Spoiler Alert: better to sell drugs than take drugs. But sell them quickly.
THE BOOK-Written by Hubert Selby, Jr., released 1978
THE MOVIE-Directed by Darren Aronofsky, written by Aronofsky & Selby, Jr., released 2000
THE STORY-A tragedy in four parts. Mother, son, lover, best friend. Dream-chasers. Drug-takers. Only the dead are beyond temptation, baby.
MIND THE GAP-Heroin, pills, Haman's pockets...timeless stimulants prone to misuse. Sara Goldfarb and her son Harry are addicts. So are his friends Marion Silver and Tyrone C. Love. They drug and dream and strive and fail. Degradation, incarceration, amputation, neural annihilation, the gang's all here. Harry, Marion and Tyrone I don't feel too bad for. They're young, dumb and full of comeback. Sara, though....she's an aging widow willing to demean herself for Channel Zero heroics. She'd hate my pity, and yet it's all I can offer.
"Drugs are bad" is one message. "Dreams are bad" is another. The foulest deceit perpetrated by man unto man is the belief that financial wealth is synonymous with happiness.
The least rewatchable good movie ever? So bleak, it's just one hit away.
Hubert Selby's "as it comes, so it goes" writing style ain't for everybody. (Most bodies, honestly.) Skinless expression, thoughts and actions barely distinguishable, lumps of language ideal for unraveling coarse threads and fashioning a sneaky snare. I love the guy, but then again I love eating mayonnaise straight from the jar.
The pinnacle for every major actor in the credits. Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans, never better. Julia Roberts beat out Ellen Burstyn for the Oscar? Complete shit out a bull's ass. Sara Goldfarb is fictional, and indelible. Erin Brockovich is real, and who cares.
BETTER IN YOUR HEAD-For his second film, Darren Aronofsky chose to adapt a near-impenetrable novel. With a rookie's lack of restraint, he extracted the essence of Selby's work--miserable, yet musical--and produced a frantic squirmfest that solidified his reputation as a brash, brainy filmmaker. But is it better than the book?
Yes, she said. Eventually, haltingly. Both the editing and the soundtrack have aged beautifully. But those are advantages every movie has by virtue of being a movie. Like Selby, Aronofsky recognized the heart-crushing banality of self-destruction. His visual distillation of Requiem For A Dream is so good, I'm angry at myself for watching.
No comments:
Post a Comment