims his criticism at the way in which subjectivity is constituted through the hegemony of the postmodem mass media. Through his critical cinema he subverts this constitution at both an overt level, involving the more blatant and jarring techniques of critical cinema discussed above, and at a subtle level, involving the valorization of a different narrative structure to that of mainstream cinema, namely one that does not edge its way towards some amiable form of Apollonian resolution. I conclude with a brief discussion of how Aronofksy's film constitutes a criticism of image-saturated postmodem culture.

Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream CInema. Mainstream film "language" (2001) traces the developments in the involves "comfortingly familiar" lives of four people over the course of structures that not only construct three-quarters of a year, namely summer, subjectivity in postmodemity, as a result fall and winter, as they all become of the dominance of Hollywood increasingly dependant on different drugs. productions, but are also represented as However, the film does not only deal with constructing the subjectivity of the the horrors of addiction but also attempts characters within Requiem for a Dream. to say of the un-sayable that it cannot be In Lewis Jacob's The Rise of the said, that is, it "tries to listen to and make American Film, written in 1939, the heard the secret affection, the one that author points out that says nothing" (Lyotard 1988:34). It does this through its "non" -articulation of the Hollywood, in its fear of losing profits by pain and alienation that prevail in an making enemies, in its mad desire to image-saturated postmodem environment. appease the prejudices of every group, has submitted to an ever-tightening censorship However, the film not only represents the under which it becomes impossible to deal manner in which this social "dis"-ease [honestly] with reality. [For example, f]or impels the respective characters into the almost two full years after the stock-market quagmire of substance-abuse, but also crash, Hollywood maintained a 'hands-off engages with the image-infatuation of policy regarding discussion of the deepening depression. Films continued to contemporary culture through the use of emphasize sex, sophistication, and techniques that mirror Eisenstein's early spectacle ... the public as a whole hated to critical film style. acknowledge the reality of the economic Aronofsky's development of these debacle (Jacobs 1939:508). critical cinematographic techniques in Requiem for a Dream (2001) results in a Hollywood has not ceased to very effective subversion of the film perform this role of a buffer between its "language" of mainstream American audience and their social reality. Even

54 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services when it appears to deal with controversial films, Eisenstein made use of a host of issues or delve into the realm of social "alienating" or "distancing" techniques to criticism, Hollywood's primary endeavour break the continuity of his cinematic always involves entertainment. Thus, if a narratives in order to force the audience social issue is "featured", it is usually as into a critical appraisal of the represented the backdrop against which the struggles material. Aronofsky's film contains many of some hero, heroine and/or villain are similar critical features and is underpinned played out, after which the narrative, by a similar endeavour.2 invariably, edges its way towards some The illusion of the classic realist text form of amiable resolution that tactfully is predicated on the inconspicuous avoids "making enemies" by offering no stability of the camera and on editing that real criticism of the axiology of the status creates a sense of continuity through the quo. This, in effect, has become the use of "smooth" transitions, such as fades "dream" of mainstream cinema, and it is and dissolves or, alternatively, the barely grounded in a habit of thought that has perceptible straight-cut (as long as the become instantiated as the film juxtaposed scenes contribute to the "language" of Hollywood. "uninterrupted" unfolding of the narrative Ostensibly, Requiem for a Dream and are not experienced by the audience (200 1) involves the "death" of (and hence as jarring). requiem for) the dreams of four different With regard to the stability of the individuals. Yet, in addition to this, camera, an early instance of the because of the conceptual angle of the subversion of this principle by Eisenstein film, and via the distancing techniques is found in Battleship Potemkin (1925), employed throughout the film, an where he makes the camera conspicuous approximation of a more critical through its "non-stability" during the perspective of the mass media and scene involving the massacre of the postmodern "image"-culture is also population on the Odessa steps. As the facilitated, such that the "integrity" of masses retreat down the stairs before the mediated reality and the "truth" of the marching troops of the Czar, the camera Apollonian resolutions of mainstream "stumbles" along with them as it follows cinematic narratives are revealed to be their descent from the right flank. illusory. Pudovkin, Eisenstein's much acclaimed The opening scene of Requiem for a contemporary, maintained that Dream involves a T.V. game show, hosted by Tappy Tibbons (Christopher The real material of film-art proved to be McDonald), which contains all the not those actual scenes on which the lens of the camera is directed ... [Rather, if] we quintessential features of the postmodern consider the work of the film director, then mediated spectacle. This show constitutes it appears that the active raw material is Sara Goldfarb's (Ellen Burstyn) dream none other than those pieces of celluloid on that acts as a buffer between her and her which, from various viewpoints, the painful reality of growing old, bein alone separate movements of the action have been r shot. From nothing but these pieces is and remaining unacknowledged. This created those appearances upon the screen dream is interrupted; broken into; by the that form the filmic representation of the jarring dissolution of the game show when action shot. (Pudovkin 1929:55-56). Harry (Jared Leto), quite simply, unplugs the T.V. The result, which involves a Pudovkin, like Eisenstein, valorized straight-cut and jarring "paradigm"-shift editing as the "real" art of filmmaking. that breaks the continuity of the narrative, Thus, although there may have been many alienates the audience from the text and is technical reasons for the non-stability of the first "reference" to Eisenstein's critical the above-mentioned footage of the cinematographic techniques. In his early retreating crowds on the Odessa steps, it is

55 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services highly unlikely that anything In Mayakovsky's post-revolutionary literary Eisenstein's film is there purely by "protests against the bourgeois, sugary art accident, and more likely that its inclusion of his time" (Leyda 1960:129).5 One such within the text contains critical director was Lev Kuleshov and possibilities. On two occasions in Requiem for a the artistic legacy that he handed over to Pudovkin and Eisenstein for further Dream, Aronofsky uses similar non-stable investment, was the discovery that there footage to make the presence of the were, inherent in a single piece of unedited camera conspicuous. Directly after the film, two strengths: its own, and the strength appearance of the title caption, Harry and of its relation to other pieces of Tyrone (Marlan Wayans) push Sara's film ... Kuleshov maintained that the. material of film-work consists of pieces of T. V. down the road towards the film ...join[ ed] together iIi a particular pawnbroker, while a retreating hand-held creatively conceived order ... [and that] film camera takes a middle-shot of them from art begins from the moment when the the front through a fish-eye lens. Again, director begins to combine and join [them] just before the caption "F ALL" denotes together (Leyda 1960: 175). the end of the period of summer prosperity, the shot of Tyrone fleeing These historical considerations hold from a drug-related shooting is captured crucial implications for Aronofsky's with a "snorrie-cam" that focuses on his Requiem for a Dream insofar as his use of terrified face while blurring the similar techniques to those found in the background. 3 In both cases the work of Kuleshov, Eisenstein and "constructed-ness" of the represented Pudovkin imbricates his film with the material becomes apparent through the underlying "critical attitude" of Soviet non-stability of the footage. cinema, which involved a very different Eisenstein also subverted the second film "language" to that of mainstream principle of the classic realist text, namely Hollywood productions. the use of continuity editing, by using On numerous occasions throughout montage of rhythm to interrupt the Requiem for a Dream, Aronofsky uses continuous narrative, the most famous montage of rhythm to disrupt the 6 example of which involves the three continuity of the narrative. A variation of images of stone lions from Battleship this occurs after Harry and Tyrone Potemkin (1925). In the film, after the purchase drugs with the money they shelling of the Generals' headquarters at receive for Sara's T.V. at the pawnbroker. the Odessa theatre, three images of three In general, the montages of rhythm that different stone lions, one sleeping, one represents substance abuse involve a rapid awakening and one rising, are juxtaposed succession of close-ups of the apparatus, with one another. Their "static" presence powder or liquid of the drug and the in the middle of the dramatic scene breaks dilation of pupils, with the metonymic the continuity of the narrative and makes representations of the drug takers the audience aware of the film as a remaining anonymous yet numerically constructed artefact. 4 correct. For example, if two people are Although the juxtaposition involved taking drugs, for instance Harry and in any of Eisenstein's montages of rhythm Tyrone, then either the split seems to stand out as the predecessor to screen/duplicate image technique is used, Aronofsky's use of similar montage or at least two dilating pupils are shown techniques in Requiem for a Dream, due during the montage. Alternatively, if only credit must also be given to the somewhat one person is involved, then only one lesser known directors of early Soviet dilating pupil is represented and takes up cinema, whose highly intellectual the entire screen. However, what links the cinematic visions were informed by various montages together is not the type of image represented,7 but rather the

