Film Analysis

Based upon our discussion above, we have chosen requiem of a dream as the film of our analysis. This film was based on a novel by Hubert Selby Jr., this story emphasizes on four individuals caught up by their addictions. Harry and his friend Tyrone are drug addicts living in a small island called Coney Island in an attempt to realize their dreams. Harry’s girlfriend Marion is another addict trying very hard to keep her distance from her wealthy father. With the money that Harry and Tyrone have gained over the summer, they plan to invest in their own habits. Meanwhile, Harry’s mother Sara, is convinced that she stands an opportunity to appear on her favourite show. Sara even visits a doctor who gives her a prescription for amphetamines in order for her to lose enough weight to fit into her favourite red dress. However, Sara has a habit of her own with the drug which is spiraling out of control. It is then portrays their downward spirals from hopes of dreams come true into a helpless state of moral and deterioration of health.

The sequence of shots during the drug taking process symbolizes the primary function of the montage which is to represent the passage of time. In this case, explaining how fast the process is but with severe consequences. The editing pace for the montages during the drug-taking process with fast cuts from the beginning of opening the bag of the heroin until the injection and pupil dilation is one of the example for it as it indicate how fast the drug-taking process and drug addiction can be.

It is also to show the trippy feeling of addiction as the director attempts to draw audience into the montage of drug-taking process in order to allow them to experience it themselves using close-ups of all the footages as well as sound effects. Audiences are fascinated by the fast cuts of the montages and thus they will expect more to come as how addiction works in reality because it will drive people to want more.

Same goes for the scenes where Sara Goldfarb tried to lose weight by taking diet pills instead of following the conventional methods of dieting. The director used different approach of montages to show the contrast of time passage when Sara tried to lose weight with the conventional and drug-taking method. The pace of montages is fast when Sara was taking the diet pills as they show how fast diet can become when Sara applied a different approach rather than following the conventional methods. On the contrary, the montage where Sara was waiting for the time to past before she took any diet pills was slow because it imply her anxiousness for the next meal as she was hardly satisfied from her previous meal where the portion was way less than her usual diet without taking the pills.

Other than that, it serves as a transition to different scenes and sometimes it also works as bridge between the same scenes to show the contrasts of the drug effect, especially before and after the characters took the drugs. For instance, the scene where Harry left his mother’s house, there is a moment he felt sad and miserable worrying about his mother’s intake of the amphetamines. As an escape from his misery, he took a dose of heroin in the taxi itself to feel better.

The moment when Sara was about to take her pill according to the routine, she somehow cannot feel the desired effects of the pills towards her body as she was unknowingly being immune to the effects of it, making her take more to feel the same way. As she was about to take the pill, she stopped wondering whether or not should she go beyond the prescribed dosage and finally she took two different pills at the same time hoping to revamp the desired ecstasy. Immediately she had hallucinations of her showing up on her favorite TV show and the refrigerator came to life.

The split screen when Harry and Marion while cuddling on the bed symbolized so near yet so far and there is an invisible wall between them and they couldn’t be together as if they came from different world. This could be one of the many consequences of taking drugs the director trying to show, an indication of them splitting up in the end.

The revolving shot of the sex scene of Tyrone and the shot when Marion and Harry were lying down on a bed, symbolizes the primitive desire of sexual needs and satisfactions as if a love of a mom to her kid. The sound effect of kids playing when Tyrone having sex shows that satisfactions from sex gives a sense of security . When the camera slowly tracks out and the spinning bed emphasizes how great the sex and the drug is. The Floating shot and feelings bring the audience to experience what are they going through.

Last but not least, a mixture of parallel editing and slow montages were used to describe the current predicaments of all four characters as things started fall apart during the middle end of the film. It is similar to the midpoint of the three act structure where characters were going through lowest point of as everything they do at that particular time. For example, Harry was forced to ask Marion to sleep with her psychiatrist, Arnold while Marion had no choice but to comply with his request in order to get money to buy drugs. In the mean time, Tyrone was alone sitting by his bed in naked while looking at his mother’s photo because he felt helpless and miserable as he could not find any drug supplier. As for Sara, her state of mind was fragmenting as she was wearing her favourite red dress while putting on make-up carelessly and danced around in her room. All these shots were to put together to form a sequence of shots with music to give a very depressing and regretful feelings of the characters and the situations.

The montages of the last scene shows cuts from all four character going through a series of grief, the director uses a fusion of soviet montage and parallel editing in emphasizing the consequences they are going through because of their addiction towards drugs, as the cuts becoming rapid, it adds more suffering to the characters. Audience’s fascinations towards fast cuts are now substituted with a series of painful experience which immediately change their impressions toward drugs.

After analyzing Soviet Montage and its characteristics, processes and influences, we could say that the film Requiem For A Dream is a good portrayal of Soviet Montage. Though, the portrayal of it differs from original purpose of Soviet Montage, the essence of it is beautifully applied by the director to engage audience’s emotions to the sequence of shots in order to conclude to the next scene.