Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1746 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-08-06
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Fantasy mixes with the harsh reality of addiction and the desire for hope in Requiem for a Dream. Beginning at the dawn of a new summer in Coney Island, the film charts the relationship of Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) and her son Harry (Jared Leto)--two characters who are lost with in a world of the self-absorbed desire to feed their addictions at the cost of hope and love. With a sublime score (performed by the Kronos Quartet) accompanying some intense visual imagery, the film sets up an almost fairy-tale wash over the characters' lives, with every hit of their chosen drug turning them into beautiful people surrounded by a haze which enhances all their features. However, unlike films such as Trainspotting which turn the dream into a nightmare then end with a huge dose of hope, Requiem for a Dream forces the viewer through all loss of hope and the descending madness of reality, as winter begins.

Darren Aronofsky's follow-up to the critically acclaimed Pi is a movie which exposes not only the terror caused by addiction of any kind--be it TV or Heroin--but also offers a powerful insight into the destruction caused by the desire to achieve "the American Dream". Based on the novel by Hubert Selby Jr, the film sacrifices dialogue in favour of imagery and movement: the editing and cinematography are reminiscent of MTV, however the movie takes this very aggressive style and moulds it to its own needs, adding a beautifully haunting narrative and powerful performances by its four main characters (Burstyn just missing out on an Oscar for Best female lead to Julia Roberts). Ultimately the viewer is left with a sense of desperation and despair: Requiem for a Dream exposes drugs and addiction in the most powerful and truthful way a film has ever managed, leaving no stone unturned.

On the DVD: This disc is bursting with excellent special features. The anamorphic widescreen picture makes the most of the film's stylish visuals, and the soundtrack offers choice of either Dolby Digital 5.1 or 2.0. As well as offering the obligatory theatrical trailer, scene selection and a fantastic director's commentary, there's also a "making-of" featurette, TV trailers charting the reviews and success of the film, an "Anatomy of a scene", and a wide range of deleted scenes. By far the best feature is Hubert Selby Jr's interview with Ellen Burstyn, which offers the writer a chance to put across not just his opinions on his work but also on life as a whole. All these features are placed within an impressively formatted menu. --Nikki Disney

Special Features
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1 English
Dolby Digital 5.1
English

Synopsis
For his follow-up to his darkly brilliant debut, PI, director Darren Aronofsky chose to adapt a tough and meaty piece of work: Hubert Selby's 1968 novel REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, a dark spiral into the abyss of barren fantasies doomed to extinction. However, in Aronofsky's frenetic, visionary, unique, and disturbing style lies the perfect setting for this story of four people whose intertwined lives are filled with eternally hopeful despair. This is a different sort of horror film. Harry Goldfarb (Jared Leto) and Marion Silver (Jennifer Connelly) are lovers in Brooklyn with dreams of setting up a small business and spending the rest of their lives in love--their version of the American dream. The two are also desperate heroin addicts, a compulsion that darkens their lives and leads Harry to repeatedly pawn his mother's television. His mother, Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn), is addicted to television, which is why she keeps replacing the stolen set. One day she receives a call from her favorite show, the surreal TAPPY TIBBONS SHOW, and learns that she has been selected to appear on an upcoming broadcast. When she can't fit into her best red dress, her doctor prescribes diet pills (uppers), to which she swiftly and painfully becomes addicted. Harry's cohort, an intelligent hustler named Tyrone (Marlon Wayans), completes the foursome. With its unflinching dissection of addiction, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM is a psychologically disturbing, visually captivating depiction of lost hope. The last half hour of the film is among the most harrowing of any film ever made.