56 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services rhythm with which they are represented. interview, stated that the "big point of the The montages explode upon the screen film [is] that all addictions are the same: with the speed and brevity of a drumbeat coffee, TV, drugs - it [doesn't] matter or gunshot in a hard, sharp, mechanically what the chemical [is, compulsive way that communicates the because] ... mainlining coffee and TV is blind power of the demands of addiction. the same as doing it with drugs" In Strike (1924), Eisenstein uses (http://aronofsky.tripod.comlinterview17. montage of rhythm involving the html). juxtaposition of images of animals (a fox, Another technique found in an owl, a monkey and a bulldog) with the Aronofsky's text that has its roots in the faces of the spies who had adopted the juxtaposition of montage of rhythm is that names of these animals as their code of the "split-screen". In the film, as names. These montages involve the slow mentioned above, Harry is a drug addict dissolution of the image of the animal into who, in an effort to acquire money, the image of the spy in a rhythm that regularly steals his mother's television. At communicates this "animality" as an a cinematographic level, Aronofsky inherent part of the spies' respective represents the emotional tension and natures, as though in a moment of distance between mother and son through "aletheia" their very being is dividing the screen vertically into two "unforgotten" through the montage. The frames, with one camera focussing on rhythm of Aronofsky's montage seems, Harry on the right side of the screen, as he rather, to approximate the violence of the struggles to free the T.V. from the later juxtaposition, in Eisenstein's Strike, radiator, while another camera focuses on of the images of the cow being Sara who inhabits the left side of the slaughtered next to the images of the screen as she hides in another room, unarmed workers being massacred. having locked the door out of fear for However, in Aronofsky' s montage the Harry. The contrast between the straight-cut is, as mentioned above, representation of the "mediated reality" of accentuated by a drum-like beat, and Tappy Tibbon' s game show, with which where in Strike the perpetrator of the the film opens, and the succeeding violence is known (i.e. the butcher), in representation of the emotional turmoil Requiem for a Dream an anonymity between mother and son in the apartment, surrounds the montage, which along with the screen division in the latter communicates the psycho-pathological and the different attitudes of focus in the impetus and lack of autonomy behind left and right frames, are all very jarring actions perpetuated through addiction. when compared to the standard continuity I use the term "psycho-pathology" editing of mainstream cinema and as opposed to any reference to "physical therefore add to the audiences' sense of dependence", not only because of the alienation from the text. psycho-pathological element involved in Mainstream cinema in the silent era addiction, but more specifically because used captions to communicate key of Aronofsky's use of the same rhythm information about the narrative with the found in the "drug-taking" montages, in primary aim of "drawing" the audience conjunction with a "remote-control" into the film. 8 Eisenstein, in the beginning montage that represents Sara's addiction of Strike (1924), subverts this "traditional" to television. The same anonymity and role of the caption by making use of word mechanical compulsion behind her act of play. In the opening caption that states using a remote control are, through the "ALL QUIET AT THE FACT-OR-Y", montage, articulated as being identical to the "OR" spirals down and to the right and the demands made on the others by their then rises again to eclipse the original drug addiction. Aronofsky, in a recent caption with the word "OR[?]", which

Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services questions the validity of any such "FACT the impression of a continuous narrative. uAL" statements. This play on words In contrast to this Eisenstein, in Strike demands an intellectual appraisal from the (1924), does not merely break or interrupt audience and thereby removes captions the continuity of the narrative with a from their erstwhile placid role in montage of rhythm, but goes one step mainstream cinema as mere signposts that further by "reversing" that continuity. The bear narrative information. piece of footage in question originally Aronofsky continues this involved the reflection, in a pool of oily intellectual use of captions in Requiem for water, of workers having a violent a Dream (2001). In the beginning of the discussion against the backdrop of the film, after Harry and Tyrone have left the factory smokestacks. When the workers building and are wheeling Sara's T.V. departed a pair of work boots proceeded down the street, the orchestra commences into the puddle and disturbed the smooth playing the theme tune and is surface and the reflection of the accompanied by the loud, momentary smokestacks. However, this "original" intrusion of the title in the form of a sequence of events is represented in falling black and white caption, which reverse, so that the first image seen is that eclipses the entire screen and interrupts of the work boots disturbing the oily the continuity of the narrative. In addition puddle, followed by the departure of the to this, Aronofsky immediately begins to boots and the miraculous and interrupt the unfolding narrative, instantaneous calming of the water, which accompanied by the music of the then facilitates the reflection of the group orchestra, by having black and white of discontent workers and their discussion "credit" pages, similar to the title caption, against the backdrop of the smokestacks. eclipse the progression of Harry and Quite simply, Eisenstein's visual Tyrone as they advance towards the pawn metaphor communicates the need to look broker. This "blacking-out" of the image beneath the apparent business of of their progression, which leaves only production (i.e. the boots that disturb the sections of it represented, alienates the water) to see the growing discontent of the audience from the text by making it workers (i.e. their heated discussion). Yet, necessary for them to piece together a in terms of critical cinema, the "reversed" "pseudo"-montage of Harry's and footage is very significant as an alienating Tyrone's journey. technique because, as mentioned, it not Furthermore, the captions that only interrupts but also, quite literally, follow divide the narrative into three reverses the narrative's progression. sections, namely "SUMMER", "FALL" Aronofsky, in Requiem for a Dream and "WINTER". The audience is left (2001), uses a variation of "reverse" waiting for a "SPRING" that never footage on two occasions to jar the arrives, the absence of which audience and force them to reconsider the communicates the hopelessness of the represented material as represented characters' situation that does not allow material. The first time this occurs is after for rebirth or renewal. The absence of a Tyrone and Harry have recovered from "SPRING" caption is therefore linked to their afternoon intoxication, and sit at an Aronofsky's subversion, through the text outside street cafe. At this point a of Requiem for a Dream, of the narrative policeman sits down next to them and structure of mainstream cinema that Harry "seems" to steal the policeman's always moves towards an amiable firearm. Tyrone and Harry then proceed 9 resolution. to throw it back and forth between them As mentioned, mainstream cinema while the policeman struggles to regain it. relies heavily on continuity editing to However, a split-second later things return mesmerize an audience through creating to the moment before Harry's theft of the

