008 Requiem for a Dream Part 1

This episode is part one of our discussion of Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream starring Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, and Jennifer Connelly.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:14

Don't call it a podcast. This is broader than pods. We're rapping about God in the movies. We love talking about the odd meaning of some things. The filing cast is funly in between your ears.

unknown 0:37

Filing stories movies.

SPEAKER_06 0:42

Welcome to Filing, where we love to think and rap about our love of cinema. I'm Sean Patrick, and I'll be joined by Brandon Mitchell. We are ideophiles, story files, and cinophiles. Our aim is to share those loves and understand their value and importance in our lives with each other and everyone who listens. Our discussion might be a broad and detailed spoiler, so if you haven't seen this episode's movie, stop listening to us right now. Go watch it, and then return to filing to hear our thoughts and feelings. This episode's movie is very stylized. The movie uses motifs throughout. A motif is a recurring element, pattern, or idea in a work or art that helps develop the work's central theme. As a result, we say the word motif a total of 30 times in this episode. So if you make this episode a themed reaction game, every time we say the word motif, do three alternating jump lunges as fast as you dare. This is the seventh episode of the After the Life inspiration series, which is a collection of movie reviews intended to inspire the production of an original movie titled The After the Life. The After the Life is currently being produced and will screen at an event called The Fest 2026 on July 18th. Go to thefest2026.com for details about the event.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

Filing stories, movies, sounds.

SPEAKER_06 2:03

This episode is part one of our discussion about the movie Requiem for a Dream. A Requiem is defined as a religious mass for lying to rest the souls of the dead. A Requiem is a type of funeral. Funerals usually take place in a church. Requiem for a dream took place in a movie theater. In both places, people gather in mass and focus attention and worship on the words and vision of a specific type of philosopher. The philosopher of the church is the priest. The philosopher of the movie theater is the writer and the filmmaker. Hubert Selby Jr. published the scripture, or rather the novel Requiem for a Dream in 1978 and adapted it into a screenplay with Darren Aronofsky, the filmmaker, during the late 1990s. Selby and Aronofsky developed characters with distinct life ambitions and also with destructive addictions. Their addictions seem to kill their dreams, but they remain alive. While traditional Requiems lay the souls of the dead to rest, this Requiem lays down each character on a bed or sofa at the end of the movie. Each of these characters is a vessel of the soul or mind, each mind a container for their dreams. It's difficult to think that as long as one remains alive and conscious, that one's dreams can be dead. Putting aside the brain dead, even if a dream cannot practically be achieved, one can still dream it or imagine it. This is especially true of characters in a movie that exists in a form that represents the possible. The lead character, Sarah Goldfarb, lies on a hospital bed at the end of the movie, presumably hearing the voices of her favorite television show. It is the same show that she dreams of joining and being a part of. The show inspired her to lose weight, which brought her to a doctor. The doctor prescribed her amphetamines. Sarah developed an addiction to the amphetamines and gradually lost her connection to reality. But it would appear her dream of being on the show remained alive. That dream did not die. That dream was not laid to rest. As she lies in that bed, we presumably see her dreaming of being on that show and with her son Harry. We see her hugging Harry. Sarah's dreams persist. One might argue that a dream is not worth dreaming if one is incapable of achieving it. Whether or not that is true does not alter the fact that one can still dream or imagine an infinite array of possibilities. One might argue imagination is a prerequisite of achievement. The power to imagine persists until the death of the mind. The theme of Requiem for a dream is the cause and effect of addiction and obsession by and on the purpose one chooses. The plot theme or central conflict is the seductive power of addiction and obsession versus the long-range goals of disintegrating families and friends, longing for a vanished past and dreaming of a better future. The value of the theme is a warning, similar to what one might see on a medicine bottle or a pack of cigarettes. Like funerals, warnings are for the living. We can compulsively fixate on dead loved ones, on children grown and gone, on who we were and what we no longer have. Furthermore, these addictions and obsessions can feed and strengthen other addictions and obsessions. It is important to heed these warnings, because the potency and accessibility of new and more powerful drugs, as well as the pace and development of higher and higher resolution mass media technologies injecting dizzying carousels of short-form electromagnetic radiation into the pleasure centers of our minds, is only increasing. One might also lose one's mind, fall into darkness, and be forced to rest in order to reckon with a loss of something deeply important and gone forever for the rest of one's life. So beware. Stay focused on your life and on your purpose. Make that choice.

SPEAKER_05 6:56

Yup, yuff, yuff, yuff, yuff, yuff, yuff, yuff, yuff, yuff, yup. Don't don't call it a podcast. This is broader than pods. We're rapping about God stuff. In the movies we lore talking about the or meaning of cinema theme. The folly cast is finally in between.

SPEAKER_06 7:15

Oh, Brandon. Welcome. Yeah, let's do this for Christ's sakes. How you feeling? I'm feeling pretty good. Do you have the juice? I'm getting the juice. Getting the juice? Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

I'm not quite a winner yet, but hopefully by the end of this, we'll have a winner.

SPEAKER_06 7:42

Hopefully. I'm not sure we will. But let's find out.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Yeah. The only way to do this episode right is to totally crumble by the end.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 7:56

Disintegrate into the fetal position. Right. Yeah, it may come to that. So before we embark upon a scene-by-scene examination, I'd love to get your initial thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

There is something easy about it. Um because plot-wise, it's really simple. And I mean it does a really good job of I think putting us as the viewer like inside the experience. And that's way more important than any sort of plot because the the plot is just the characters on a descent uh as they get succumbed by their addictions. And that's actually something that there's a lot of movies that kind of do the same thing. Um my big first thing that I noticed starting to watch it this time, because I've seen this movie many, many times. However, I think the final winter section is so memorable. It's it's kind of a whole sequence that just sears into your brain. Um, I think I've seen that section so many times because I've watched this movie a lot of times where I've caught it midway through the movie and just kind of get sucked in and go along for the ride. Um it's it really is a ride, you know, it starts with roller coasters and then like amusement park rides, and the movie kind of is constructed like one of those. It's just a fast, you know, like a roller coaster. Most of the time spent dealing with a roller coaster is waiting in line and building up anticipation, and then the adrenaline rush of it is 90 seconds, and it has but it has up and downs, you know, going up that first hill, it's still a waiting period and all that stuff, and I think this movie's kind of constructed like a roller coaster ride. Um, but I was really surprised by the fact that the movie starts and there there is, you know, really basic character development to get to know these characters, but the whole trajectory of this movie is off and running right uh you know out of the gate. You you get used to a, you know, a drug descent type movie where you learn about the characters and get to know them or maybe even like them before they, you know, start doing the drug use and getting addicted and all that stuff. And this movie, I was surprised that they're already on that journey when we jump in. You know, except for Sarah Goldfarb, Ellen Bernstein's character. She's the she's I th I don't know what you think, but she's kind of the central character. I mean Harry 2, but she's the one that doesn't start off being an addict, like a drug addict. She's potentially a TV addict and a you know, eating bad food addict, but she's the one that isn't already on like a drug journey. So she's the one we really get to see start to finish on that on that journey. So I was just surprised that the uh, you know, con Jennifer Connolly, Marlon Wayans, and uh Jared Leto are all doing hard drugs from the get-go. So that's my initial thoughts. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 12:22

