Requiem for a Dream (Director's Cut) | 
 enlarge | Actors: Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Connelly, Keith David, Louise Lasser, Christopher Mcdonald
Studio: Artisan
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy Used: $6.85
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Rating:  914 reviews
Sales Rank: 2657
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd-video, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: Unrated
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 102
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: D11815D
UPC: 012236118152
EAN: 0012236118152
ASIN: B00005Q4CS
Theatrical Release Date: October 27, 2000
Release Date: August 14, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
Employing shock techniques and sound design in a relentless sensory assault, Requiem for a Dream is about nothing less than the systematic destruction of hope. Based on the novel by Hubert Selby Jr., and adapted by Selby and director Darren Aronofsky, this is undoubtedly one of the most effective films ever made about the experience of drug addiction (both euphoric and nightmarish), and few would deny that Aronofsky, in following his breakthrough film Pi, has pushed the medium to a disturbing extreme, thrusting conventional narrative into a panic zone of traumatized psyches and bodies pushed to the furthest boundaries of chemical tolerance. It's too easy to call this a cautionary tale; it's a guided tour through hell, with Aronofsky as our bold and ruthless host. The film focuses on a quartet of doomed souls, but it's Ellen Burstyn--in a raw and bravely triumphant performance--who most desperately embodies the downward spiral of drug abuse. As lonely widow Sara Goldfarb, she invests all of her dreams in an absurd self-help TV game show, jolting her bloodstream with diet pills and coffee while her son Harry (Jared Leto) shoots heroin with his best friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) and slumming girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly). They're careening toward madness at varying speeds, and Aronofsky tracks this gloomy process by endlessly repeating the imagery of their deadly routines. Tormented by her dietary regime, Sara even imagines a carnivorous refrigerator in one of the film's most memorable scenes. And yet... does any of this have a point? Is Aronofsky telling us anything that any sane person doesn't already know? Requiem for a Dream is a noteworthy film, but watching it twice would qualify as masochistic behavior. --Jeff Shannon
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| Customer Reviews: Read 909 more reviews...
 Forced "Drama" for Adolescent Minds July 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If I could give this coprolite of a film zero stars I would. This is the worst movie I have ever seen and ever hope to see. The fact that it could be rated so highly, here and on IMDB, indicates the abysmal emotional immaturity of film fans.
1. No likable characters - which isn't to say the characters just sit there, no. They scream off the screen with absolute annoyance. I hated the characters 15 minutes into the film and wondered how they could possible be turned into something worth watching. They weren't. Androgynous boy-man has the voice of a whining buzz saw cutting through a series of jagged metal chalk boards. Jennifer Connelly manages to disguise her attractiveness under a layer of creepout that was hard, physically hard, to keep eyeballs focused on. And the Wayans brother is just annoying token-black-man, thrown in to give the Semitic/Anglo couple some "street cred".
Okay, not all characters in a movie need to be appealing. But the kicker is, when you get to the end of the movie and you realize you are supposed to feel sorry for them...somehow. Despite the fact that they never displayed an ounce of decency or humanity. It's beyond comprehension how I could feel anything other than disgust for them all.
So maybe the mother character is sposta appeal? As she descends into a diet pill frenzy that borders on the comic, and increasingly chews the scenery like a dog with an old bone, you can only hope the movie will end soon so you can begin the process of extracting her visage from your catalog of humanoid faces.
2. Displays all the writing and plotting skills of a privileged, protected college student trying to imagine what life on the edge is like. It's truly laughable. Truly cliched and trite and laughable. Token-black ends up arrested by token-Southern-law-officer and sentenced to forced labor. Semitic junky loses his arm - oh yes, in the South doctors will call the police before treating a case of gangrene - we're just that inhuman. Creepy chick starts having sex for money and drugs, but we're sposta feel sorry for her cuz she doesn't enjoy it. Mother goes into an irrecoverable spastic state from diet pills (DIET PILLS!) and has her brain fried with electroshock. Yeah...that's a believable scenario. Zathura is more believable. Childish junk, this "plot".
