Love, Drugs
and Money : Tools to Exist
“Requiem For a Dream” – Darren Aronofsky
“Requiem For a Dream” – Darren Aronofsky
In this film, we discover that main characters search to exist and succeed to exist thanks to love, drugs on money.
Why LOVE ?
For Marianne, to being in a relationship with Harry
give her the feeling to exist. She exists because she is essential for Harry,
she cares for him. It gives an importance to her existence. For Harry and
Marianne, their existence begin when they make sense and give a goal to their
existence. When they find a goal to their life, they have the feeling to exist
and they want to achieve something like the Marianne’s shop. They don’t want to
waste this feeling of being important for someone, this feeling of existing for someone
else. Compliments which Harry makes to Marianne are “real” for Marianne because
Harry is a person who exist for her, who has an importance in her life. If an
anonymous makes compliments to Marianne, it’s will be something unreal and
devoid of meaning because this anonymous don’t exist in Marianne’s mind.Added to that, thanks to this relationship, Harry becomes aware that he exist. He is not just an illusion or an anonymous in the world, he’s real for Marianne, he has an identity and a personality which are recognized. Harry exists because of someone attaches special importance to his life. Things or persons exist because we considered them as real thing or real people.
Harry: “With you I could really become someone good”. When Harry becomes aware that he exists, he becomes active in his life and he has projects for the future.
Why DRUGS ?
Drugs are a substitute of reality, drugs give them
dreams, they live in a parallel life.
When they haven’t the feeling to exist, drugs can help them to imagine life they have dreamed about. To instance, Harry imagines that he is at the seaside with Marianne. In this dream he has the feeling to exist like in his real life when he is with Marianne. This conscious of existing is a fail, it’s just an unreal image. During an instant, Harry wants to feel important and wants to exist for someone. In a way, we exist just because people thinks about us or because we possess concrete things. A person who hasn’t family, friend and doesn’t possess anything doesn’t exist because nobody know his existence. Dreams and drugs can create a parallel life in which we exist for someone.
When they haven’t the feeling to exist, drugs can help them to imagine life they have dreamed about. To instance, Harry imagines that he is at the seaside with Marianne. In this dream he has the feeling to exist like in his real life when he is with Marianne. This conscious of existing is a fail, it’s just an unreal image. During an instant, Harry wants to feel important and wants to exist for someone. In a way, we exist just because people thinks about us or because we possess concrete things. A person who hasn’t family, friend and doesn’t possess anything doesn’t exist because nobody know his existence. Dreams and drugs can create a parallel life in which we exist for someone.
Why MONEY ?
When Harry awares his existence, he needs money to achieve
his project, or to buy their shop with Marianne to show the world that they
exist. That's why when he sees all these wads of cash he as the feeling to exist
and the feeling that he can makes something of his life. Without this money,
Harry can’t have concrete projects so his existence is empty. Also, without
this money Harry lives in a survival dynamic, as when he sells her mother’s TV
at the beginning. However, with these wads of cash he can enjoy life and do
what he wants of his existence. He can live for real and not survive.
The fall
Nevertheless, their existence becomes as a drug for
them. Harry is prepared to do anything to find love and wealth, and so to find
the way to exist and the way to be important.
When the two lovers argue and were breaking, their existences became meaningless.
After losing everything, Marianne is like hung up on her existence. To find wealth she is ready to do anything like prostituting herself. She makes sacrifices in order to find this feeling of existing. Thanks to her prostituting’s money she will buy drugs, with drugs she will make dreams, and in these dreams she will have the feeling of existing.
When the two lovers argue and were breaking, their existences became meaningless.
After losing everything, Marianne is like hung up on her existence. To find wealth she is ready to do anything like prostituting herself. She makes sacrifices in order to find this feeling of existing. Thanks to her prostituting’s money she will buy drugs, with drugs she will make dreams, and in these dreams she will have the feeling of existing.
Hello Sylvain,
ReplyDeleteI would like to suggest another analysis of the use of drugs. Don't you think that drugs are for the characters, on the contrary, a way to forget their existence. It is a way to escape reality, to escape their meaningless lives. I am under the impression that it is rahter a way to escape Despair.
As for your final question, I think that for Kierkegaard dreaming too much is a way of being in Despair (because you are only spirit and no more body, so the self is not complete...). But in my opinion, dreams, expectations, hopes give indeed a meaning to our existence. The only thing is to realize them, or at least try, because living in a fantasy is not existing. I am not sure to be clear. I don't think that living in another reality, a dreamt reality, is facing existence. Existence is concrete. Your dreams can help you to exist, because they are your goals, but you don't exist in your dreams.