Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
If someone had told me at the beginning of 2000 that Ellen Burstyn would be the star of the two best horror films I saw in the theater this year, I would have laughed. But THE EXORCIST re-release currently playing is a reminder of what supernatural fright cinema is capable of, and Darren Aronofsky's shattering new film is easily the most original American horror film since SAFE. It's a bold window into a difficult subject matter, and it's also one of the most technically accomplished films I've ever seen, a masterwork in terms of expressing both idea and emotion. In bringing Hubert Selby Jr.'s piercing novel to the screen, Aronofsky has used every trick in the filmmaker's book, and he's even managed to expand the language of film just a bit. It's an amazing accomplishment, one that's easy to dislike because of just how brutal an assault the film can be. I know it's something I won't shake for weeks to come.
Films about addiction are certainly nothing new. TRAINSPOTTING is a great picture, but it's one that's totally different than this, as was RUSH, and SID AND NANCY and DRUGSTORE COWBOY and JESUS SON, and any other number of very good films that cover similar ground. They all work to create a visual equivalent to the experience of drug use, something that manages to convey the feeling, something that can somehow explain the rush that keeps addicts coming back. Some of the films are very successful. Others fall back on imagery we've seen before. It's one of those things that feels like it's been done to death. And then you see a film like this, and all those previous attempts are just sort of swept aside by the way this particular story's been visualized. Aronofsky is very aware of the power of fetish in the world of the addict, the way the ritual becomes just as important as the high itself. Whenever someone shoots up, it's the same series of rapid shots, impressions, the sizzle of the smack cooking, the pupil expanding, the plunger drawing back. Whenever someone rolls a joint, it's the same series of shots. A paper, the sprinkle of weed, the twist, the flame, that first inhale. He's also aware of just how broad the definition of addiction is. When Sara Goldfarb, Burstyn's character, sits down at the beginning of the film with her box of chocolates and her remote for her TV, she's just as methodical about chasing her pleasure as Harold (Jared Leto) and Marion (Jennifer Connelly) and Ty (Marlon Wayans) are about chasing theirs. She pushes the same buttons they do, but with a different set of drugs. The place that Aronofsky and Selby start their film is where many films wind up. This film isn't about the fun before the fall. This film is about the fall, and then the fall beyond that, and then the fall beyond that, and it is like dropping into an abyss. There's no bottom, it seems, to the pain and the horror, and everything we see makes us afraid to continue, afraid to see what's next, and at each step, we are rewarded with a magnification of the horror, with something worse. One of the people I went with compared it to slowly pushing your face into a meat grinder.
So why see it? Why subject yourself to something like that? I mean, this is the film that got the NC-17 and had to go out unrated. This is the grimmest of the grim. Who wants that? I want to feel good when I go to the movies, and so do you, right?
Well... actually... no. That's not why I go. I go because I'm looking for some reflection of the world around me on that screen, and because I'm looking for some window into some facet of the human experience that I haven't had before. I want to be transported just as much as I want to be represented. I go to be moved or challenged or shaken from the slumber that so much "entertainment" seems to encourage. And this film manages to reach right past all the defenses I normally have in place when I go into a theater. There's a sequence midway through the film when Harold visits his mother at her apartment and realizes that she's become addicted to diet pills that made me shake. That's not an exaggeration. The sequence is so painful, so sad, that it literally made me shake in my seat. Burstyn's heartbreaking in the scene, laying herself emotionally naked in a way that's almost too much to look at. Tears were a given, but the way it hit me viscerally was a surprise. I didn't expect to feel so deeply for these people. In the end, that's what makes this a great film about this subject matter. All the visual trickery in the world wouldn't matter if we didn't understand Sara Goldfarb, her son, his friends. If they weren't people that we can recognize ourselves in to some degree, then their decline would be meaningless.
What I love most in the film is the way Aronofsky establishes what the dreams are that end up dying. The title of the film is painfully apt, and the way he etches in the longing of each of these characters is almost a physical thing. A red dress, a spot on a television show, a business, a lover... these are simple things, simple wants, but they seem almost unattainable to these people. They all want happiness, comfort, some degree of affection, and they all find themselves off the tracks at some point, out of control, chasing the dream with no hope of catching it. Watching these simple things slip out of their hands, these people are helpless to stop it from happening. Or at least they believe they're helpless, which is ultimately the same thing. Aronofsky makes you feel powerless as a viewer, and it's wrenching. You want to stop the slide. You know you could do it if you could just reach into the screen for a moment and help out at just the right moment. But you can't. You're trapped, just like these characters are, and as things go from bad to worse to nightmare and then beyond, I wanted to run from the theater. I didn't know where to look, what to focus on. No one gets out of this black hole of misery. Seeing the spark go out in not one, not two, but four sets of eyes... it's devastating.