3. Purposeless student film devices. The quick cutting, the meaningless split screens, the accelerated/decelerated time, the steady cams strapped to bodies - it all screams, "I am so creative, world look at my genius and despair." What's really lovable is the little montage that accompanies every heroin kick - gee, that never gets old.
4. Stereotypes - the lovable black heroin dealer, the horrible black sex fiend, the n-word using Southern law officers, the doting Jewish mother and her troop of aimless Jewish mother friends, the creepy bald successful guy. Every character in this movie is a hack job pulled from the yellowed pages of some pulp novel found on a bus stop rack.
5. Laughable drug use - For junkies, these people have awfully fussy biological clocks. They can go without for any length of time it takes to flesh out some worthless scene. But then suddenly, they're willing to become sex slaves for a slight taste. Whatever gets the director to the emotional non-moment he thinks will grab the ghoulies of pretentious film critics. And then the mother on diet pills? And she's so stupid she doesn't realize that taking several at a time is inadvisable?
6. Ridiculous plot devices - did I cover the hysterical creepy mental hospital where they go straight to the brain frying levels of ECT? Why didn't the director just do the lobotomy routine from Cuckoo's Nest? The drug shortage with a special Xmas delivery that means nobody in NYC can get heroin...yes, that's believable. The man who can't take care of an infection on his arm until...it needs antibiotics? No, that might be believable. No, it must be cut off. Ridiculous! And the Wayans character...he's operating with the Jewish guy, but he's also in the black mob and they are independent and have money but then don't and...was anybody allowed to review this? Did nobody giving this drut 5 stars think this was a problem? The mother with her TV addiction, who just happens to watch the same show ad nauseum? Believable? Or just meant to inflict despair? I claim the latter.
Dear dawg, I could go on and on about how insanely bad this movie is, and how I hope the director gets put on the next one-way rocket trip to the Andromeda Galaxy...but what's really disturbing is the number of people who could swallow this razor blade and call it candy.
 After the visceral impact fades, there's little to sustain the film... July 25, 2008
This film reminds me of Gaspar Noe's Irreversible, in that it's initially an assault on the senses, and you feel as if you've seen great filmmaking because of it. When I revisisted Irreversible recently, I found out I'd been had. Noe's film is just an assault on the senses with nothing in its core. Aronofsky's film, while nowhere as overly graphic, sadistic or disgusting as Irreversible, has this same quality.
As many have said here, the main message here is a very simplistic one, DRUGS ARE BAD. It's almost on the level of an after school special, and that's a shame, as Aronofsky has a very good visual and editing style, but after nearly 2 hours of it, it's overkill. I felt totally numbed after seeing this film. I sat in my car afterwards, and I couldn't move. But aside from the pure visceral experience of the film (which feels like a drug, the drugs the movie is telling us not to use), there isn't much left there. There's some depth in Ellen Burstyn's character (she gives a great performance), but I believe that has to do with the fact this is based on Hubert Selby Jr.'s book. If there is any humanism in this film, it's derived from the novel, not Aronofsky, who is like a kid with his new toy. The characters of Leto and Connelly are especially bad, especially Connelly. She is supposed to be a junkie, but she looks way too beautiful to be one. Overall, the film is worth watching at least once, but it's essentially a visceral assault on your senses and little else.
A funny sidenote...Before this film screened (I saw it in a theater), the theater was playing The Wallflowers's album Breach, which is one of my favorite albums of theirs. After I recovered from this assault, I kept thinking about how wonderful and tuneful those songs were, and I pretty much forgot about Aronofsky's film (until I wrote this review). I bought Breach, and it's one of my favorite albums. Thanks, Darren...