Customer Reviews

A complete masterpiece
This is one hell of a bleak film, but as long as you can watch it (some people I know couldn’t sit through it), it is an absolute masterpiece. It’s an adaption of a book by Hubert Selby Jr. about the various addictions of four people (an elderly widow, her son, his girlfriend and his best friend) , be they to drugs, television, or even the hope of a better tomorrow, in Brooklyn, New York. So far, so Trainspotting you might think. However, the two films are actually very different, not least in terms of visual style. In this aspect, Requiem For A Dream is streets ahead of it’s British counterpart. The director Darren Aronofsky, a native of Brooklyn himself, has done a first class job here, using a variety of different techniques, including split screens, time lapse photography and speeded up montages. In the commentary on the DVD, he said he wanted to avoid making an MTV-style film, but that’s what it looks like. This is by no means a criticism, though, the film looks absolutely fantastic, but I see no sense in denying its style.
As well as the superb cinematography, the film also contains some superb performances from its four stars Jared Leto, Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Connolly and Marlon Wayans. Indeed, Burstyn was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar, though she didn’t win. It is also nice to see Leto in a role where he has more to do than look handsome.
This film is not one to watch when you are feeling a bit down, as it is not in the least bit cheery. I promise it will make you feel worse, as it is heartbreakingly sad to see the lives of the protagonists completely unravelling before their eyes, whilst they keep believing things are soon going to get better. Things don’t get better, they reach rock bottom for all of the characters. No redemption, no happy ending, just one of the best films of the last ten years. Absolutely essential.

Birth Of A Nightmare
Director Darren Aronofsky ("PI") has brought together a story of four people full of hope and allows them to slowly disintegrate into helpless shells. The director's trick is that you continue to care about these characters throughout the film - not an easy feat. Leto and Wayans (a nice dramatic turn for the comedian) are best friends caught up in heroin addiction. Connelly is Leto's girlfriend who has her own problem with cocaine. Throw in Leto's Mom, Ellen Burstyn and you have an unlikely collection of likeable people on their way towards self destruction. We already know that all the characters are going to end up in hell or worse, but it's the way that the Director shows the quick and varied descent of each one that makes watching a car wreck seem like kids stuff.

Leto and Wayans end results are just as horrific as Connelly's final wasteland. In fact, in this unedited version, Connelly has some nasty final punishment come her way. Burstyn is the stand out performer here; with speed (diet pills) induced hallucinations and gritty realistic acting. What starts out as a simple wish to fit into her favorite old dress turns into insane sequences of distorted reality and terrifying delusions (imagine a killer refrigerator threatening her - it's so real, it's uncanny).

Aronofsky's techniques are amazing, with fast cut editing and speed filled action sequences that instill the mood of a nightmare sequence. There is simply too much symbolism, imagery and artistic endeavor to list here other than to say the scenes are breathtaking. The dialogue and interaction between characters is genuine and each scene is carefully orchestrated to balance reality from fiction. It's a hell of a story and a nasty ride, but worth every cinematic moment.

There are plenty of extras like Director's commentary (really nice feature), a making of featurette and deleted scenes.

GRIM, INTENSE, RELENTLESS...
This is a wonderful, dark film about drug addiction, as well as the destruction of hope. It is marvelously cast with wonderful performances by Jared Leto, Marlon Wayans, and Jennifer Connelly. It is Ellen Burstyn's bravura performance, however, that blows the viewer away.

Burstyn plays the role of Sara Goldfarb, a lonely, middle aged widow who lives in Brooklyn and has a handsome, though heroin addicted son, Harry, affectingly played by Jared Leto. Harry spends most of his time shooting up and dealing drugs with his buddy, Tyrone, deftly played by Marlon Wayans. Harry has a pretty, well to do girlfriend, Marian, played by Jennifer Connelly, who walks on the wild side with Harry and begins her own downward spiral with drugs.

Sara is in denial about how serious her son's drug habit really is. She is, in fact, the great enabler when it comes to Harry. The concept of tough love never even enters her mind. After all, Harry is all she has. For her, hope springs eternal, when it comes to her beloved Harry.

Sara spends her days glued to her tv set, watching her favorite game show or talking to other lonely, middle aged women who spend their time sitting in front of the multi-unit apartment building in which they all live. Her life is limited and stark, until she one day receives a call inviting her to be a contestant on that game show she watches. It is here that her life begins to unravel, as she goes on a diet in order to fit into her favorite red dress in preparation for her possible television debut. Fueled by diet pills provided by a so called "doctor", she begins to live a life that parallels that of her son.

The director, Darren Aronofsky, inventively shows the viewer the experience of drug addiction in a novel way, through a montage of vivid sensory and imagery bursts that become more frequent and intense, as the drug use in the film becomes more pervasive and relentless. He takes the viewer through the personal downward spiral of each of the four main characters in the movie, as they hurl on a personal collision course fueled by each one's respective drug addiction. It is one of the most frightening and horrifying portrayals of drug addiction ever to grace the screen. Marvelously directed and acted, this is a film to remember. Bravo!