Yeah, I would agree with you that there is a design, very distinct design of this movie that one could liken to a roller coaster. I also think there's a rhythm to the movie that one could liken to a drum and bass song that ebbs and flows with energy. There's scenes in this movie that slow the pace of the movie down, and then it gradually ratchets the energy and the editing and the sound design and the and the soundtrack multiple times throughout the movie. It's pretty dizzying at times, and at the same time very stimulating and very easy to watch.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Yeah, it's crazy, it's his second movie. Yeah. You know. Um I think I think Pi, I haven't seen that in a long time, but I feel like it has a similar type energy to it. But I'd have to check that out again. I definitely I definitely picked up on a lot of other director influences, which I don't think I think this movie when I was younger and started watching it, it was so it seemed so original at the time, and I was so kind of blown away by it when I first saw it. Um but now, you know, I just there's I just see so many other director stuff. I've I've been this week started checking out that five or six part Scorsese documentary on Apple. And you know, Scors Scorsese movies have uh camera moves and editing and music that is all here in like used here, but in Scorsese movies, they're tent they tend to be longer, but they do have that buildup in a lot of the you know, like Goodfellows and stuff like that, where it brings you into the world a little bit more where it's even though it's a you know tough world or something like that, there's something about Scorsese that he gets you to almost like everybody and then at some point it goes off the rails and it has these moments of being really uncomfortable. Uh for an example, there's a hundred of them in in Scorsese movies, but it's like um in Good Fellows When Spider with uh your boy, I forget that guy's name. Um, but there it's like Joe Pesci Pesci is like messing with this kid spider and starts shooting at the floor, kind of joking around, like dance, and actually shoots him in the foot. There's scenes like that where it's funny, it's funny, and then it turns really awkward, and you and that's where you get clued in if you weren't already, that these people that are being portrayed are kind of all bad guys. He he he gets you to feel comfortable with these guys, and then he'll do that scene. This movie seems like those hard, awkward, awkward scenes the whole time. And um, yeah, and then I just you know the movie starts with immediate split screen, which I forgot about too, and that's kind of like a De Palma staple. I just saw like all kinds of different other filmmakers. I think the the other one that popped out to me was uh like this movie kind of feels like the one hour, there's like a hour chunk or something in Magnolia that has a pace like this movie. And it with a musical score that just keeps it chugging along and and it's just this complete like perfectly constructed momentum that's going through it. And I think this movie has that same feel to it.

SPEAKER_06 16:57

Okay to your other point regarding the central character of Requiem for a Dream, I do agree with you that Sarah Goldfarb is the lead character for sure. I think she deals with the most and she's the first person we see, and I think the last person we see in the movie.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Yeah, yeah. I mean both of them technically because Harry comes out in the uh dream sequence tappy show, and they're both together in the final show.

SPEAKER_06 17:41

But I think the last shot is on her face as before it fades out, I think.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

It's it's actually I was gonna bring this up to ask you about because the the last shot, it's on her. Um, she's you know, all dressed up in the TV style with makeup on and the big red hair and the red dress and all that stuff. Harry comes out, and then it's a behind-the-back shot of the two of them kind of embracing, staring out at the audience, and there's lights that make a giant X across the two of them. That's the final shot.

SPEAKER_06 18:23

Got it. So it it opens on the television program and it closes on the television program.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Right.

SPEAKER_06 18:31

Okay. Yeah, because when the movie starts, you don't know where you are. You're right, you're watching a television program, possibly in a television studio, and it's later revealed that Harry, Sarah's son, is stealing her television because suddenly the program flickers off, and there's a close-up on an electrical plug that gets pulled from the socket, and then it cuts to Sarah Goldfarb walking really fast away from her son into a closet, and her son basically yelling at her for treating him poorly because she's so upset. This opening scene's really interesting because you see multiple sides of the son, Harry, because at first he's very aggressive and angry at his mom, and then he softens and then he gets really angry again and leaves. And we also get insight into Sarah, because when Harry leaves, she starts talking to herself.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:55

And she's telling herself, this isn't happening, and if it should be happening, it will be all right. So don't worry, Seymour. It'll all work out. You'll see already. In the end, it's all nice. And then there is a really aggressive screen wipe that is called a smash cut because it smashes the screen from the top to the bottom. So it wipes from the top to the bottom.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:27

Basically smashing the image. And it says Requiem for a Dream. And there's an interesting sound effect too when that smash cut comes in to introduce the title of the movie. Do you remember what that sound effect is?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Um, I don't know. I think it sounds like a, you know, like a giant door slamming shut or something like that.

SPEAKER_06 20:52

Yeah, it sounds like a to me, it sounds like a jail cell door. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It definitely sounds metallic and heavy.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of crazy um aggressive sound effects in this movie, even in the opening uh juice by Tappy TV show. Yeah, the way that's all sound mixed and everything, it's pretty scary. Like, even though the show is supposed to be, you know, all these people super pumped about kind of whatever that is, like don't even totally know what the show is, you know. But um everybody's pumped to be there. But the way the text flies in when it says, like, we got a winner, and and of course that actor is so good at just Like making you feel uneasy, even though he's this hero to all these people. Like he has a moment when he's like, We have a winner or something, and he looks right at the camera for a second, and it just it seems like he knows something secret. And I don't know. There was like that opening TV show to me sets the tone and makes it immediately feel scary. And then you're yeah, you're in that scene, and it's really weird because that is one of the least scenes that I remember from all the times that I watched it. And that's another example of I forgot it started there. Like, because I I remember initially being like, I like Harry and I like um Marion and all those guys for a while. And that scene starts, and you're like, Oh, this is a terrible situation that they go through, and you're just starting there. It's like it's crazy.

SPEAKER_06 23:07

Yeah, that television program is discombobulating, it's it's obscure, you're right. We have no idea what it's about. It seems to be about juice and about improving your life. And I I don't know if we ever get the name of the program. There isn't a title that spins to the front of the screen, and it says Tappy Tibbins Month of Fury, and the word fury is the largest word in the title, and it's filled with a fire motion graphic.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

I know, I'm telling you, like all these details just make it immediately scary and in juxtaposition with how happy everybody is on the show. It's and the word tappy is like happy, you know, it's like a really weird blend of all that stuff and just puts you in this real uneasy mood right off the bat. And then that that smash cut thing, to me, it just it it reminds me of a guillotine coming down and like it seems really violent, you know.

SPEAKER_06 24:18

Yes, yeah, it definitely feels aggressive and just like the TV show. And the TV show is like it's being introduced or intracut rather with titles, credits, opening credits for the actual movie. And so you're kind of watching all these bizarre title sequences for this television program hitting you in the face aggressively with opening credits, and it's it's a bizarre mixture, and um, there's this one point where uh they flash a phone number on the screen in the television program. It says 1-900-976 juice, and above that, in finer, finer print, it's like it says, join us in creating excitement. And I'm like, what is this about? And Tappy is like pointing at the camera at this point, and he's going, like, juice by you, juice by you. And then he introduced some woman named Mary, and then the crowd starts chanting in unison, juice by Mary, juice by Mary. And you're like, what is happening? It's so confusing, and then it goes right into that opening scene of Sari, Sarah and Harry uh fighting. He's stealing her TV set, and then the smash cut occurs, and Harry or cuts to like a medium close-up of uh Marlon Wayne's character Tyrone in the hallway, and then the titles begin as Tyrone and Harry are pushing this TV that's on this table with wheels through the streets of Brooklyn, Bright Brighton Beach and uh and other areas. They actually push it right past an abandoned roller coaster. And they eventually get to this pawn shop, but before that, the title sequence ends with another smash cut with that jail cell door with a white title that says summer. And then they're right at this pawn shop run by this guy named Mr. Rabinowitz, who tells it's got one of my favorite lines in the whole movie when he tells Harry, your mother needs you like a moose needs a hat rack. I thought about that a lot. I was like, there's multiple reasons why a moose doesn't need a hat rack. You know, it's got a hat rack on its head, but you know, so it could hang multiple hats on its head, but it also can't wear an actual hat because its horns that look like a hat rack are on its head. So at least in the traditional sense, it can't wear a hat. So I thought that was really funny. And um, and then it and then it goes into the first, I think the first, unless you want to count the title sequence as a montage, but it goes into the first quick cut montage, which is a motif. And this is where the one can get really distracted because there are so many motifs throughout this movie. And in the shooting script of the movie, this montage I believe is called a hip-hop montage. That's what they that's what they called it. And it's a pattern of four or five shots that last less than a second each, with a very precise and particular sound design for each shot. And this quick montage repeats multiple times throughout the movie, and it usually is representing the consumption of some sort of addictive thing. Whether it's drugs or coffee or television or whatever, and it repeats over and over and over throughout the movie. But this is the first time we see it. And then I mean we could talk about those cuts in and of themselves, but I didn't really focus on them at all because I really, as I said earlier, wanted to focus on the plot of the movie and wanted to see if I could instill the discipline to not get sucked into the style, which is very easy, which I ended up getting sucked into from time to time. Because I it's such a strong and powerful component of the movie, it's difficult to not talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:53