Prententious Crappola (of rocknrola)!!!! June 25, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Spun (Unrated Version)This is what happens when people who have never gotten hiiiiiigh in their life try to make a movie about gettin high. Get "Spun", instead....pretty much on the money. Or, maybe even:Blow (Infinifilm Edition)"Blow" which, at least, had the immortal line: "I once did 10 grams in 10 minutes....what can I say? I guess I have a high tolerance." Skip this second-rate bit o' fluff and read:PILATE: A Brutal Bible Taleinstead. Ever seen a vampire stoned? Ever seen the Christ smoke trees?
 painful, candid and essential May 31, 2008
14 out of 20 found this review helpful
Requiem For A Dream is one of the best films I have ever seen. Brilliantly co-written and directed by Darren Aronofsky, Requiem For A Dream does in fact attack you with a dramatic and remarkably candid portrayal of what a "drug" can mean to someone--and what that "drug" can do to someone. For Aronofsky, that drug could be watching television, taking diet pills or street drugs. This film is sure to have a deep emotional impact on you; and as a former social worker I could empathize with the struggles that the three or four main characters live through as they watch the destruction of their dreams because they used drugs to achieve their dreams.
When the action begins, we meet Sara Goldfarb, a lonely old widow in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn whose only pleasure seems to be watching a somewhat silly self-help show on television. Her son, Harry, is constantly hocking her television set for money--only what Sara doesn't know is that Harry uses the money to buy heroin for himself and cocaine for his girlfriend Marion. Harry is also friends with a drug dealer named Tyrone; and they scheme to buy and resell drugs on the street for fat profits. Unfortunately, just as others have noted, Harry and Tyrone often turn out to be their own best customers.
Sara herself is on a mission. One day she gets a phone call stating that she has already won a spot on the self-help talk show-and when Sara can't fit into her prized red dress, a problem ensues. At first, Sara tried to diet; but this goes nowhere fast. A friend tells Sara about a doctor who is rather liberal with his prescription pad; and this doctor soon has Sara hooked on diet pills that eventually have her jumping around like TWO Mexican jumping beans.
In order to make the tragedy of it all even more human and painful for some of us to watch, we see Sara, Harry, Marion and Tyrone all deteriorating as a result of their respective drug habits. It's not a pretty picture; but it's brilliantly acted and portrayed by the filmmakers.
Of course, the plot can still go anywhere. What does eventually happen to Sara, Harry, Marion and Tyrone? Will any of them be able to kick their drug habits--and what becomes of any of them if they can't kick their habits? The last twenty minutes of the film give us a skillful expose of their new lives.
The DVD has extras: there is a director's commentary with the "making of" featurette; and there are deleted scenes. The "anatomy of a scene" extra is also very well done.
Overall, Requiem For A Dream is probably one of the very best films I have ever seen. It gives us an often painfully candid look at what drugs can do to people and how people must struggle to beat their addictions. I highly recommend this for anyone wishing to study this matter. Unfortunately, the film is so frank that some sensitive people will be uncomfortable; but I believe that they had to make the message strong because that is the only way to truly deal with the issues involved.
amazing,shocking,crazy,powerfull movie May 30, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
I've heard about this movie for quite a few years and never decided to watch it until now becuase i heard so much hype about it, all i knew was it was about "drug abuse". Well the movie is about 4 people, everything seems fine at the beginning and the movie is slow to start but a half hour later it starts to pick up pace, thier drug use turns into drug abuse and obsession, thier dreams take a turn for the worse when it gets out of control and the movie gets darker and darker as it progresses.
the movie is filmed very well as the director does an amazing job, the performences are amazing especially from Ellen Burstyn which i rememeber from the exorcist and i havent watched much of jennifer Connelly's work apart from dark water which was an ok horror film but here she is also great. when the whole movie ended i was left out of breath and in shock!, the ending was pretty messed up and sad but i wasnt that depressed from watching it but i guess everyone's different, if your squeamish i suggest watching it with someone else because it definatly deserves at least one viewing and it is definatly one of those movies you will never forget. put the dvd in and get ready for a shocking/breathtaking ride.
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