“I have never considered” Requiem for a Dream “as a film on drugs” | EUROtoday

On Apr 9, 2025

Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now.

DArren Aronofsky is on all fronts. A retrospective of the American director occurred in his presence on the Cinémathèque française, in Paris, from April 2 to 9. And probably the most emblematic movie of his profession, Requiem for a Dreamcomes out within the eating room and video this Wednesday in a powerful copy restored in 4K.

Discovered 25 years in the past, this electroshock describing the descent into hell of a handful of souls suffering from their addictions has misplaced none of its radicality. At the time, he had traumatized spectators of the Deauville American Cinema Festival and can little doubt proceed to take action with the brand new era that may uncover him this week. A gathering with the filmmaker on the event of his Parisian keep was important.

Aronofsky is a humorous gus. Coming from impartial cinema, he first identified in 1998 with a primary function movie shot in black and white for less than $ 60,000, π (Pi), which obtained the prize for staging on the Sundance Festival. Then this New York Jewish filmmaker strikes a giant blow with Requiem for a Dream (2000), which establishes its darkish and depressed universe. Cantor of marginalized and broken psychologies, he signed in 2008 the transferring The Wrestler, With Mickey Rourke in fallen wrestling star.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpctg6icop8

And above all Black Swan (2010), a tutu drama through which the sleek Natalie Portman performs a fragile star dancer who holds in a ballet the primary position of the Lac des Cygnes from Tchaikovski. She will win the Oscar for greatest actress for her efficiency. But Darren Aronofsky may even deliver luck to Brendan Fraser, who will win the Oscar for greatest actor for his efficiency in The Whale (2022), the place he embodies a person with morbid weight problems which weighs 272 kg! In brief, within the occasion of a blues, it’s higher to keep away from immersing your self in a movie by the good friend Darren!

We meet him in a Parisian palace within the fifteenth arrondissement. Darren Aronofsky begins our interview mendacity on a sofa with a pink woolen sweater. He screams: “Did my shrink have arrived?” Big burst of laughter. When he was then provided to admit, he provides within the tone of the joke: “My mother has screwed up my life, doctor!” No doubt, we’re coping with a fade – however with, fortuitously, a giant sense of self -mockery …

The level: Under what circumstances have you ever found the author Hubert Selby Jr, the creator of Back to Brooklyn (1978), the e-book that impressed Requiem for a Dream ? This former drug addict has typically induced the scandal …

Darren Aronofsky: I found his first novel, Last exit to Brooklyn (1964), younger pupil, on the Harvard library. It was a shock. His studying traumatized me. The e-book has additionally earned Selby a trial for obscenity. I met Hubert a bit later, once I left for Los Angeles to review cinema on the American Film Institute. Besides, I made there a brief movie taken from one in all his information, Fortune Cookie (1991).

Then we determined to co -entry the cinematic adaptation of Back to Brooklyn. His novel was over 300 pages. My script, solely 90 or 100 pages. So we’ve got eradicated many passages from the e-book. I grew up very near Coney Island, I spent a big a part of my childhood there. Selby’s e-book occurred within the Bronx. Suddenly, I requested him if I used to be doable that I relocate the motion of the movie to Brighton Beach and Coney Island. And that did not trouble him in any respect. He did not care.

How did you select Ellen Burstyn, who does a masterful efficiency within the movie and who has misplaced twenty kilos for her position?

To be sincere, I had proposed the position of Sara to many actresses earlier than her, however I had lots of hassle discovering an actress who agrees to play in my movie. Many actresses, whose identify I’ll have, refused the proposal. It was a really tough position. And he scared the actresses. I had recognized Ellen Burstyn’s work for a very long time. I observed it particularly in The exorcist (1973) by William Friedkin, the place she performed the mom of Ress (Linda Blair), the lady possessed by the satan.

Before beginning the pictures of Requiem…I additionally keep in mind having gone to see a room in Connecticut, Long Day’s Journey Into Night. It was a really lengthy theatrical efficiency that lasted 4 or 5 hours. And Ellen was distinctive in it! She performed a morphinomaniac there. She had already carried out lots of analysis on medication to interpret this junkie. When she learn the state of affairs of Requiem…, She stated: “It is the most depressing script that I have ever read. But, as she had loved my first feature film, π (pi)she agreed to shoot in my second film. And she did well: she was appointed to the Oscar for the best actress for this role in 2001.