So if you ever want to talk about it, feel free to bring it up. But I'm gonna try to avoid it, other than say, here's that motif, here's another motif. You brought up the split screen, that's another motif that repeats throughout the movie multiple times. And there's there's others as well, like a fade to white, a very slow fade to white. Yeah, that's another, that's another motif. Um, but I digress. Yeah. So so the motif this first motif represents Tyrone and Harry injecting a heroin. And then it cuts to a scene in Tyrone's apartment. Harry is DJing and Tyrone's dancing, and then Harry pauses the song, and Tyrone pauses his dancing, and then he drops some sort of additional sound effect on top of the song, and Tyrone and Harry start cracking up and they just fall down.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 31:01

So and then it cuts to them at the food stand. Harry and Tyrone uh discuss purchasing heroin to sell it and make money, and then Harry fantasizes about stealing the gun of a police officer that sits down next to him, and they begin playing monkey in the middle with the gun and the cop. And then he snaps out of it. And that might be it. That's another recurring element in the movie is daydreaming. And then it goes, and then we cut to the pawn shop where Sarah Goldfarb is retrieving her TV from Mr. Rabinowitz, and there's a really interesting detail in the movie in this scene. I don't know if you saw this, but it opens on a close-up of a notepad that is specifically titled Sarah Goldfarb TV, and Mr. Rabinowitz opens it up, and it has a list of what appears to be transactions only with Sarah purchasing her TV back from Mr. Rabinowitz. And I didn't, I don't think I ever saw that detail before, but upon my review, I noticed it. And that's a recurring thing for me in this movie is missing details because of the pace of the movie, but also the fast-paced editing of the movie. And so right after that movie, there's another montage. And I want to talk about these montages real quick. Typically, montages are much longer shots drawn out over several seconds that cross-dissolve into other scenes more slowly. This is like a three to five second montage of all these quick shots, and I think it's pretty remarkable. And it does the same thing that a montage does, it accelerates time. But I don't know of any other movie that accelerates time this quickly in a montage. Like three to five second montages are kind of a new thing with this movie, as far as I know. Are you aware of any other movie that edits montages faster than this movie?

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Are you talking specifically about those like drug sequences with the eyeballs dilating and stuff like that? Yeah. Um, yeah, off the top of my head, I I I know there's I know there's gotta be others. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any examples, but and you know, I don't I don't know if used the same way. I don't know. I'd have to think about that. Um, I think at the time, I don't I don't know if I've saw anything like that before. There's definitely like there's one thing that's it's not I don't know, I don't think it's a montage, but just cutting style. I'm thinking of uh in the movie Four Rooms. I know there's some cutting like at the end of the Tarantino section where you're holding out, waiting for this lighter trick and waiting to see if dude's gonna get his finger chopped off. And then when the lighter misfires, there's cutting to just like super quick close-ups of finger getting chopped off, swiping money, things like that, you know. And it's shot similarly, where it's these lockdown shots of a specific thing, like money on a table from overhead getting swiped up and stuff like that. But I don't know, that's just the thing that popped into my head of seeing like that really fast cutting of really specific things one to another to just get from we're here, now we're moving out the door, you know. But yeah, it's cool, man. I um I wanna like if it's cool, I I just kind of wanted to we we rolled through a bunch of stuff real quick, but I just wanted to draw attention to in the opening credits. I don't know if it happens during the credits during the Juice by Tappy thing, but once Requiem for a Dream comes up, those credits when the words come up, they're kind of like a really clean crystal white, and then they decay, you know. So each Requiem for Dreams up there, it's all white, clean text, and then it just decays into dark blackness, and then everybody's name is the same, which says Jared Leto and everything. So I thought that that was cool. I love every shot in the them walking through Brooklyn during the title sequence, yeah. Every one of those shots is amazing.

SPEAKER_06 36:41

Magic hour shots, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

I mean, it's all this kind of not technically beautiful areas, but the shots are pretty beautiful.

SPEAKER_06 36:53

I would agree with you.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 36:56

So after Sarah Goldfarb picks up her television set from Mr. Rabinowitz at the pawn shop, we cut to a montage of Sarah turning on her TV with a remote control in a similar style to Harry and Tyrone preparing and injecting heroin. And then we're in Sarah's living room. And speaking of injection, as we move through these scenes, feel free to inject your thoughts andor feelings about anything.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 37:27

Just jump right in. And so Sarah turns on the TV, Tappy Timmins is on, asking viewers to join him in excellence with a screen title that says 30 Days to Revolutionize Your Life. Then Sarah opens a box of chocolates and savors them while closing her eyes. Might be the only reference in the movie to sugar, other than one other dream sequence that we'll talk about in a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:02

Which I love. And then we cut to a high angle shot that introduces Jennifer Connolly's character, Marion. She's looking up and Harry approaches her from behind, gives her a hug and a kiss.

unknown 38:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:24

Do you have any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Yeah, it's it's the first image of really bright color. You know, and it's uh, and I think that's very purposeful. There's really bright green grass behind her, and then when she looks up, it's this cool image of these buildings with this really bright blue sky up there. And I think that is the really the one way of easing some sort of tension and getting you to feel comfortable with these characters is adding that color in it, that the rest of the movie for the most part, there's a couple other spots with similar coloring, but most of the movie is like kind of ugly greens and browns and you know, dark blues, but dark, dark, grimy looking stuff. And this is the cleanest, most colorful shot, pretty much in the movie.

SPEAKER_06 39:32

Yeah, I would agree with you. And this is the beginning of a broader sequence. And after this shot, we find ourselves moving quickly through different areas. Uh, first Harry and Marion are sinking into a building by calling the front desk and mumbling like an old man to get buzzed in. You know, so they're being kind of young and mischievous, and then it cuts to them in an elevator, and they're in the elevator uh playing thumb wars. And then it cuts to the top floor of a building, and they walk to this emergency door, and Harry rewires the emergency door so that he can open it and so they can go to the roof. And then it cuts to Sarah's apartment, and this is the scene where Sarah gets the phone call from Lyle Russell offering her a chance to get on television. And Lyle is saying, I'm calling you to tell you you've already won. And so that's a very quick scene that introduces Sarah's dream of being on television. And at this point, Sarah is in her apartment and she's looking at a picture of a younger and slimmer version of herself. And in that picture is her son Harry at his high school graduation, and her dead husband Seymour is in it. And she tries to try on this old red dress that she was wearing in that photograph. And um, I just want to note I think this scene is pretty important for the plot um and for the deeper meaning of the movie, uh, because the scene reveals Sarah's dream to be slim slimmer and to be on TV, to talk about her son Harry and husband Seymour, um, which he talks about more in detail later. Um the dream is Sarah Goldfarb's entire purpose in this movie. Um and this particular scene demonstrates that. So pretty important scene uh in the movie.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Yeah, I the um the photograph is awesome because it it does a lot of work to the movie too, because uh she is super happy in it wearing the the dress, and it's like clearly a moment in her life that she remembers really fondly. However, Seymour in the picture is not he he doesn't look happy at all, neither does Harry, and Harry is standing there holding his arm, you know, so it's like a little bit of for foreshadowing because he's holding his arm like right in his elbow area where he would inject heroin, exactly. So it's it's it just I mean, it's shown for maybe a second or two, but it's so perfect because it goes into the nature of memory and remembering these moments of your life, and it's it's just so funny how you look at the other characters in that picture, and it does not appear to be a moment that either one of those two guys would look back at as fondly at all, right? But to her, it's kind of like her best memory. And maybe it's just because she has that picture, she thinks about it, her son graduated, that gives her a good feeling, and she just likes the way that she looks in it, you know. But uh yeah, it does there is a double, double. Dream in there of looking, feeling younger, looking pretty, and you know, being at a time where her son kind of had the world open to him. And obviously, I mean, she's still she's always she's a mom, so she's always gonna believe her son is the best. However, she's obviously been going through these motions of him stealing her TV all the time to get drug money. Yeah, you know. So it's she's really, and that's where the delusion gets built because she's been dealing with that for who knows how long, but she's still like, he's my one and only Harry, like I'm I'm just always gonna be there for him, or you know, and uh there may be a chance I could get back to feeling young again and and being attractive or whatever.