58 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services pistol, with the policeman still sitting next namely Marta and the same comrades who to Harry and Tyrone, at which point the are sitting with her on the bench watching audience realizes that the scene has only the audience (Eisenstein accentuates the taken place within Harry's mind. Again, irony of this situation by focussing, later, when Harry's girlfriend Marion briefly, on Marta's wry smile). (Jennifer Connelly) is forced to visit her This alteration in the traditional psychologist, Arnold (Sean Gullette), to sequence of beginning a film begins to get money for drugs, she sits in a unravel the dominant narrative structure restaurant opposite him and "seems" to or film "language" of mainstream stab her fork into his hand. However, a American cinema because instead of split-second later things return to the presenting the audience with a usual moment before her attack and the "opening" sequence that mesmerizes them audience realizes, again, that this event and draws them further into the narrative, has only taken place within her Eisenstein accentuates the imagination. On both occasions the "commencement" of the represented progression of the narrative is interrupted narrative only after the narrative has and the audience is forced to retrace its already begun to unfold. This, together steps in a way that alienates them from the with Marta's objectifying gaze, promotes text and makes conspICUOUS the critical awareness of the representation as "constructed-ness" of the represented a representation. material. Aronofsky uses a similar "double" In addition to the use of non-stable commencement of the narrative in the footage, montage of rhythm, the use of opening scenes of Requiem for a Dream, word play in relation to the captions and the effect of which is accentuated by the the "reversal" of footage, mentioned music of the orchestra. After Harry above, Eisenstein also makes use of other interrupts the television screening of the alienating techniques similar to those game show by pulling out the plug of the employed later by Brecht in theatre. For T.V., the sounds of an orchestra "tuning example, in Eisenstein's The General Line up" add to the "dis"-ease of the above (1929), the actual narrative of the film mentioned scene involving the vertically only "begins" after a few minutes of split screen and tension between Harry footage have already elapsed, during and his mother. Only after Harry and which time we have been introduced to Tyrone have left the building and are the character of Marta Lapkina and the wheeling Sara's T.V. down the street does predicament of the peasants' poverty the orchestra commence playing the caused by strip cultivation under the old theme tune of the film, accompanied by Czarist regime. After the agronomist the loud, momentary intrusion of the declares the collective farm "open", we falling black and white title caption that are presented with the title caption, "The declares the "beginning" of the narrative Path of the October Dairy", followed by a after a few minutes of the film have short scene involving the "heroine", Marta already elapsed. Lapkina, and a few other stalwarts of the However, where Aronofsky goes collective, sitting on a bench facing the "beyond" Eisenstein is in the audience. This scene is jarring because it objectification of the audience by the breaches a fundamental law of cinema by actors and actresses. This occurs through making the audience the object of the gaze Sara Goldfarb's hallucinations that are of the characters on screen. In this strange caused by her growing addiction to diet role reversal, Marta and her comrades sit pills towards the end of the period entitled down to "watch" the audience/viewer as "FALL". Her desire to "look" slim for her they watch the re-presentation of the promised appearance on television causes efforts of the members of the collective, her to over-dose on her medication and

Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services the resultant hallucinations, aggravated by representations, despite the impossibility her suppression of her body's demands for of "us" ever attaining the Apollonian lo food, see her tom between the "mediated "perfection" of such images. reality" of the game show and the The scene is thus not only a "roaring" refrigerator, a metaphor for her metaphor for the collapse of the real into body's need for sustenance. In her the hyper-real and vice versa, but also a hallucination the hyper-real figures of parody and indictment of our desires that Tappy and a younger, more beautiful Sara have collapsed into, and become Goldfarb, exit the realm of mediated imbricated with, mediated images. Where reality and enter her living room as in Eisenstein's The General Line, Marta phantasms that proceed to become Lapkina and her comrades stare increasingly "solid". This is not only a knowingly at us, in Aronofsky's Requiem visual metaphor for the collapse of the for a Dream, the game-show audience, real into the hyper-real and vice versa a la and to some extent Tappy and the younger Baudri lIard, but also entails a far more Sara, actually address "us", implicitly, critical element. through the hallucinations of the character When the "archetypal" screen hero, of the older Sara Goldfarb. personified by Tappy Tibbons, along with There exists a parallel between Sara's desired (projected) self-image, Aronofsky's criticism of the postmodem manifest in her living-room, they laugh infatuation with the image and an implicit and jeer at her and her living conditions, cntIcism found in Eisenstein's The which Tappy describes as "disgusting", General Line (1929), where the success of while Sara tries to defend herself and her the peasants on the collective farm, who apartment by saying, "Let me explain, I'm put their hands to the milk-separator, old, and alone ... [etc.]" However, Sara is designed and manufactured by other not the only one "on trial" in this scene. workers, contrasts with the emptiness and When Tappy and the younger, vivacious drought prevalent in the fields of those Sara Goldfarb laugh at the "real" Sara, the who simply pray for relief. Just as studio audience of the game show join Eisenstein's devout peasants are them in laughing and pointing. However, characterized as infatuated with the of the three shots of the studio audience images of God, in terms of the laughing and pointing, only two of them iconography of the Russian orthodox involve the audience pointing to the left of church, and thereby addicted to what the screen at the "space" that Sara is Marx rightly termed the opiate of the supposed to occupy, as she cowers in her people, namely a religious meta-narrative chair. The third shot involves them that promises an amiable resolution to the pointing to the right, at the "space" narrative of the lives of its devotees, so occupied not by the T.V., nor by the aged too Sara, in Aronofsky's Requiem for a Sara, nor by Tappy and the younger Sara, Dream, is infatuated with the images of but by "us" as the viewers/audience of mediated reality. She and the other main Requiem for a Dream. In other words, in characters pursue the "image" of their terms of space, "we" as the audience are respective dreams, impelled by an situated on the right of Sara, looking left unconscious desire to attain "wholeness" at her, Tappy and the younger Sara. through the image. However, as Lacan Thus, for a brief moment, the whole points out, such "wholeness" is impossible studio audience of the game show are to attain. laughing at "us" who, like Sara, are "glued" to the screen, privileging the According to Lacan, we are born into a realm of the mediated image, and condition of 'lack', and subsequently spend the rest of our lives trying to overcome this constructing our desires and proj ected condition ... As we move forward, we are self-images along the lines of mediated driven by a desire to overcome the

60 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services condition, and as we look back, we continue "necessity" for an inevitable, amiable to believe that the union with the mother resolution at the end of all narratives. was a moment of plenitude before the fall into 'lack'. The result is an endless quest in Further evidence for this occurs search of an imagined moment of plenitude. when Harry confronts Sara on the subject Lacan figures this as a search for what he of her growing addiction to amphetamine terms I 'objet petit a: an endless quest for a barbiturate diet pills. In response to non-existent object, signifying an imaginary Harry's question concerning the moment in time. We console ourselves with a series of substitutes for a substitute significance and value of appearing on (Storey 1998:93). television, Sara says, "I'm somebody now ... soon millions of people will see me However, in Requiem for a Dream, and they'll like me .. .it's a reason to get up all the main characters' respective in the morning, it's a reason to lose attempts to recover this moment of weight, to fit in the red dress, it's a reason plenitude are not only imbricated with the to smile, it makes tomorrow all right." Her images of mediated reality, but are also use of cliches, learned from television couched within the "learned" narrative advertisements, game shows and structure of the dominant voices of mainstream cinema, to articulate her mainstream cinema that promise an psychological pain, exposes the amiable resolution at the end of all frightening degree to which mediated narratives. This has continued from reality has limited avenues of thought Griffith to the present as a constant theme through the exclusive privileging of within mainstream American cinema, 11 certain "styles" of language and certain and usually involves the restoration of narrative structures. Denzin lends support traditional power structures, the victory of to the idea that mainstream cinema the hero or heroine, the triumph of good constitutes SUbjectivity when he states that over evil, and other habitual "comfortingly familiar" patterns that American cinema created a space for a facilitate optimistic conclusion to certain kind of public, communal urban life ... [it] elaborated the epistemology of cinematic narratives. scientific realism already deeply rooted in In the opening scene Sara, the T.V. American culture ... [and] reproduced a addict, "speaks" to her absent husband, realistic and naturalistic discourse about the Seymour, from her refuge behind the universe of experience and appearance. The locked door, as her son Harry steals her movies became a technology and apparatus of power that would organize and bring television. She says, "This isn't meaning to everyday lives. They would happening, and if it should be happening it function as adjuncts to the twentieth century would be all right ... in the end its [always] surveillance societies, deploying the all right." This sentiment, relating to the cinematic gaze and its narratives in the necessity for everything to work out service of the state (Denzin 1995: 14-15). amiably in the end, is echoed later by Two significant American cultural Harry's girlfriend, Marion Silver, who myths perpetuated by mainstream film repeatedly says, "It'll be O.K.," despite texts are "that the truth will always prevail their increasingly desperate situation as a (wrongs will be made right) and that the result of Harry's difficulty in obtaining powerful in this society can be brought drugs. Sara's and Marion's similar down by the little people who are responses to their respective predicaments represented [as] ... truth-seek[ ers]" (Denzin are not merely instances of innocuous 1995:23). Aronofsky's Requiem for a "wishful thinking" but bear testimony to Dream does not conclude with any such the collapse of "reality" into the language optimism but rather exposes these two of the "hyper-real", or the film "language" cultural myths as illusory because at the of mainstream American cinema, with its end of the film the "wrongs are not made right", and the "little people", namely the

