Warmth is desirable for all of our characters - Ellen Burstyn wants to dye her hair red, Marlon Wayans' memories of his mother exist in a warmly hued picture frame, Jared Leto keeps fantasizing Jennifer Connelly in a red dress. Broadly speaking, Aronofsky and Libatique establish a 'warm colors are safe, cool colors are unsafe' palette, which we see happen both on a macro level tracked to the three-act-three-seasons-summer-fall-winter structure of the screenplay (summer scenes are generally warm, winter scenes are generally cold) and on micro levels within many frames and sequences. Let's start with its photography! From the jump, color temperature clues us into the psychological journeys these characters will take, where they feel safest versus most threatened, and what happens when these worlds collide. As such, Requiem for a Dream functions as a perfect piece of filmmaking for aspiring filmmakers themselves, a large-text instruction manual of how to use the language of cinema most effectively. It all tells the story it needs to tell for each script choice, each character beat, each moment with pitch-perfect accuracy - and all in a noticeable, performative, borderline grandstanding way. Every facet of Aronofsky's work, from his photography choices (courtesy of DP extraordinaire Matthew Libatique) to his post-production decisions (courtesy of editor extraordinaire Jay Rabinowitz), is in lockstep agreement with each other. Pi is a fascinating but messy watch Requiem, conversely, is in complete control.

The film was Aronofsky's follow-up to his low-budget breakthrough Pi, a film that's similarly about obsession leading to madness, and served as a training ground for many of the stylistic flourishes and techniques that found the language of Requiem.

Darren Aronofsky directed and co-wrote Requiem for a Dream, adapted from the Hubert Selby Jr. novel (Selby himself co-wrote the screenplay with Aronofsky).

Requiem for a dream selby