SPEAKER_06 45:04

Your point about her suffering from delusion is really important, and it's not crystal clear, but it's there. And it's there in the opening scene when she's talking to herself, talking to her dead husband, telling him in the end it's all gonna be nice, and it occurs again in this scene when she looks at the photograph, she's so focused on her own happiness that it kind of detaches her a little bit from reality, particularly the happiness of the people she claims to love more than anyone. And so I didn't think about this before, but a certain degree of self-absorption that she's experiencing that may be occurring because she's so alone and alienated that she only is able to focus on herself. So when she looks at a photograph of a time when she looks more attractive, younger, happier, thinner, she that's all she sees. She doesn't see the misery in her husband or her son.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

Right.

SPEAKER_06 46:29

Ellen Bernstein is amazing in this movie.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 46:32

Um, I was completely floored by her performance. I don't know if she was nominated for this.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

She was, yeah, she was. She's good. Yeah. Didn't I didn't win? I don't remember who won, but she was recognized and as she should have been.

SPEAKER_06 46:48

Yeah. So after this scene that is the initial illustration of Sarah Goldfarb's dream and purpose in the movie, we cut to the top of the building that Harry and Marion snuck into. And they're throwing paper airplanes off the roof and talking about her parents. Uh the conversation begins as a voiceover, and it's revealed that her parents have money and still take care of her and pay for her therapy, and that she designs clothes, and that she loves being with Harry, and she's reluctant to open a store because she says to Harry, I want a lifetime to hang with you. I think this scene is pretty remarkable because it's a very short scene and we learn a lot, and the dialogue is extremely efficient. There's so much information we learn about Marion, and it's mostly in voiceover. I thought that was I thought that was remarkable how much information was communicated in such a short amount of time. Which is the nature of this movie. It's it's a very dense movie. You were saying.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

Yeah, they do such a good job at exactly that. Like just it's almost subliminal some of the ways that they get you to think about stuff. Um, when they're making the paper airplanes, just there's words on the newspapers that are like remember, and uh I I swear I wrote these words down, but I don't know. Maybe I just went back and kept watching that sequence and forgot to write all the words down. But it's like it's cool to go back and look at that scene where they're making the paper airplanes because there's just words hitting in there that hidden in there that it's it's like totally subliminal of um words that matter in watching the movie.

SPEAKER_06 49:06

I think you just gave me another reason to watch this movie again.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

Yeah. But I mean it's like again, it's it's a less than five-second scene, but it's a way to sneak just a bunch of words at you. I know remember is in two of them. Okay, and then there's other ones that are more uh like fall or something like that. Like words that you know predict bad things are coming.

SPEAKER_06 49:39

Yeah, that's appropriate, especially the concept remember, considering the movie deals with the seduction of good memories. And how that can be a distraction to your health, physical and mental.

SPEAKER_00 49:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 50:00

Wow, this movie is amazing. I totally missed that. I was so intrigued by the dialogue and how efficient it was. And I was like, wow, you're learning so much about Marion. I feel like I've known her my whole life, and I've only watched a 20-second scene in a movie. So after that scene, we cut back to Sarah's apartment, and Sarah's visiting a friend to tell her that she's going to be on TV. And her friend tells her, or pardon me, tries to help her fit into her red dress. And she t also tells Sarah that she has a great diet book. And then we cut back to the top floor of the building, and that may Marion and Harry are in. Uh, they leave the rooftop, and then Marion gets mischievous. She pulls the emergency door wire to set off the alarm to alert the security, so they have to sneak out past them. And then they're we cut to the elevator and they're making out in the elevator at as it descends the building. This is, I think, an important shot that is a more obscure motif that we see later in the movie. So I just want to put a pin in that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They get to the bottom of the elevator, um, and then we cut back to that grass field shot, that high-angle shot that introduced Marion looking up at the building. And we see Harry and Marion running through that shot through the grass. And I thought that was interesting because it seemed like a subcategory of a motif. It's like a scene motif. It's not something that repeats throughout the whole movie, but it kind of bookends the movie, or pardon me, that that particular scene. And that scene is revealing Marion's dream to be a clothing designer and to be with Harry for a lifetime. And so at this point, we're we've been introduced to multiple dreams in the movie. Um it made me think that maybe the movie should be called Requiem of Dreams, not of a dream, because we get very involved with multiple characters, and it's not specifically focused on one of them, although Sarah Gopharp is certainly the lead.

SPEAKER_00 52:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 52:54

Um, so again, introduced to another dream, another purpose, and then we cut to another motif, and this is the Sarah Mailroom motif, where she opens up her mailbox, the camera is inside the mailbox, looking out. So we get kind of a close-up to medium close-up on Sarah's face looking in the mailbox for mail from the television program, and then closing the mailbox real quick. And that motif also repeats throughout the movie. And then we cut to Sarah in her living room again. She turns on the TV in that quick cut style, and she starts looking at the diet book that her friend gave her, and she's reading recipes and a series of close-ups show black text on a page. Uh, we get very close to words denoting the limitations of the recipe, like no sugar or no dressing. And then we cut to Marion's apartment, and Marion and Harriet are just taking a nap together. Their bodies are all intertwined as they're sleeping on this couch, obviously demonstrating how connected they are and how much in love they are. And we cut back to Sarah's apartment. Her friend is dyeing Sarah's hair red, and then we cut back to Marion's apartment. The scene begins with a close-up on Marion as she says, Anyone want to waste some time? And then it quick cuts to Marion, Harry, and Tyrone popping some pills, and then a bunch of friends come over, they party while a voiceover discusses their plans to sell drugs to make money to improve their lives. Um, and this is the first time they're discussing a quote-unquote shared dream, and then the scene ends with the close-up on Marion again asking, What's the catch? So this is the second time the movie begins and ends a scene with the same shot and with Marion in it. So, like another scene motif or another kind of like book ending of a scene using the same shot. I don't know if they ever explained to Marion what the catch is.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

But they're well, I don't I don't think they're looking at it like that. You know, that's that's more for us watching the movie. Right. I think.

SPEAKER_06 55:40

I agree. So then we're back at Sarah's apartment. Uh Sarah's friend reveals that she accidentally dyed Sarah's hair orange instead of red. And then we cut to Marion's apartment at night, and there's a split screen of Harry and Marion. Um again, another motif that appears in the opening scene when Harry was talking to his mother, Sarah, after she locked herself in the closet. And in this scene, Harry tells Marion she's the most beautiful person she's he's ever seen. Um, she tells him that that's very meaningful coming from him and that she really hears it. He then says a girl like her could really make things all right for him. In that scene, Harry encourages Marion to follow her dream of opening a clothing store and says they could do it together. He says he ran some numbers. And this is cool because he's starting to like fold or continuing to fold his dream together with her. And this is the first scene that slowly fades to white. Yeah. What do you think that means?

SPEAKER_01 57:04

Well, I think I don't know if it I don't know if it follows through on this the whole way through the movie, but definitely a few of the first times that it happens, it definitely seems like it's that's setting up the dream in a way that there's hope. Because as the movie goes along, it becomes more and more hopeless. Um, so I think some of those things when they're talking about, hey, let's let's you know, if we get the right pieces in the right place, we can really do this, you know, and then it's uh fades to a nice hopeful dream.