61 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services characters of Harry, Marion, Tyrone and within the film. At a more subtle level, Sara, remain powerless victims, forever Aronofsky engages in a subversion of distanced from each other and their what is possibly the most time-honoured dreams. spectacle of mainstream cinema, namely Requiem for a Dream, as mentioned montage of tempo. Montage of tempo, or earlier, is not only concerned with the accelerated montage, is used to create death of the characters' respective dreams, excitement and tension through implying but also with the subversion of the the possibility of the inversion of implicit, collective "dream" of traditional power hierarchies, the defeat of mainstream cinema that is represented as the hero or heroine, or the death (or constituting the subjectivity of the injury) of a besieged individual. However, characters in the film, namely the dream in keeping with the tendency of of the "necessity" for all narratives to mainstream cinema, the narrative always conclude with an amiable resolution. concludes on an amiable note with a However, if mainstream cinema resolution in which the power hierarchies constitutes subjectivity, then a subversion are restored, the villains are vanquished of the film "language" of mainstream by the hero or heroine, and the besieged cinema, through critical cinema, makes individual is rescued. possible a moment in which the habitual Eisenstein writes of Griffith that, patterns of the dominant film "language" "Griffith is a great master of montage become conspicuous to the subject who is constructions that have been created in a usually constituted by those patterns. 12 In direct-lined quickening and increase of this moment the subject is brought to the tempo" (Eisenstein 1969:234-235), and a abyss of infinite possibility that looms at good example of this is found in Griffith's the brink or edge of film "language", since The Lonedale Operator (1911), which the utter metaphoricity of all cinematic contains all the quintessential features of representations and their narrative the "traditional" montage of tempo. The structures are revealed to the subject, who Lonedale Operator, because of illness, was previously constituted in terms of absents himself from work and is those regresentations and narrative temporarily replaced by his daughter structures. 3 In other words, because (Blanche Sweet) who, in the course of her subjectivity is constituted by mainstream work, takes charge of a large sum of cinema through the subject's "mis" money belonging to the Lonedale recognition of mainstream representations Company. Two vagabonds then attempt to and narrative structures as "real", critical steal the money and force her to barricade cinema, through revealing such herself behind the doors of the telegraph representations and narrative structures to office and send for help. As the train with be merely metaphor, subverts the integrity the hero (i.e. the boyfriend of the of the subj ectivity informed by Lonedale Operator's daughter) gets closer, mainstream cinema. so the villains succeed in penetrating The ways in which Aronofsky does deeper into the telegraph office, while the this are both overt and subtle. At an overt Lonedale Operator's daughter exhibits level, as mentioned earlier, he mirrors and increasing distress in the office interior. develops certain techniques of Tension is created because the rapid inter Eisenstein's critical cinema through his cutting between the "three primary use of non-stable footage, montage of spaces ... [of] the telegraph office interior, rhythm, "split-screens", captions the criminals outside, and the rescue train involving word play, "reversed" footage, - with an escalating rhythm," (Simmons delayed or "double" commencement of 2000:37) implies that the separate events, the narrative, and the objectification of the although they occur in different places, audience through the gaze of characters are racing towards each other in time and

62 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services space such that they will soon meet in the come to restore law and order. He arrives same frame. However, when they and defeats the striking workers who, eventually do meet, the narrative, as because of their low social status and mentioned above, concludes with an poverty, fall into the category of the amiable resolution in which the hero "villains", while the children playing on emerges from the crisis victorious, the top of the building, because of their youth individual under siege (i.e. the Lonedale and innocence, constitute the "besieged Operator's daughter) is rescued and the individuals". However, the Cossack (i.e. villains are arrested. the hero ), after defeating the striking As such, the tension of montage of workers (i.e. the villains), proceeds to the tempo is underpinned by an underlying top of the building where he murders the bourgeois axiology in terms of which child (i.e. the besieged individual), instead capitalist values are entrenched. For of rescuing him. Eisenstein's montage of example, the Lonedale Company's right to tempo thus mirrors the restoration of the capital and the legitimacy of the economic power structures and social hierarchies in system by means of which they attained terms of the axiology that underpinned such wealth are never questioned, while Griffith's montage of tempo, but reveals the villains are identified as much by their such structures and hierarchies to be dark attire as by their poverty. Moreover, unjust and unequivocally corrupt. the tension of the narrative results from In Requiem for a Dream, Aronofsky the "possibility" that the villains might goes one step further than Eisenstein in achieve their goals of stealing the his subversion of the "traditional" company's money and ravishing the montage of tempo. His montage of tempo Lonedale Operator's daughter, which, in has its foundations just prior to the period tum, would imply their successful designated by the caption "WINTER". At inversion of the dominant socio-economic the end of the previous period, namely hierarchies and bourgeois class structures. "FALL", Sara Goldfarb finally goes In Strike (1924), Eisenstein engages insane as a result of her isolation and critically with this underlying axiology growing addiction to, and abuse of, through parodying the "traditional" amphetamines and barbiturates. The last montage of tempo. Towards the end of the scene of "FALL" involves her walking film, Cossacks are seen attacking the down the street, dazed and disorientated, striking workers and, by the sheer weight on her way to the television station to and impetus of their brutality, are able to enquire as to when she is going to be on ascend with their horses onto higher and the game show. The next scene of Tyrone higher levels of the buildings that house and Harry (now in "WINTER") is of them the workers. A shot of two innocent on their way to Florida in search of drugs, children, sitting high above the fracas and while the next time we see Marion is playing, is juxtaposed with the ferocity of when she is alone in her dimly lit the struggle below, while the Cossacks bathroom, experiencing withdrawal succeed in ascending higher and higher up symptoms because of her difficulty in the stairs. Finally the Cossacks reach the obtaining drugs. Although, the latter two highest part of the building and the scenes are separated from the former by children, at which point a Cossack grabs the caption of "WINTER", they should be one child and throws him to his death over perceived as connected to it since, in that the side of the high building. scene, Sara leaves her home and begins Through this Eisenstein subverts the her "final" journey over the edge of sanity usual narrative progression of montage of just as, after the caption "WINTER", tempo it la Griffith. The Cossack Harry and Tyrone commence with their constitutes the "hero" from a bourgeois journey to Florida, a journey that in many axiological perspective, because he has ways will be a "final" journey for them