Jared Leto, who had lost 12 kg for the film, told the magazine First In April 2001: “This film is a trip to hell. It was the worst experience of my life. I hope I will never have to start again. »»

Jared has a fascinating look. He made me feel so much behind the camera. I never got tired of filming it. As for Jennifer Connelly, her career was a bit in the hollow of the wave. But I will never forget his hearing for the film. She allocated us all. Filming a close -up of Jennifer’s face is fantastic. She has large magnificent green eyes.

You try to repel the cinematographic language as far as possible in Requiem for a Dream. Especially thanks to the assembly. How did you try to translate visually and make the spectator feel the effects of drugs on the screen?

I love expressionism and I looked for a new way of telling a story and creating emotion. It was a really interesting bet. I wanted to surprise the public with a work that is not realistic. The montage of the film is made up of 2,358 plans, while the average for an American film is generally between 600 and 700.

The end of projection of “Requiem for a Dream” at the Cannes Film Festival was crazy. And above all very moving. One of the most incredible moments of my life.

Before you start in Requiem for a Dreamwere you inspired by other films that treated drugs in the cinema?

I never considered Requiem… Like a film on drugs. We see dope, of course, but it is rather a drama on addiction in all its forms, a broader reflection on dependence. For example, there are alternative drugs in the film, such as drugs or television. Each of my characters is addicted to different substances. I do not see my protagonists like lost or losersbut like human beings. There is a lot of love between them. They have lots of dreams and hopes. But their dreams saw the nightmare. They drugs because they are ready to do anything to flee reality. They need to fill the void of their existence.

What about your influences, then?

In the cinema, I saw Sky liquid (1982) of the Russian filmmaker Slava Tsukerman [« liquid sky » est l’appellation de l’héroïne dans certains milieux, NDLR] Or Trainspotting (1996) by Danny Boyle. They were transgressive works and we loved it at the time. But I do not know to what extent they influenced us. There was also this German film which caused scandal, Me, Christiane F., 13 years old, drug addict, prostitute … (1981), who had marked me. Moreover, its director, Uli Edel, later turned an adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr to the cinema: Last exit to Brooklyn (1989). A very, very good film with an exceptional Jason Jason Leigh.

Requiem for a Dream is divided into seasons. We see summer, fall and winter, but not spring. For what ?

Because spring symbolizes the Renaissance. And there is no rebirth for my characters. They all die in winter.

You remember the very first projection of Requiem for a Dreampresented out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2000?

It was the world’s world preview in a full-to-crack room. An extraordinary experience. At the start, he had to be screened at a midnight session, but we were two hours late, which means that the feature film ended around 3:30 a.m. The public was completely distraught once the lights have been turned on. No one left the room. People were paralyzed in their seats, the haggard gaze. It was crazy. And above all very moving. One of the most incredible moments of my life.

Tell us about your next thriller, Caught Stealing (Taken in the act of flight offense), which is released on August 27. What attracted you to this project?

It’s really different from everything I have done so far. Given the very dark era that we are currently going through, I felt that it was important today to make an entertaining film. So I shot a very fun police comedy, a robbery film whose action took place in the late 1990s in New York. We follow a former baseball player who became a bartender (Austin Butler) who finds himself trained in spite of himself in the big banditry. This is the first part of a trilogy. We also find in the casting Zoë Kravitz, Liev Schreiber, Vincent d’Onofrio, Griffin Dunne and the rappers Action Bronson and Bad Bunny. I took great pleasure in turning it and I can’t wait for the whole world to discover it.

Requiem for a Dream – Director’s Cut by Darren Aronofsky (1 h 41). Distribution acacias. Released April 9.

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

Retrospective Darren Aronofsky (in his presence) on the Cinémathèque française from April 2 to 9.

Requiem for a Dream Collector version. € 49.99 Digipack restricted to 2,000 copies with a 4K extremely HD disc from the movie (Dolby Vision and HDR 10) and a Blu-ray. Included: an unique upkeep e-book with 88 -page Darren Aronofsky. Released April 9.

https://www.lepoint.fr/pop-culture/darren-aronofsky-je-n-ai-jamais-considere-requiem-for-a-dream-comme-un-film-sur-la-drogue-08-04-2025-2586869_2920.php