SPEAKER_06 57:51

Yeah, and it's very different from the black loud smash cut.

SPEAKER_01 57:57

Exactly. Yeah, totally different. Yeah, I would say the complete opposite.

SPEAKER_06 58:08

Yeah. As far as cinematic transitions go, you don't get more opposite.

SPEAKER_01 58:14

Slow fade to white versus a smash cut to black with a hard sound effect. Yeah. Yeah, I wanna uh I mean, I wanna I I like I wanna go through a couple of those scenes. Um I love how they start setting up Sarah reading that self or that weight loss book that I forget exactly what it's called. It's like lose 10 pounds in 10 days or something like that. It's just whatever the book is, it's just huge text. That whatever it says, 10 pounds, 10 days, or something. And then it's just a lot of all she's seeing is you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this. And the the way it's edited and her performance is like you said, it's it's insane how good it is with those type of cuts. A lot of times I see them, and even when they're done pretty well, you know, it's you can tell it's an actor sitting there and they have to do just a long take. Okay, act like you're disappointed, act like you're frustrated, you know, and you can just run through them, and then it's almost like any of these that work will insert them. But these seem so perfect. Like every time it cuts to no sugar and you see her face, it's a different reaction of like that's how specifically no sugar would make her feel, you know, and then no dressing, it's just like, ah, come on, you that too. You know, like every reaction's so different, and it's just a perfect rendition of that, okay, I'm gonna try to, um, today's the day. I'm gonna start improving myself today, and how within one minute of making that decision, you're instantly going, This is gonna be impossible. There's no way I can do this, you know. Even I think maybe we didn't get there yet, but when she's sitting out with her bunch of friends and they're like, How long have you been on that diet? She's like, Since this morning, you know, and it's like, I think that's so true with coming up with these, all right, I'm gonna stop drinking. Today's the day. And then you get that night, you're like, your brain is already telling you, I mean, come on. Like, who are we kidding here? We're not gonna be able to do this, just crack open a beer, you know. It's like it's just so well set up, and it's not even in the drug level yet. It's just trying to do a um a diet. So, um, yeah, and then uh so the one thing I gotta mention here in this sequence that was a huge revelation to me was Sarah's friend neighbor is one of the most classic actresses ever. Oh, yeah. I don't know if you recognized her. Yeah, I did, but she's uh the mom in one of my favorite movies of all time, Frankenhooker. And I like couldn't believe it. I saw her and I was like, who is that lady? And then it hit me. I've seen Franken Hooker like 20 times, and there's I think there's really clear nods to that because in Frankenhooker there's a weight loss element to it, kind of like a really ridiculous weight loss element, and so that's that's a blend to Frankenhooker, and then when she's dying Sarah's hair, even though she's dying it red, the hair dye, the way it looks on her head, straight up purple. And Frankenhooker, purple is a huge color in that movie. So I think Arnoski. Oh, plus it takes place, it's kind of Franken Hooker's a New Jersey, New York combo movie, and this movie is is kind of in that area too.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:47

So are you saying her hair was purple as her friend was dying her hair?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:54

Sarah, the the dye, like the bubbles and stuff like that on Sarah's head were purple. Oh, okay. So I'm I'm saying my theory is Arinoski's a huge Frankenhooker fan and hired the mom from Frankenhooker and then put like a couple little nods in there to be like, I know, you know, people that know are gonna know. Some obscure references for the Frankenhooker pile. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:28

Well, we know you're a Frankenhooker pile, and I'm sure we'll devote an episode or two to that movie one day.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:34

Yep, yep. That might have to be a 10-part series. We'll get to that. That'll be next Halloween.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:47

Two and a half months of Franken Hooker podcasting.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:51

All right. All right, so thanks for letting me take that digression.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:57

Uh, sides are completely allowed here at uh at the filing podcast, but don't call it a podcast. You can call it a cast, but not a podcast. More on that later. All right, so oh, oh, oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:11

If you don't mind, let me the the the split screen. I think you were you were talking about the split screen of the two of them together, right? Harry and Marion. Yeah. I love that split screen. That that's pretty that blows my mind. Just in the the way it one you could do that exact same shot in a one shot because they're literally right next to each other. You know, and that so separating them, one, it's it's simultaneously separating them, but they seem closer, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:04:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:53

But the it's not totally lined up. So it's definitely two different takes, I think. Which to me makes it seem like how uh your experience is not necessarily the same as somebody else's, even if you're like right next to each other. So there's like there's subtle things like he reaches up to her, maybe like running his hand through her hair, and then when he pulls his hand away, on the other shot, it's like still there for an extra couple seconds until it comes away. So it's like it's really, really interesting use of split screen. Like in the beginning, split screen, it's to be able to show all these different sides of this scenario that's happening, you know. And this one it's just showing the the exact same thing, but split screening it.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:56

And wow, you know, that's a very subtle. Identification that you've made where he can be touching her one moment and pulls his hand away, so he's no longer touching her with his hand in one side of the split screen, but in the other side of the split screen, he hasn't moved his hand away, so he's still touching her. So it's kind of remarking on being able to touch her still, even though he's not touching her with his hand.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:35

Right. That's like maybe she still feels it or something like that, even though he's a good one. You know, so it's awesome. It's like a mind-blowing split screen. But it's also like, why would you split it? And it's like there's there's constantly from this point forward going to be a split between them, you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:57

So that's a good point as well. Wow. The more obvious reason to do the split screen is because it makes the interaction more intimate.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:14

Yeah, because you can bring them, you can bring them closer together. Their faces are pretty much inches away from each other. Where if you shot that regularly, that would potentially look weird. Right. You know, but with the split screen, it's like it puts them right on top of each other.

unknown 1:07:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:36

And then the the editing on either side of the split screen with close-ups of their hands and touching each other's bodies.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:48

Right, which none of those are happening in the other shot, you know, so it's it's it's inch, it's just totally everything about it's interesting. Yeah. You know, so that it's like it's almost like memories are happening at the same time. You know, it's it's just awesome. And the other one, the other scene of them lying together is really cool too, because we'll get to that. Okay. I you can bring it up next. It's fine. Well, I mean, you mentioned it already of them lying on the bed and they're embracing each other. Uh yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:22

There's another one as well of them lying with each other. There's a third one later in the movie. I thought you were gonna refer to that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:30

No, no, no. So the one or the first one, you know, they it seems really couch and they're and they're intertwined.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:37

Yeah, it seems really cozy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:40

Um it's interesting that they're not it's not like they just made out or anything like that. I mean, like like had sex or anything like that because they're fully clothed. So it has this other kind of intimacy that's like non-sexual in that scene. It's very home, comfy at home feeling. But this is, I believe that's her apartment. Yeah. And there it's just a cool detail there because it starts and the um I'm I'm pretty sure that's I mean, that's gotta be a set. Uh, I think everything in this movie is probably a set. Um, but that move that apartment, you know, it's mentioned that her parents are well off and they kind of pay for her place. Um however, it's not like that place is amazing. You know, it's not the walls aren't even painted. You know, it's like I think in the bathroom there isn't even drywall up. You know, it's just like plywood walls with the studs still showing, and they just have all their hand soap and all that stuff like just on the exposed studs. So it's like an unfinished apartment. Um, and I think that's a cool detail too, showing kind of who they are. Like, she's their the parents are giving her enough money to survive on, but they probably know she's a lost cause too. And she could have this apartment and be like, Um I gotta put the work in and get walls put up and get insulation and all this stuff. But they have this couch just in the middle of the room, and they still, but I mean, it also has a loveliness to it, to where they can still be comfortable in each other's arms on this couch in the middle of this room of this unfinished apartment.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:01

So and it also it also gives me the impression that it's something that's in process, right? Right very much like they are being so young and figuring out their plans for the future.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:16