63 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services too. Similarly, Marion is forced, through than just a moment of Aronofsky's her lack of money and the non-availability subversion of montage of tempo through of drugs, to "finally" make a telephone parody. Because this psychosis is only call to Little John (Keith David) and enter separated by a matter of degree from the into prostitution in order to get both. "type" of subjectivity constituted in However, where in the Lonedale Operator relation to contemporary mass media, the montage of tempo culminates in the Aronofsky's thematization of it hero, heroine and villains meeting in the problematizes the relationship between same frame, and where in Strike the mediated reality and its contemporary montage of tempo sees the children and viewers/audience. Lacan maintains that the Cossacks finally meeting in a similar the "lack of lack" of psychosis is fashion, much to the detriment of one of pathological because it is really the case the children, in Aronofsky's montage of that, while tempo there is no meeting but rather a "drifting apart". there is no subject except in The cross-cutting between scenes representation, ... no representation captures us completely. I can neither· be totally involving the four characters, namely defined nor can I escape all definition. I am Harry, Marion, Tyrone and Sara, the quest for myself. .. [o]n the other hand, gradually increases in speed and brevity any attempt to 'totalize' someone else, to until it approximates the inter-cutting of a grasp the other completely, is bound to fall montage of tempo, during which the four short - no description does the other justice. Moreover, one can only see oneself as one characters are increasingly distanced from thinks others see one (Sarup 1988:15-16). each other, not only by space but also by 14 time. Moreover, in addition to this Sara, along with the other main spatio-temporal distance, their individual characters, is infatuated with the idea of experiences also distance them, attaining a stable and integral identity irrevocably, from one another, in a through the "image". She chooses to see manner that negates the possibility of any herself not as those around her see her, final, amiable resolution to the narrative. namely in terms of her facticity involving Through this Aronofsky offers a parody of her personal history, triumphs, failures, mainstream cinema's montage of tempo personality traits, etc., but rather in terms that, because it disappoints the audiences' of how an "imaginary" studio audience expectations, makes the narrative structure might see her, namely as an "image" of montage of tempo conspicuous to them. devoid of failure, loss and lack. For her, However, the degree to which it becomes the proverbial "15 seconds" of televised conspicuous is relative to the degree to fame involving a summarized, superficial which the characters, in contrast to the and ultimately empty representation of "traditional" montage of tempo, are herself, takes precedence over a "non distanced from one another and from their mediated" identity, where lack IS respective dreams, and in what follows I embraced as an integral part of will focus on this. At the same time I will SUbjectivity. She develops what Lacan also consider the way in which Aronofsky would call a kind of psychosis, or "lack of delivers a social critique of, and subverts, lack", as the result of her exclusive the "image" infatuation of contemporary privileging of her self-image in relation to culture through his treatment of the the game show, where she imagines various characters. herself articulating and representing her In the narrative Sara develops son Harry's "imagined" success, health psychosis and is thereby cut off from her and engagement to the world. With the aid son Harry and from the possibility of of amphetamines and barbiturates, she realizing her dream of being on television. engages in a violent repression of her However, her psychosis represents more suffering, caused by her lack of company,

64 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services lack of recognition and the demands of failure of various treatments, she is her body, and privileges instead her self subjected to shock therapy that literally image as she anticipates it being reflected cuts her off from the realm of emotions, through the mass media, which results in evident in her non-expressive facial her experiencing a distinct "lack-of-lack", features when two of her friends come to or psychosis. visit her. Furthermore, in the very last In the contemporary age, as a result scene of the film Sara lies on her bed with of the proliferation of the mass media and the voices and lights of the show, and mainstream cinema, there is an infatuation "images" of Harry, echoing and flashing with an imaginary identity that is now only in her memories, and with her informed by the media. As such, the lost in her delusions and thereby, media dictates who "we" are and "speaks" ironically, cut off forever from the "real" us, and to that extent "we" are all, to a Harry and his predicament involving certain degree, psychotic. According to imprisonment, addiction and the Lacan, psychosis has a linguistic basis. amputation of his ann. In this final scene, her psychosis, In the delirium of a psychotic one finds ... a from Harry and her "dream", are not only form of speaking that 'has given up trying to integral to Aronofsky's parody of make itself recognized' ... [and] precisely because of this solipsism, psychotic montage of tempo, but also constitute part delusions exhibit a stereotypical quality that of Aronofsky's attempt to subvert the demonstrates the fact that the subject here power of the mass media. His film, as 'is spoken rather than sp~aking' ... the mentioned, has a self-critical aspect in that psychotic's speaking manifests a it shows the dreadful power of the media fundamental 'absence of speech' where speech properly involves some degree of to dictate who "we" are and to "speak" us. creative dialogue (Lee 1990:68). Requiem for a Dream thereby challenges "us", in view of this power, to reclaim the This is precisely what manifests power of creative individual thinking, and after the final scene of "FALL", when it is therefore really a "call to arms" to Sara arrives at the television station to take the power of the media seriously and enquire as to when she is going to be on to resist it. the game show. As she pleads with them Aronofsky strengthens this "call to she intermittently says things such as, infatuation of contemporary culture" via "We're giving the prizes away!" Her his treatment of the character of Marion psychosis, involving the indistinguishable Silver. Through her he reveals the merging of the "language" of the game hypocrisy of an infatuation with "beauty" show with her own speech, was defined purely in terms of appearances, foreshadowed in a previous scene, and shows such "beauty" to be only a mentioned earlier, in which Harry visited beautiful fa9ade underpinned, in reality, her during the early stages of her diet-pill by horror and anguish. Her dream (i.e. of addiction, and questioned her about her attaining "wholeness") involves her anticipated appearance on television. As identification with, and exclusive stated, Sara used cliches from mediated privileging of, the image of her own reality to articulate her psychological pain, beauty in a way that is tantamount to and thereby indicated the degree to which addiction. the visual language of the mass media had During the "SUMMER" she already begun to usurp her own speech articulates the degree to which her and thoughts. This usurpation culminates reflected image is of fundamental in her psychotic breakdown at the T.V. importance to her when she lies head to station. head with Harry and whispers, "I love From there she is escorted to a you Harry, you make me feel like a psychiatric hospital where, after the person." She doesn't love Harry for any

