Requiem for a Dream (2000) ft. Heather Stewart

Guest:

• Heather Stewart

  • The Revisionist Almanac's Senior European Correspondent

  • @heatherjstewart on IG, X, Letterboxd

  • Previously on Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

Cast:

• Darren Aronofsky, Writer/Director

• Hubert Selby, Jr, Writer

• Matthew Libatique, Cinematographer

• Clint Mansell, Music

• Jay Rabinowitz, Editing

• Ellen Burstyn as Sara Goldfarb

• Jared Leto as Harry Goldfarb

• Jennifer Connelly as Marion Silver

• Marlon Wayans as Tyrone C. Love

• Christopher McDonald as Tappy Tibbons

• Mark Margolis as Mr. Rabinowitz

Background:

• Requiem for a Dream was released on October 6, 2000 after first debuting at the Cannes Film Festival that year.

• On a reported budget of $4.5 million, the film would gross nearly $7.4 million finishing #157 at the worldwide box office that year.

• Critics were mostly positive if not a little squeamish toward the film, but Ellen Burstyn was nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars the following year.

• In a 2016 international critics' poll conducted by the BBC, Requiem for a Dream was tied with Toni Erdmann (2016) and Carlos (2010) at 100th place in a list of the 100 greatest motion pictures since 2000.

• The film was listed as the 29th best-edited film of all time in a 2012 survey by members of the Motion Picture Editors Guild.

• In 2025, it was one of the films voted for the "Readers' Choice" edition of The New York Times' list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century," finishing at number 116.

• Requiem for a Dream currently holds an 80% among critics on RT, a 71 score on Metacritic, and a 4.1/5 on Letterboxd.

Plot Summary: In Requiem for a Dream, four residents of Coney Island chase transformative dreams at any cost. Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn), a lonely widow, becomes obsessed with appearing on her favorite TV game show and resorts to prescription diet pills. Her son Harry (Jared Leto), his girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly), and best friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) envision striking it rich as drug dealers, fueling their ambitions with heroin and amphetamines. As each character’s dependency deepens, their utopian visions shatter, plunging them into a harrowing spiral of addiction and despair.

Did You Know:

• During Ellen Burstyn's impassioned monologue about how it feels to be old, cinematographer Matthew Libatique accidentally let the camera drift off-target. When director Darren Aronofsky called "cut" and confronted him about it, he realized the reason Libatique had let the camera drift was because he had been crying during the take and fogged up the camera's eyepiece. This was the take used in the final print.

• Darren Aronofsky shot the film like a hip-hop montage (a sequence of extremely short shots) to get the sense of overwhelming addiction and loss of control. An average 100-minute film contains 600 to 700 cuts; this one contains over 2,000.

• Director Darren Aronofsky asked Jared Leto and Marlon Wayans to avoid sex and sugar for a period of 30 days in order to better understand an overwhelming craving.

• Director Darren Aronofsky described this film as exploring different types of addiction: "The Harry-Tyrone-Marion story is a very traditional heroin story. But putting it side by side with the Sara story, we suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, what is a drug?' The idea that the same inner monologue goes through a person's head when they're trying to quit drugs and cigarettes, as when they're trying to not eat food so they can lose twenty pounds, was really fascinating to me."

• In addition to having a camera mounted to her for certain sequences, Ellen Burstyn spent four hours every morning being fitted with prosthetics, wearing four different necks (both fat and emaciated), two different fat suits (a 40-pound and 20-pound suit), and nine different wigs.

• Jared Leto lost 25 lbs and befriended real heroin addicts from Brooklyn to prepare for his role.

Best Performance: Ellen Burstyn (Sara)/Jay Rabinowitz (editor)

Best Secondary Performance: Ellen Burstyn (Sara)/Jennifer Connelly (Marion)

Most Charismatic Award: Jennifer Connelly (Marion)/Jay Rabinowitz (editor)

Best Scene:

• Hawking the TV

• Dieting

• Tyrone and his Girlfriend

• Harry Comes Over

• Attack of the Fridge

• At the TV Station

• Crashing Out

Favorite Scene: Harry Comes Over/Dieting/Crashing Out

Most Indelible Moment: Crashing Out

In Memorium:

• Ace Frehley, 74, American musician (lead guitarist for KISS)

• Ed Williams, 98, American actor and comedian (Police Squad!, The Naked Gun, Father of the Bride (91))

• Yolanda E. Lawrence, 56, American television writer (Empire, Riverdale, Bel-Air, The Good Wife)

• Samantha Eggar, 86, British actress (Return from the Ashes, The Molly Maguires, Doctor Doolittle; Oscar-nominated for Best Actress for The Collector (1965))

Best Lines/Funniest Lines:

Sara Goldfarb: I'm somebody now, Harry. Everybody likes me. Soon, millions of people will see me and they'll all like me. I'll tell them about you, and your father, how good he was to us. Remember? It's a reason to get up in the morning. It's a reason to lose weight, to fit in the red dress. It's a reason to smile. It makes tomorrow all right. What have I got Harry, hm? Why should I even make the bed, or wash the dishes? I do them, but why should I? I'm alone. Your father's gone, you're gone. I got no one to care for. What have I got, Harry? I'm lonely. I'm old.

Harry Goldfarb: You got friends, Ma.

Sara Goldfarb: Ah, it's not the same. They don't need me. I like the way I feel. I like thinking about the red dress and the television and you and your father. Now when I get the sun, I smile.

Marion: Getting the money's not the problem, Harry.

Harry Goldfarb: Then what's the problem?

Marion: I don't know what I'm going to have to do to get it.

Big Tim: I know it's pretty, baby, but I didn't take it out for air.

Sara Goldfarb: In the end it's all nice.

Sara Goldfarb: [examining her newly dyed hair] If this is a red, I wanna know, what's orange?

Mr. Rabinowitz: Such a son. Your mother needs you like a moose needs a hat rack.

Harry Goldfarb: Somebody like you can really make things all right for me.

Sara Goldfarb: I'm Sara Goldfarb, not Albert Einstein.

Marion: I love you, Harry. You make me feel like a person. Like I'm me... and I'm beautiful.

Harry Goldfarb: You are beautiful. You're the most beautiful girl in the world. You are my dream.

Sara Goldfarb: How come you know more about medicine than a doctor?

Harry Goldfarb: Believe me, Ma: I know.

Sara Goldfarb: [about her pills] Purple in the morning, blue in the afternoon, orange in the evening. [to refrigerator] There's my three meals, Mr. Smartypants.

Marion: Anybody wanna waste some time?

The Stanley Rubric:

Legacy: 5.5

Impact/Significance: 3.67

Novelty: 8

Classic-ness: 8.67

Rewatchability: 2.67

Audience Score: 9.1 (89% Google, 93% RT)

Total: 37.61

Remaining Questions:

• Do any of these people recover?

• What kind of game show is like a self-help seminar?

• Was Marion clean at the beginning of the film?