Okay. So after that scene, we cut to another motif, quick cut motif montage of Sarah looking into her mailbox, and then it cuts to Sarah in her dining room. She's sitting at her table eating a small meal from her friend's recipe book. And then we cut to Marion's bathroom, and Marion is standing in front of her mirror, bottomless, and she looks dejected. And then we do a quick cut montage motif of Sarah consuming cocaine, and then we fade slowly to white. Then it cuts to Sarah in her living room, turning on the TV in that quick cut style, and then it goes into a split screen, and it's a slow zoom on Sarah on one side of the split looking at her fridge, and on the other side of the split there is a slow zoom on the refrigerator. And then there's this Tappy To Tappy Tobin show display. Tappy's talking about changing his own life by eating no red meat. Then we cut to the exterior of Sarah's building. And the first shot is of the sun in the sky, and the sun is in the center of the frame with a sound effect of an egg frying in a pan. And then Sarah sits with her friends tanning in the sun. She talks to them about her diet. Uh, one of her friends reveals to Sarah that she knows someone who went to a doctor, and the doctor gave her pills that helped her lose a lot of weight. And then the mailman comes by and delivers to Sarah the forms she needs to complete to apply to be a contestant on this TV show that had previously called her. Sarah then gets up, she walks into her building, her friends follow her, and we cut to Sarah in her apartment. She's filling out the TV show forms in the company of her friends who seem just as excited as Sarah as they all spell her name out loud in unison as she writes it on the form. I thought that was really funny. And then we cut to Tyrone's apartment, and Tyrone is with Harry, and he's on the phone confirming that his drug connection is available. Harry gives Tyrone the money to buy the drugs. Tyrone says, Here we go. And then Harry goes, Ty, let's do this right. And then Tyrone's reply I think is really a great subtle bit of writing. Ty says, Yeah, baby, naturally. I think that's real important. Use of words naturally, as if buying and dealing drugs correctly is a natural thing that would just happen. You know, and it kind of demonstrates the mindset of everyone and what they believe is the nature, the deepest nature of their dreams, which is it's just gonna happen. We want it to happen, we think it'll happen, so it'll just happen, and it'll happen naturally. I think that's really important. That comes up again later. We cut to the exterior of Sarah's building, and Sarah and her friends are walking to the mailbox to deliver the mail to the television program, and they all clap in celebration, and then we fade to white slowly again. And then we cut to Tyrone's apartment. It's nighttime. There's this quick cut montage motif. Harry smokes weed and listens to music as he's eagerly waiting for Tyrone to return with the drugs. And then Harry looks out the window and sees the boardwalk. And then we dissolve to outside on the boardwalk. It's daytime. Harry is walking on the boardwalk, and he sees this woman in a red dress at the far end. It turns out to be Marion, who's standing in the red dress, and her back is to him. He is calling out to Marion, but we can't hear him. Uh, we hear ocean waves and music, and that's it. And this is the second time Harry disassociates from reality and goes into a daydream. The first one was him at the food stand with the cop. And Marion turns around and looks at him, and then we hear keys opening a door, and in the daydream, Marion hears it and looks around Harry and behind him as if to look at the door. And then we quick cut to Tyrone's apartment. Tyrone is walking in with the heroine, and Harry's kind of out of it. And Harry eventually gets, you know, focused back on reality. And Tyrone immediately suggests they test the heroine. And Harry tells Tyrone, listen to listen, Ty, this is our chance to make it big. We play it right, and we can get a pound of pure. But if we get wasted, we'll fuck it up. And then Tyrone's like, yeah, I get it. It's totally just a business decision to test this heroin. We gotta know how strong it is so we know how much to cut. And that's all Harry needed. Because he was like, fair enough. And then there's a quick cut montage um of Harry and Tyrone preparing and injecting heroin. Um and then it this is interesting, this montage, because it's the first time the montage and the split screen motif combine. And we see Harry and Tyrone preparing and injecting heroin together, and the montage ends with one of their eyes on one side of the split screen and their the other person's eye on the other side of the split screen as the pupil dilates. And I thought that was interesting to combine the two motifs because then it combines the third motif, which is the fade to white. Yeah. Not all connected because you know they do that quick cut motif of them preparing and injecting the drugs, their pupils dilate, and then it cuts to them in the room really high, laughing, and then they kind of fall. Like I think Harry falls on the ground and they're laughing, and then it fades away. And so then we cut to Sarah's living room, and you know, she's turning on the TV in the same manner she does in a number of motif transitions, and the Tappy Tobin show is on again, they're doing their thing. Tappy reveals the second thing he did to change his life. The first thing was no red meat. And then we see what I think is probably another motif, which is the wall clock. And I think this is the second time we see the same close-up of a wall clock as Sarah looks at it, waiting for the next time she can eat her next meal. Um, Sarah's waiting impatiently. She's kind of squirming in her seat. She sees a hamburger meal, I think, on a mantle, and then another meal lying around her apartment. And then she sees right through the refrigerator at the food inside. And then there's a quick cut montage of her turning off the TV, turning off the bedroom lights, and going to bed. And then she's staring at her bedroom ceiling, and I think it dissolves into a starry outer space, and cupcakes and donuts start flying toward her with what seems like satellite sound effects.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:52

Yeah, like 1950s sci-fi. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:58

And the this kind of daydream sequence ends with a pie twirling right into her face with a squishing sound effect. And then she gets out of her bed and calls her friend Rosie and asks for the number of the doctor that gave her a person she knows medication to lose weight. And then we cut to Marion's apartment. Marion is getting dressed, and she's kind of getting dressed up in formal well, formal wear, and tells Harry that she is having dinner with her therapist because Marion stopped going to therapy and is worried her therapist will tell her parents, and her parents will stop giving her money. And Harry asks her why she doesn't cut the therapist loose, and Marion teases Harry about being jealous, and then eventually they joyfully embrace one another. Um, thought this was a really interesting scene regarding their relationship, but mostly about the Marian character because she for the first time is demonstrated to be a bit of a tease in certain ways. We've already seen that she's a little mischievous, you know? And so she's got like this it just kind of reinforces that kind of a playfulness about her, but now it's mixed with what seems to be um a a potentially darker element of her personality. And it's definitely manipulative and dishonest. I think this is probably the first time, other than whatever drug use we see, um it's the first time we see her behavior being less than virtuous, other than the drug use. I mean, the previous scene to that, she was just doing cocaine in her bathroom by herself. So, but other than the drug use is the first time we see some kind of strange behaviors. And we cut a weird restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:33

It's a weird um situation. It's it's really weird.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:37

It's really weird, and it cuts right into a really weird scene. And this is a scene I want to talk about because I thought about this scene a lot. And I watched the scene back a lot, and it's a scene where she meets her therapist for the first time at the restaurant. So she's having dinner with her therapist therapist, his name's Arnold, and it starts with Arnold saying, disappointed that you're indisposed. And I didn't understand him at first because he says it so fast and it's so early in the scene. And I think he's looking down and he kind of says it quiet. So I had to watch it back a couple of times to identify exactly what he said. I know he said something about being indisposed, and like indisposed, all that means is you're either sick or unwell, or that you're unwilling to do something. And so it could be that he's just talking about her continuing therapy. But then Marion says, Isn't Anita out of town or something? And then she continues by saying, I was wondering if she was indisposed. And then Albert, or pardon me, Arnold, the therapist, reveals that Anita is out of town. And then she's like, Can I ask you something personal? And he looks really interested, and then she teases and pranks him about being distracted by something on his face, like a piece of food, but there's nothing there. And he gets up and leaves, and she's like cracking up. And so this is a really super weird scene. The interaction is completely bizarre. I'm not even convinced that she's properly using the word indisposed. She could be just parroting him in an effort to kind of make fun of him, but she's asking about a woman that's presumably his wife. And so to me, the dialogue indicates something else might be going on, and then she resorts to teasing. So because like indisposed means unwilling. And we know Marion is indisposed to continue therapy, and she's on a date with her therapist to manipulate him and her parents. So and the way she asks it, asks the question, you know, she asks if she is indisposed, Anita, in a flirty way, but indisposed to what? Unwilling to do what? What is Anita unwilling to do? I mean, it it's such a bizarre exchange that I mean ultimately just reveals Marion is a manipulative tease and implies something more might be happening between her and her therapist. But the previous scene with Harry, she was saying the exact opposite to him. So the combination of these two scenes is just like very unnerving. Especially after seeing all of those scenes with them prior where they're embracing one another, loving one another, and being so close to one another. So pretty jarring.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:54