65 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services enduring quality of which he is narrative progresses and contrasts possessed, but rather because an image markedly with the "purity" of the above of her beauty is reflected back to her mentioned scene, during the period through his adoration of her. However, entitled "SUMMER", when she stood in simultaneously, the psychological front of a mirror, alone and "free" of distance between them is articulated make-up. 15 through a split-screen in which the left Finally, in the absence of Harry and camera focuses on Harry and the right without money, she is overcome by the on Marion. The split screen is not only impetus of her addiction and pays her first an alienating technique that makes visit to Little John to exchange sex for conspicuous the "constructed-ness" of drugs. This leads to a second visit to Little the representation, as discussed earlier, John's apartment where she becomes the but it also articulates the impossibility of object of the gaze of a group of men when them really communicating or having a she is forced to perform a variety of relationship because of Marion's sexual acts with other women that she narcissism. Further evidence for her finds utterly demeaning. Where before, in narCISSIsm occurs, during the terms of her narcissism, she was both 'SUMMER' period, when she takes subject and object, at Little John's drugs alone and stands half-naked apartment she is reduced to a mere object before a mirror, adoring her own by the men who take pleasure in reflection. Her dream, involving exploiting her image of beauty. Through complete intoxication with the image of this event Marion is forever cut off from her own beauty, is facilitated by drugs her dream, involving intoxication with the that silence the subversive voices of image of her own beauty, because after discontent that undermine and contradict her ordeal it is impossible for her to re this image of 'perfection', namely those constitute the "purity" of that image. voices that remind her of her facticity Quite simply put, she is never able to look involving the problems she is at herself in the mirror in the same way as experiencing with her parents, her lack before. of career-direction, options, etc. The loss of her dream, and her However, as a result of her separation from Harry through her narcissism, she is as much addicted to prostitution, deny the narrative the Harry's "reflection" of her beauty as she possibility of resolving itself amiably and is to drugs, and when later, through the thereby play an important role in scarcity of drugs and a lack of money, his Aronofsky's parody of the montage of "reflection" of her beauty begins to fade, tempo, while the reflection of the as he draws away from her emotionally, emptiness and pain beneath her beautiful she prostitutes herself with her image subverts the illusion upon which psychologist, Arnold, in order to get the image infatuation of contemporary money to buy drugs. In reality, her culture is predicated. endeavour is not only geared towards A similar theme is visually acquiring drugs, but is also geared articulated in relation to the character of towards re-acquInng the fading Tyrone, who is also represented as "reflection" of her beauty through Harry's infatuated with his self-image. During the adoration of her. period entitled "SUMMER", when Marion attempts to counter the Harry's and Tyrone's drug business was steady "erosion" of her self-image, which profitable, there occurs a scene in which occurs through the subversive dictates of Tyrone looks at himself in some mirrors her growing addiction that force her into that he has bought with his newly prostitution, by applying make-up. This acquired wealth. The fact that he becomes heavier and darker as the purchased mIrrors IS particularly

66 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services important because it relates his infatuation solution to all our problems ... [that it] with his reflected image to Marion's (and makes us whole ... full ... [and] completes Sara's) similar pursuit, i.e. the desire to our being. Love in effect promises to attain stability and integrity of the self return us to the blissful state of the through an Apollonian image that does not moment of plenitude, warm against the admit the existence of subversive body of the mother" (Storey 1998: 96). Dionysian voices. Lacan maintains that However, Lacan also correctly points out that we never find such complete the in:aginary order is best exemplified by satisfaction. In contrast to this, the the mIrror stage ... [when] the subject arrives aesthetic effect of mainstream cinema, as at an apprehension of both its self and the Other - indeed of itself as the it pertains to romance, relies heavily on a Other ... assisted by the ... [subj ect] silencing of both the psychoanalytic seeing .. .its own reflection in a mirror. That dynamic of lack, which underpins intimate ~eflection has a coherence which the subject relationships, and the links between the Itself lacks. But this self-recognition is, desired object and the figure of the Lacan insists, a mis-recognition (Sarup 1988:27). mother, and instead promotes a false psychology of the possibility of attaining Although Tyrone is no longer in the moment of plenitude through finding one's "other-half'. the'"mIrror p h"ase, 16 h'e lS sub' ~ ect to a similar "mis"-recognition of himself However, in Requiem for a Dream, through the image. This involves his Tyrone's dream is represented as identification with the integrity of the orientated, unequivocally, around the image despite the fact that, as a subject pursuit of a substitute for the lost moment created through, by, and within of plenitude in the womb and for maternal language, he is denied such coherence approval, both of which are also and stability. His desire for such represented as forever beyond his grasp. integrity manifests itself in an exclusion Tyrone, at one point, remembers his or "forgetting" of those factors that childhood and mother, in the presence of destabilize the integrity of his self his girlfriend, whilst looking in the mirror. image, for example, his criminal This scene involves a play on language occupation that detracts from, and similar to the manner in which the undermines, the image of "perfection" unconscious plays with words and reflected back at him in the mirror. symbols, where "reflection" could mean However, in addition to this, a both reflection in a mirror and a second theme broached through his remembering of the past. Having set the character concerns the degree to which "psychoanalytic" tone of the scene as romantic involvement is underpinned by such, Aronofsky goes further by the unfulfillable pursuit of the lost representing Tyrone's thoughts as moment of plenitude and involved with returning to his childhood where he the figure of the mother. Mainstream imagines himself as a small boy, sitting in cinematic narratives that focus on his mother's lap and embracing her while romance characteristically involve some saying, "See, I told you one day I'd make kind of resolution whereby the pursued it." Tyrone's desire for financial success is love-object is either found or found revealed as underpinned by the desire for wanting and replaced by a satisfactory maternal approval, and in his brief verbal alternative (not always another person), exchange with his girlfriend, immediately without a hint of the link between the after his "reflection" in the mirror and desired object and the figure of the "reflection" on the past, it is revealed that mother. From Lacan' s perspective, his girlfriend constitutes a substitute for romance is a discursive practice that his lost moment of plenitude. When asked maintains "that 'love' is the ultimate by his girlfriend what he is thinking of, he

67 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services replies, "I'm thinking of you," although facticity causes pain, which is then the images have been of his mother. neutralized with "drugs", which can take Moreover, in a later scene during the the form of illegal substances, T.V. or period entitled "FALL", Tyrone sits alone even coffee. The real reason for Harry's in his apartment, after his girlfriend has abuse of drugs is revealed after the scene left him, and stares down at a picture as in which he visits Sara and tells her about the rain pelts against his window. the television he has bought for her. After However, the picture is then revealed to seeing her pathetic circumstances and be of his mother and not of his girlfriend. realizing that she is developing an Aronofsky, by "unforgetting" the addiction to amphetamines and psychoanalytic impulses beneath barbiturates, he leaves and cries in the "romance" that involve the figure of the taxi, at which point a quick montage of mother, seriously problematizes the rhythm represents a drug fix that he uses "aesthetic" of romance found In to retreat from his pain. mainstream cinema. Inspired by the illusory integrity of At the end of "WINTER", both the image and the "image infatuation" of Harry and Tyrone are arrested, and in the contemporary culture, Harry's attempts to final moments of Aronofsky's montage of resist his facticity result in him becoming tempo Tyrone is seen performing hard separated from his world, which is labour in a Florida prison and dreaming, at visually articulated through the use of a night, of his mother. His incarceration cuts "split-screen". This first occurs early in him off not only from her and her the film, before the title caption, and "approval", but also from his dream of communicates the psychological/ reacquiring the lost moment of plenitude emotional distance between Harry and through the substitute of a girlfriend, and Sara. When Harry steals Sara's T.V., he is the tragedy of this contributes to the isolated from her in the right frame, while parody of the montage of tempo in the she, hiding in the next room, is sealed final scenes that does not facilitate within the left frame. Later, this same amiable Apollonian resolution. cinematographic technique is utilized to Harry's "primary" dream involves articulate the emotional and psychological the reacquisition of the moment of distance that exists between Harry and plenitude through the substitute of Marion where, despite lying naked beside intoxication that dulls the pain of his each other and exchanging overtures of facticity. However, his retreat from his love, they are represented as facti city is as much inspired by the insurmountably separated from each "image" infatuation of contemporary other. 17 culture as the pursuits of the other Harry's relationship with Marion, characters. Aronofsky, in a recent like that of Tyrone with his girlfriend, is interview, stated that the "big point of the also characterized by the unconscious film [is] that all addictions are the same: pursuit of a substitute for the lost moment coffee, TV, drugs - it [doesn't] matter of plenitude that involves the figure of the what the chemical [is, mother. Evidence for this is the red dress because] ... mainlining coffee and TV is that features prominently in Sara's the same as doing it with drugs" imagined appearance on the television (http://aronofsky.tripod.com game show and in her later delusions. She /interview17.html). Harry, like the rest of last wore the red dress to Harry's high the characters, inhabits a culture of the school graduation and there are two "image" that refuses to acknowledge the scenes during which Harry hallucinates "Dionysian" reality of a facti city that does and sees Marion wearing a similar red not correspond to the Apollonian integrity dress. Harry, like Tyrone, also seeks of the image. The presence of such maternal approval from his "substitute"

