How is « Requiem for a dream » an existentialist movie?

Requiem for a dream is a movie directed by Darren Aronofsky in 2000, adapted from the same name novel from H. Shelby. It’s a story about addiction: Harry, his girlfriend Marion and best friend Tyron are drug addicts who want to build a business and his mother, Sara is addicted to television and becomes obsessed with the idea of fitting into a dress to star into her favourite TV show. They all fall into a spiral of dependence and end up in a horrific situation.

We can ask ourselves why this movie is linked to the existentialist philosophy.

Firstly, the director has been interested in existentialism since he read the novel of Camus “The fall” exploring the story of a successful man falling into disgrace. Those are themes revisited in our movie.

THE MOVIE UNFOLDING FROM AN EXISTENTIALIST PERSPECTIVE

At the beginning of the movie, we can see the characters are leading a kind of absurd existence (like Meursault in “The stranger” from Camus). Sara Goldfarb is wasting her days in front of the television. Her only outings are to buy back the television her son sells so that he can have money to get his drugs. Harry, Marion and Tyron, are always on drugs, they have no life project or ambition of any kind, they’re just rolling with the flow. Their actions bear no sense and are repetitive.

Then, during the whole movie, we’re observing the worsening of their addiction and the determination to achieve a goal. For Sara Goldfarb, it consists in starring in her favourite show and it extends to fitting into her red dress she wore as a young woman. As for Harry, he’s pursuing happiness and he wants to have enough money to buy a store for Marion planning to be a stylist which leads them to start an heroine business. At first, everything goes the way they’ve planned it, Sara’s failing in her attempt to reduce her alimentation and starts a new revolutionary regime composed of pills intended to replace meals. It works and she’s losing weight really quickly. The business of Harry is really successful; he’s crazy in love with his girlfriend. They are all truly happy. Their goals are in the way to be accomplished.

But then the addiction is revealed by an outside element. Sara starts to go completely crazy. She’s dependent on her pills and has health issues because she’s no longer eating and providing her body with the necessary energy to survive. It is particularly shown in the movie in a scene where she looks insane: she thinks she’s being attacked by her fridge. This feeling of insanity and no control over your own life is accentuated by the disturbing music and the light show.  Thanks to the regular supply of funds, Harry and his friends have started to use more and more drugs, those being more way harder (mainly heroine). They’re losing themselves in their addiction. But they start to have business troubles and cannot provide heroine anymore, they are desperate and in withdrawal. The attempt to negociate with a guy exchanging drugs against sexual relations and Harry and Tyron leave for Florida. Sara’s addiction is revealed when she’s interned in an asylum and the teens’ one when Harry and Tyron fall under police arrest for drug traffic and consumption. 

At the end, this intervention of an outside actor has led to an action against addiction or criminality and their mental state and real despair is recognized. Sara Goldfarb ends up in an electroconvulsive therapy. This scene is very disturbing mainly because of the stabbing music following her convulsions. We find Harry in the hospital with his arm amputated because of the too many heroine injections. Tyron is in prison under imposed labour and Marion is reduced to prostitution to get her dose.

The end can be seen two ways, first as a triumph of death and nothingness. The deny of the value of their own existence led them to taking inconsiderate risks and fall into an unending life of despair where they have no more control on their own existence. On the other side, we could imagine this near-death experience made the characters realize how valuable their existence is but it is really unlikely.

KIERKEGAARD’S ANALYSIS APPLIED TO THE MOVIE

Before directing the movie, D. Aronofsky really reflected on the notion of abyss and it led him to work on dependence starting from the idea everyone’s addicted to something. Following Kierkegaard, the addiction would be a way to excuse yourself from recognizing your own freedom; you’re anguished because you’re afraid of the responsibilities coming with such an impressive freedom. That’s how, with his characters, he interrogates the concept of responsibility, are they really free? Are they self-alienating their innate freedom? If you can say “it’s not my fault, it’s the drugs”, you feel less despaired in front of the immensity of your freedom.

Indeed, they are looking for freedom and release in outside elements instead of looking for it inside themselves. As Kierkegaard said, “Subjectivity is truth”, you’re the only one able to evaluate your existence, and no one can do it in your stead. They don’t see the value of their existence. Moreover, they have no aim in life (no true one at least), they are imprisoned in their addiction!

We can conclude Requiem for a dream, though I didn’t find it obvious in the first place (I even wondered why we had to study it even if it’s my favourite movie) is really existentialist in Kierkegaard’s perspective as it interrogates notion of existence, absurdity and despair!