Yeah. I mean, I definitely definitely think indisposed um in the in the way the uh therapist is using it, and I don't know, maybe the way she's using it is um in reference to he can just tell that she's on some sort of drugs. So I think that's how he's intending it. And then I don't know if she's just being like, Is your wife real fucked up too? You know, type of thing. Um but yeah, it's and and I think we come to learn that she does this regularly. Oh yeah. It's kind of like Harry doing that TV scam. Um you know, these things have been happening. This is like how they get stuff. But um it's it's also the the way it's acted, you know, though the therapist is always just happy. Housing his food because it's he's almost the the dinner is a formality. It's like we just have to get through this dinner so I can bring you back home. Yeah. You know, so and it's like it just makes it the way he eats and everything like that. It's just so gross.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:24

He's just devouring the food.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:28

In the middle of silences and everything like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:30

It's like Yeah, and there's this very mechanical feel to it, yeah. The conversation, because there's utensils sharply hitting plates, and yeah, it's there's it's a there's a hardness to it and a sharpness to it. It's not soft and and gentle, you know, and I think that's a remarkable decision of production design, sound design. So we're at a point right now in this conversation, we're about 90 minutes into it.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:12

And we're only about halfway through the movie. So I'm gonna give you an opportunity to make a decision. We can either continue this or schedule an episode to discuss the second half of this movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:29

Yeah, I say we split it in two. Um, and we're I think we're at the perfect spot because if I'm not mistaken, we're getting close to what I think is probably the best scene in the movie, which is when Harry and Sarah are together in her uh apartment. I don't know if we're immediately there yet, but I think we got a ways to go. Oh, okay. There's probably at least 10 scenes. Let's get to the let's get to that part because and then we'll start the next one with that scene. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:15

So the scene after Marion meets her therapist Arnold at the restaurant is the doctor's office. Sarah goes to the doctor's office to get help with her weight loss goals. The doctor doesn't even look at her and simply says, We can help you with that. And then he leaves.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:39

And then we cut to they do some weight with the nurse. They do some stuff on the scale, yeah, I think before the before the doctor comes in. Because the nurse is actually a little personable with her. Um, but as she's doing the the old school scale, it's um that's clearly what Sarah's focused on. But then the juxtaposition of that nurse and then the doctor being totally uninterested in her as a person or anything like that, just being like, uh-huh, here, take these drugs, um, I'll get my check and on to the next person.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:29

Yeah, there's not even that much going on. The doctor literally walks in. I don't know what he initially says, but Sarah says something, and all he says is, yeah, we can help with that, and he exits. There may not be much more to it than that.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:47

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:48

It was very quick and very disconnected.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:55

Yeah, and it it continues the the look of the movie where that set is so gross looking.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:05

And it looks like a set. When the the doctor exits the door, there's no dimension or detail to whatever's on the other side of that door. You can't really see it, just looks like this wash of like gray blue light.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:24

Right. And there's tons of that through the movie, and just like the coloring of this movie is so just so grimy and gross looking. Yeah. It's just constantly making you feel worse and worse the whole time you're watching this movie.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:43

Yeah. Once the scene in the doctor's office ends, we enter a montage, and Tyrone is on the streets dealing drugs, and that intercuts with Marion at her apartment snorting cocaine, and then cutting clips from newspapers of women in clothing, and then reassembling those clips together and combining that with hand drawings and other materials, possibly fabric material, into some sort of collage that represents ultimately her clothing design that she wants to produce. And then it cuts to continues the montage, cutting to now Harry on the street dealing drugs. And then the montage ends, and we cut to Marion's apartment. Harry enters and brings the money he's earned from drug dealing to Marion, and they get real excited. And then we go into another montage of Harry and Tyrone continuing to deal drugs. Marion is continuing to work on her clothing designs, and this is intercut with Harry and Marion renting some sort of store for her clothing. And during this entire montage, there's music playing, and we hear Tyrone's voice repeat the words naturally over the music. So the beat's going, the music's going, and every once in a while you hear naturally.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:41

Yeah. Because this is the plan working.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:45

This is the plan working. They thought of the plan, it's working as it should, and it will obviously just work. Yeah, and I think it's all just gonna work. It's all just gonna work out. You'll see. In the end, it's all nice, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:34:59

And I think the especially in this sequence, you really understand the that montage editing because it's the the moments that are doing that are so forgettable. Like all the other details that might be happening in life are totally gone. You know, so like when you're doing the drugs, you remember putting the drugs on the spoon, heating them up, pulling them up in the syringe, injecting, and or and and but in this one, in the in the drug dealing one, it's probably way more time standing out there on the street waiting for people to come up. But the thing, the thing that's like clockwork is I have them hidden hidden in this specific area. If somebody comes up, I grab that, I get the money, transaction done. And the the part you're actually living, which is out there on the street, it's just total, total wasted time, lost to whatever. And the only thing that's memorable is like here's how it works. I grab this bag, get this money, cha-ching, next thing. You know, I look around, watch my back. Watch a back, yeah. And it's like the way the sound effects work, it's the exact same sound effects, so it's just like this is just it's almost like the ticking clock in Sarah's apartment. It's just when you're when you're on this beat of selling drugs, it's just these elements, everything else is not important whatsoever, and just like lost.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:52

Yeah, that's kind of how the memory works, right? Yeah, you remember these core moments, and the vast majority of time is never remembered. Yeah. Or at least it's stored so deep because it's less significant.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:09

Yeah. Because a whole nother movie could be remember that summer we were selling drugs, and it's like the drug selling part is inconsequential, and but it'd be like this one time when this one guy came up and this weird situation happened, you know. But in this case, it's a whole summer spent of grabbing the bag, giving it to somebody's hand, collecting the money, and that's the whole summer. And they talk about that summer like, man, that summer was dope. Literally. That's the only that's like the memory of it.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:48

Yeah, so this montage ends with Harry and Tyrone pulling a shoebox from a closet to add their earnings to it. And it is the same type of shot and perspective used as the shot when Sarah is going into her mailbox. The camera is inside the closet looking out at Harry and Tyrone as they pull the shoebox out. They add their money, and then we cut to inside Sarah's apartment. She's reviewing her weight loss medications in a horizontal split screen. I think all the split screens up to this point have been vertical, and this is the first horizontal one. She takes her first pill and washes it down with water in uh in that same quick cut style when people are consuming or absorbing their addiction, be it drugs or TV. And then she gets up, she makes a meal, she eats it, and then we go into another montage. She's dancing around, she makes coffee, she drinks it, she's sitting in her chair, but she can't sit still. So she turns off the TV, grabs her beach chair, and leaves. And then we cut to Sarah again looking into her mailbox, and then we cut to Tyrone's apartment, and it's nighttime, and it's a quick cut montage of Tyrone Tyrone preparing and smoking weed. And then we cut to Tyrone playing with a sliding door he just bought. He's naked and with a girl, as the girl lies on his bed, and then he starts daydreaming about being a little boy running through a staircase in his apartment building, and he jumps on his mother's lap and he tells her, I told you one day I would make it. And his mom says in response, You don't have to make anything, my sweet. You just have to love your mama. And he's in that daydream still, and you hear the girl ask what he's doing, and that snaps him out of the daydream, and he looks kind of shocked and dejected. And then Chirone jumps into bed with her and tells her of his dream, and it's super simple. He says, All I want out of life is a little bit of peace and happiness. That's all.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:32

Yeah, no hassles. That's what he says early on. Yeah, we do this, no hassles.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:40

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:42

Yep, that's his dream. And then we cut to outside at the beach. Harry is with Marion, and he's thinking about what to get his mom now that he's making money. And he asks out loud, what's her fix? And he concludes it's TV, and he tells Marion he wants to buy her a new television. And Marion wants to buy it right away. She's like, let's go do it right now. But Harry says, Okay, but let's push off first, meaning let's let's do some heroin. And Marion tells him it's too early. I thought that was an interesting scene. Haven't thought too much about it, but it kind of casts Marion in a little bit of a good light. She's trying to control the addiction, and Harry's starting to lose control a little bit of control of the addiction.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:49

Yeah, it's like it's like Harry saying to Tyrone, you know, we gotta do this right, because if we get wasted, we're gonna fuck it up. And I think it's a similar scene to that. Yeah. Except now Harry's on the other side. Yeah. You know. And then I forget. So do they do they do that at that moment?