68 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services for the lost moment of plenitude, namely for Marion to come home from Marion, and he must win Marion's prostituting herself, only experiences affection through feats of ingenuity or anguish when he "sees" Marion, through daring, in a manner akin to a child who something tantamount to a hallucination, seeks validation through the smiling gaze having sex with someone on T.V. In other of the mother. In the scene in which they words, because he only relates to Marion break into a building and ascend to the at the level of the image, his verbal rooftop to throw paper jets, Harry wins exchange with her prior to her prostituting Marion's affection because he bypasses herself, in which she expressed her the security twice, once through conning concerns about visiting Arnold, did not his way past the intercom system at the impact significantly on him. In contrast to front door and a second time through this, he is greatly affected by the bypassing the alarm attached to the hallucinatory "image" of her, rooftop door. Yet despite this, Marion superimposed upon a mediated image of a purposefully tests him further by setting wedding ring. Yet this "Dionysian" off the alarm before they leave, giving facti city that does not correspond to his him the additional obstacle of having to image of Marion is quickly suppressed evade the alerted security guards. Again, through a drug fix, visually articulated by once they have eluded capture, we see a montage of rhythm. This constitutes a them in the elevator engaging in a game of counterpart to the earlier scene in which "thumb-wrestling" which, far from being he took drugs in the taxicab to suppress an innocuous gesture, continues this the emotional pain he experienced after theme of constant challenge and tension his visit to Sara, during which he became between them. Also, during the aware of her pathetic circumstances and "SUMMER" period when he is able to growing amphetamine-barbiturate sell drugs and make a profit, he returns addiction, and is thus further evidence of home to Marion and tells her of his the role drugs play in Harry's "dream" of success, at which point she says "Come to attaining, and maintaining, wholeness. me!" and rewards his achievements with a However, despite Marion's "maternal" embrace. 18 sacrifice, Tyrone and Harry are still However, despite all this, Harry's unable to obtain drugs and therefore, in relationship with Marion is couched the first scene of "WINTER", they set off within the "image infatuation" of his for Florida in the hope of finding a new culture, and therefore operates only at a source. In Florida, Harry's left arm, into superficial level, evidence for which which he injects drugs, develops occurs at one point during "SUMMER" gangrene, and when he seeks medical when Harry tells Marion that he fell in assistance both he and Tyrone are love with her only because of her beauty. arrested. After this, they are both As mentioned above, Harry's "primary" imprisoned and Harry's arm is amputated. dream, inspired by this "image When asked earlier by Tyrone why he infatuation", involves his negation of his didn't inject himself elsewhere, Harry facti city through intoxication. This stated that his left arm was the only place manifests not only in his separation from where he could "get it right". Thus, Marion and Sara, represented through the through the loss of his arm, Harry is use of a "split-screen", but also in his literally cut off from his dream that request that Marion sleep with her involved the attainment and maintenance psychologist, Arnold, to get money for of an illusion of "wholeness" via the drugs. 19 Further evidence for the negation of his facti city through "superficiality" of their relationship intoxication, which was, in tum, inspired occurs in the scene in which Harry, by the (illusory) "integrity" of the lounging in front of the T.V. as he waits mediated image.

69 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services The tragedy of Harry's immersion the narrative to pursue, uncritically and within this mindset, like the predicaments exclusively, this Apollonian illusion that of the others, adds weight to Aronofsky's falsely promises wholeness. Their parody of montage of tempo. Yet because respective drug-addictions, in tum, Harry's addiction receives its impetus function as an integral part of a from the demands of an "iinage mechanism of repression that seeks to infatuated" culture that refuses to deny and overcome the subversive acknowledge its facticity, his suffering Dionysian voices of their facticity, which, also constitutes an indictment of the as the post-structural discourse makes hegemony of the visual language of clear, echo the instability and temporality mainstream cinema and the mass media of all subjectivity constituted by language. that produces such a culture. The contemporary credence granted Aronofsky's montage of tempo in to the film "language" of mainstream Requiem for a Dream does not culminate cinema is reflected through the characters' in a meeting of the hero, villain and expectation that everything would besieged individual in the same frame. eventually tum out "all right", as it does in Rather, all the victims are separated from mainstream film narratives. Ironically, it one another, not only at the level of the is their uncritical pursuit of the image that narrative, but also at the level of eventually cuts them off from their very cinematography and editing, by being dreams that were inspired by the placed in four different frames at the end contemporary image-orientated culture. 20 of the montage of tempo. Through this Yet their seemingly inescapable Aronofsky, following Eisenstein, subverts dilemma is not exclusively theirs, but is the "traditional" form of montage of rather the inheritance of everyone who tempo with its amiable resolution and its inhabits an image-saturated postmodem accompanying bourgeois axiology, while environment. One scene in Requiem for a through thematizing the psychoanalytic Dream that sums up this underlying theme dynamics that underpin romance, and that is the final scene of the period entitled are linked to the figure of the mother, he "F ALL", involving the image of Sara further subverts "aesthetic" aspects of Goldfarb in a faded and threadbare red mainstream cinematic fiction. However, dress, walking dazed and disorientated because montage of tempo IS a towards the television station, having cornerstone of mainstream film succumbed entirely to her psychosis. "language", and because mainstream film Within the scene, her red dress is "language" plays a significant role in the juxtaposed with the shades of the grey constitution of subjectivity, Aronofsky's street, snow and anonymous pedestrians parody of montage of tempo also subverts who speed past her. The colour the integrity of the sUbjectivity constituted composition of the scene harks back to by mainstream cinema. It achieves this by one of the final scenes in Eisenstein's facilitating a moment in which the Battleship Potemkin (1925), where just habitual patterns of mainstream cinema before the Potemkin engages with the become conspicuous, through their non squadron whom they believe to be loyal to fulfilment, to the subject who is usually the Czar, a last image of the "red" flag constituted by those patterns. flying boldly above the Potemkin Requiem for a Dream criticizes the communicates their resoluteness, courage non-critical superficiality of infatuation and defiance. This is the only instance of with the Image that prevails in colour in Battleship Potemkin and thus the postmodernity, as a result of the juxtaposition of the redness of the flag proliferation of the mass media. with the various shades of grey of all the Infatuation with the image of their own other footage is very striking. However, desires predisposes all of the characters in what is important is the content of the