SPEAKER_06 1:42:18

Well, they forget what the scene cuts, and we go right into a montage, quick cut motif of Harry and Marion doing drugs, and Sarah taking her pill and drinking coffee, all interconnected. Like Harry and Sarah taking drugs.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:37

Right. And the Harry and Marion split screen, they're doing different drugs. I believe you're correct. Yeah, I think she does cocaine or or um she because we we never I I don't think we ever see her inject. So she might just be a she snorts the heroin. Cause I know on that montage that he does the cotton ball and syringe, and hers is like two splats of the white powder down with a rolled up dollar bill dollar bill or whatever, yeah, and snorting it. But when they are laying there together, kind of heads together, feet going the different direction, um, they seem to both be in like a heroin state. You know, because if if she did coke and he did heroin, I think they would be acting differently. I have I don't know from personal experience, but um they're both kind of like super relaxed laying down and stuff like that. So it could mean that she just snorts it and he injects it.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:01

I don't know if the scene where they're lying down together occurs in this scene, because I think this is just a montage. The scene you're referring to happens later with I think the same sort of quick cut montage motif that you that we're talking about now happens later. And so it's occurred to me this whole movie, she may not be doing cocaine at all, she may be doing just snorting heroin, right? She was previously shown to be snorting something, and then she got very involved in her work activity. So I assumed that she was getting stimulated, right? Very focused on working. So another reason to watch the movie, maybe some of these quick cut motif montages have different color powders.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:59

Yeah, I don't think they do, because that's actually I don't know. I don't either the big um the big criticism of this movie from people that know drugs are the the big criticism is like this movie sucks. That's not heroin. If it was heroin, it'd be brown. So this movie's terrible. I definitely I've definitely heard that opinion from people. And uh because I when I first saw it back in the day, I was like, man, this movie I think so accurately depicts you know being on drugs or something like that. And people that had more experience in that were like, nah, it's not it's not accurate at all. That heroin is not the right color in this movie. So they fucked up. You got a winner.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:01

We got a winner. Not the person who knows heroin is brown.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:15

But maybe. I don't know. But it's worth bringing up. But maybe they're just doing some uh some uh like invented drug for the movie.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:30

I don't know. I I don't know if it is worth bringing up. I mean it it's bringing up it's worth bringing up in response to what I said, which was maybe at different in different montages there's different color powder.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:43

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:44

And there actually isn't, but it's a detail that uh doesn't really matter. I think there's plenty of other details in this movie that effectively demonstrate the effects that drugs have on you. Right. And, you know, it's not that's not the theme. The theme isn't drug use. It's deeper than that.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:15

It's about addiction and even more so obsession. Because you can, you know, is sugar really addictive? Is television really addictive? You know, I've heard arguments to suggest that it has addictive qualities because it affects one's mind or brain chemistry similarly, not the same, but similarly. But I digress. The theme is about the effects of addiction and and obsession, and not just actually brings up the question in my mind as to whether or not addiction is a form of obsession with a particular physiological component that is being physically dependent. I don't think I'm prepared to have that conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:24

That's the next one. That yeah, we'll we'll definitely get into that.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:31

Uh it's interesting though. Makes me wonder. So, in anyway, in this montage, we see Harry and Marion doing drugs and Sarah taking her pill and drinking coffee. And then we also see a close-up of that wall clock, and it dissolves into a time lapse of Sarah cleaning her apartment, and the TV in her apartment is playing really fast, and we can hear the crowd and Tappy Tibbins in the background. Sarah is sped up, the TV is sped up, and the sound of the voices in the TV sounds like chipmunk voices, basically demonstrating that Sarah can't sit still because of these medications she's taking. And then the montage ends and everything slows down to a normal speed. And for the first time, Sarah notices that she's grinding her teeth. And so she takes the green pill, and then everything slows down, and the voices on the TV get really low and stretched out, and then she falls asleep. And then we cut to inside Tyrone's apartment. It's nighttime, and it's just one shot overhead shot, spinning in circles of Tyrone. Having sex with a girl. A girl in the previous scene of him communicating his dream and purpose. And then we cut inside Sarah's apartment again, and we're just in a montage. Sarah is trying on her dress, she's popping pills, she's weighing herself at the doctor's office, she's checking the mailbox. So this is probably just one big montage. Since Harry and Marion had that conversation on the beach about buying his mother Sarah a television set. And then we cut to outside Sarah's building. Sarah's talking to her friends on the sidewalk. And the mailman walks by and she asks if he has anything for her. He doesn't. And Harry shows up in a taxi and she is super excited to see him. She jumps up from her chair, runs to him, gives him a big hug, and then Sarah and Harry walk up into her apartment and they have a conversation. So at this point, we're going to end this episode and continue our conversation of the movie Requiem for a Dream in the next episode where we will talk about the second half of the movie and any and all final thoughts we have on the movie. So Brandon, do you have any final thoughts for today's episode?

SPEAKER_01 1:51:56

Yeah, I mean, the one thing I want to mention, but I think we'll have to talk about it a whole bunch more the next time, is the score of this movie. I think's amazing and iconic and really crucial to to the movie. So um I just didn't want to go any episode of talking about this movie without at least mentioning that. So I just kind of wanted to tee that up for next time that we'll definitely have to dive into the score a lot more. And talk about that.

SPEAKER_06 1:52:39

We can certainly do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:40

Yeah. I just don't I think that's one of the most crucial parts of this whole movie. So I just wanted to bring it up just to say we will be talking about it. We're not we're not forgetting about it and leaving that out.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:01

Yeah, I mean, as I said, it's this is a very dense movie. There's a lot we could talk about. I'm trying my hardest to not talk about the style, but there's so much montage, so much motif throughout this movie that it seems impossible to not talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:23

Yeah, I don't I mean, I I I guess I disagree about not talking about it because I think it's a key element to this movie.

SPEAKER_06 1:53:35

I'm not suggesting we don't talk about it. I'm just saying it's difficult to talk about this movie without talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:43

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I I think it's it's important to talk about it. And it gets um it gets more stylish too, I think, as it goes along. Some some of the there's uh uh some just key scenes that are coming up in the second half. That the style, the way they're shot, just different usages of super fast motion, slow motion, yeah, I don't know, some really weird effects coming up late in the movie of the frame shaking and stuff like that. So I mean, it it's it's all important.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:27

It is, and we'll have to talk about how the style and specific stylistic elements integrate with the broader theme and conflict. I think that'll be interesting to try to connect. Although it may be obvious. Nonetheless, we'll talk about it. In the meantime, Brandon suggested we send all of you a big heart balloon made of gooey bubblegum that pops and covers everyone in fun goeiness. It's first thing that popped into his mind when he thought about love. So if you love if you love this episode, go file Requiem for a Dream if you haven't already. And be on the lookout for the next episode when we file the second half of Darren Arnofsky's Requiem for a Dream.