70 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services visual metaphor that communicates hope and possibility. In Requiem for a Dream, 5 Mayakovsky was the 'leading poet of the Russian Sara's red dress also functions as a "flag", Revolution of 1917 and of the early Soviet period" namely the flag of her desire and dream. (http://www/kirjasto.sci.fi/majakovs.htm). Yet, in contrast to Eisenstein's film, the 6 Aronofsky often refers to his montage of rhythm as red "flag" of Sara's dress flutters in the 'Hip Hop Montage" (http://aronofsky.tripod.com/ bitter cold of the winter one last time interview16.html), presumably because, while it is a before being lost forever as she dips descendant of Kuleshov's juxtaposition of images, it below the horizon of sanity. Her "final" is far more dynamic. journey is, as mentioned earlier, paralleled 7 This differs depending on the type of drug being by Tyrone's and Harry's "final" journey consumed because of the different forms of to Florida and Marion's "final" journey to preparation required by different drugs before they Little John, all of which result in can be consumed. "shipwreck", loss and increasing isolation. 8 "[T]he more vociferous complaint that the Russian Yet, insofar as their respective filmmakers had was with the narrative structure of predicaments are symptomatic of the Hollywood filmmaking. They believed, as many postmodern condition, the final fluttering Marxists since believe, that Hollywood cinema is of the "flag" of Sara's red dress could also designed to draw you into believing in the capitalist propaganda ... [and contains] device[ s] to make you be construed as a tragic symbol that align yourself with this unhealthy ideology" denotes a requiem for the dream of the http://www.wikipedia.orglwikilMarxist film theory. Enlightenment. While this dream may have become manifest in the technical 9 This will be discussed later in connection with triumph of the mediated reality of mass Aronofsky's parody of montage of tempo. communication, the possibility of the 10 In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche maintains that continuation of the critical spirit that gave the Apollonian and Dionysian impulses each birth to it has been undermined by the underpin a different world of art. "Apollo stands ... as uncritical image orientation of the transfiguring genius of the principium contemporary postmodern culture. individuation is, through which alone true redemption in appearance can be attained, while under the mystical cry of exultation of Dionysus the spell of Notes individuation is burst apart" (Nietzsche 2000:86). An Apollonian image is seen as possessing an integrity 1 The degree to which she relies on T.V. as an and stability denied to the voice of Dionysus that 'opiate' is articulated later by her son Harry (Jared manifests itself in the temporality and uncertainty of Leto) when he refers to T.V. as her 'fix' and calls her music and intoxication. However, a subject's pursuit a T.V. 'junky'. of the false Apollonian promise of integrity and stability, through exclusive identification with image, 2 For example, the use of the straight-cut and involves a denial of the degree to which their jarring 'paradigm'-shift in the opening scene subjectivity is underpinned by the instability and involves a symbolic gesture that, from the outset of temporality of language, which dooms such a pursuit the film, articulates the fragility and 'lack of to failure. substance' behind the mesmerizing moving images of the mass media. 11 While Edison made a significant contribution towards film projection, D.W. Griffith is considered 3 The 'snorrie-cam' is a camera that attaches to the the founding father of film 'language'. "Prior to body of the actor/actress and it is designed [Griffith's] the Birth of a Nation ... film was anything specifically to keep his/her face and body in focus but an art form or a vehicle for serious while blurring the background. expression ... The Birth of a Nation was the cinematic landmark that blew apart all convention ... [Its] grand 4 Buckland maintains that the montage could also spectacle, the brilliant storytelling function as a symbol "to suggest that even a stone techniques ... close-up shots .. .iris, panning, scanning lion would be shocked by the massacre on the - these were the magical elements that established Odessa steps ... [Also,] the lion could represent the the language of cinema" Russian people who have finally risen against their (http://www.nyfavideo.com/content/cat oppressors" (Buckland 1998:24). GRIFFITH.htm).

Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services 12 In Being and Time, Heidegger refers to 18 She does not approach him in this scene but equipment that, when broken, becomes conspicuous, rather sits and, opening her arms, consents to his in that it no longer 'disappears' through the habit of approach and affections. use. He states, "When we discover its unusability, the thing becomes conspicuous. Conspicuousness 19 The demands of their addiction, combined with a presents the thing at hand in a certain unhandiness ... lack of drugs and money, place increasing strain on [Accordingly, w]hen we notice its unhandiness, what their relationship and begin to distance Harry from is at hand enters the mode of obtrusiveness ... Marion. As mentioned, Marion, because of her Unhandy things are disturbing and make evident the narcissism, is as much addicted to drugs as to obstinacy of what is initially to be taken care Harry's 'reflection' of her beauty through his of... With this obstinacy the objective presence of adoration of her. She consents to prostituting herself what is at hand makes itself known in a new way as because failure to do so would result in a continued the being of what is still present and calls for lack of money and drugs that, in turn, would result in completion" (Heidegger 1953:68-69). Similarly, her loss of Harry's 'reflection' of her beauty. when the narrative structure of a film, that usually goes unnoticed, does not conclude with an amiable 20 Baudrillard lends support to the idea of the resolution, it becomes conspicuous as 'lacking' in contemporary hegemony of film 'language' when he some way. That is, the lack of resolution becomes states that, "In America cinema is true because it is obtrusive and the audience becomes aware of how the whole of space, the whole way of life that are the narrative obstinately resists completion along the cinematic. The break between the two, the usual lines of mainstream cinema. abstraction which we deplore, does not exist: life is cinema" (Baudrillard 1988: 101). 13 There are distinct parallels between this perspective, attained through critical cinema, and Sources cited Nietzsche's perspective regarding 'truth' and 'facts' that constitute subjectivity. Nietzsche maintains that language is an abyss of possibility in which there are Baudrillard, 1. 1988. America. (C. no definite, eternally-stable "facts". Instead, he Turner, Trans.). New York: Verso. asserts that truth "is a mobile army of metaphors, metonymies, anthropomorphisms: in short a sum of Buckland, W. 1998. Film Studies. human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transposed, adorned, and London: Hodder & Stoughton. after long usage seem to a nation fixed, canonical, and binding; truths are illusions of which one has Denzin, N.K. 1995. The Cinematic forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which Society - The Voyeur's Gaze. London: have become worn out and have lost their sensual Sage Publications. power; coins which have lost their pictures and now are no longer of account as coins but merely as metal" (Megill 1985 :51). Eisenstein, S. 1969. Film Form. (1. Leda, Trans.). London: Dennis Dobson 14 For example, Marion's ordeal at Little John's Ltd. occurs at night while Tyrone is seen working at the prison during the day. Heidegger, M. 1953. Being and Time. 15 This is accentuated by the light and haziness of (1. Stambaugh, Trans.). New York: State the earlier scene in 'SUMMER', which contrasts University of New York Press. with the weighty shadows, clarity and deep purple and blue hues that characterize scenes involving Marion during 'WINTER'. Jacobs, L. 1939. The Rise of the American Film - A Critical History. 16 According to Lacan, this occurs somewhere New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co. between the ages of six and eighteen months. Lee, 1.S. 1990. Jacques Lacan. 17 Ambiguity exists here because Sara's addiction to television also separates her from Harry. Similarly, Amherst: The University of Marion's narcissism separates her as much from Massachusetts Press. Harry as his infatuation with the integrity of the image separates him from her.

72 Digitised by the University of Pretoria, Library Services Leyda, J. 1960. KINO - A History of the Russian and Soviet Film. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.

Lyotard, J.F. 1988. Heidegger and "the Jews". (A. Michel. Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Megill, A. 1985. Prophets of Extremity - Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Nietzsche, F. 2000. The Birth of Tragedy. (D. Smith, Trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pudovkin, V.I. 1929. Film Technique (I. Montagu, Trans.). London: George Newnes Ltd.

Sarup, M. 1988. An Introductory Guide to Post-structuralism and Postmodernism. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Simmons, S. 2000. Treasures from American Film Archives - 50 preserved films. San Francisco: WaterMark Press.

Storey, 1. 1998. An Introduction to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Athens: University of Georgia Press.

Internet Resources

Http://aronofsky .tripod.comlinterview 16.html Http://aronofsky.tripod.comlinterview17.html Http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/majakovs.htm Http://www.nyfavideo.comlcontentlcat GRIFFITH.htm Http://www.wikipedia.org/wikilMarxist_film _theory

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