That's not to say this film is one note. There is humor here, in the most horrible and unexpected places. It's more a function of us holding on to any glimmer of light when everything is this dark, but when those few moments arrive, they're like an oasis. I was impressed by the way the film washed over the crowd at the Sunset 5 last night. Huge line outside, packed house, and they were with it. They all laughed in those pressure points, those release valves that Aronofsky so wisely built in, and they were silent through the really harrowing passages. At the end of the film, 2/3 of the theater stayed seated, silent, as every frame played out. Afterwards, everyone shuffled out to stand on walkway outside, looking down at the courtyard of the complex. People were smoking, huddled together in small groups, everyone buzzing. And no one left. They were all talking about the film. It was great fun to walk along, listening in on each conversation, listening to people wrestle with what they'd just seen.
The central actors in the film all deserve special notice. For the first time, Jared Leto's given a central performance in a film, and he proves to be up to the task. His physical transformation here is startling. I wouldn't recognize him as Angel Face from FIGHT CLUB or Jordan from MY SO-CALLED LIFE anymore. He's a guy at the end of his rope, burned out, hollowed out. He knows that Marion, his girlfriend, is the one good thing in his world, and he wants desperately to make a better life for her. It's easy to see why. Jennifer Connelly brings a sunny sweetness to the first half of the film that's mixed with an easy carnal quality that proves quite potent. When she spirals out at the film's end, it's particularly shocking and unpleasant because all of the lustful thoughts anyone might have about her are turned ugly by what happens to her. Her role takes a foul, bitter sexual turn that was a big part of that NC-17, I'm sure. There's a few images that are just unforgettable, and knowing why she's doing what she's doing just makes it harder to watch. In her last moment of the film, there's a slight Mona Lisa smile that plays across her lips that is chilling. It's a big step forward for her as an actress of merit. Same could be said for Marlon Wayans, someone I have never taken seriously before. Can anyone blame me? He's Marlon freakin' Wayans. Not Damon. Not even Keenan. Hell... not even Shawn. This is Marlon Wayans we're talking about here... and he's good. He's got a great sadness in the film's second half, like he's haunted. He knows what's happening, and he just has to let it, just watching as it does. When he's involved in a shooting, it's jarring and disorienting, and Marlon makes it totally real.
And then there's Ellen Burstyn. What she does here... it's not film acting. It's not anything as simple or as artificial as playing a role. She vanishes into the skin of this woman, this Sara Goldfarb, and she gives her all the dignity and character and depth that seem humanly possible. Burstyn made her name in the '70s, and she still embodies that independent spirit that marked the films of that decade. She's a treasure as a performer, without a false bone in her body, and this picture is a reminder of all the thunder she can summon. The makeup used to help her transformation is eye-popping, to say the least. She's frighteningly authentic in the part, and you spend much of the film in mortal terror for her. Never has the refrigerator been such an object of abject fear. Every time you think you've seen her hit the bottom, she finds somewhere else to go. I was ready to crawl out of my skin when she started grinding her teeth. I was ready to beg for mercy in her last visit to the doctor's office, when thing have gotten... confused. But when she decides to go check on the date for her to be on TV... dear god.
I cannot heap enough praise on the craftsmen who made the film. Matthew Libatique is a cinematographer who must be paid attention. He shot this and PI for Aronofsky, and he also shot the mournful little SATURN, Rob Schmidt's film I reviewed earlier this year. His work's on display in TIGERLAND right now, a film I haven't seen, but which has drawn high praise for its gritty handheld style. Matthew Rabinowitz, the film's editor, also cut the quirky and brilliant films MOTHER NIGHT, CLEAN SHAVEN, and DEAD MAN, and he's established himself to my mind as someone who thinks outside any convention. He is a rule-breaker, and he's been fortunate enough to work with adventurous filmmakers who have benefitted from his willingness to try anything. Clint Mansell's score, performed in large part by the Kronos Quartet, is incredible. One of my favorite pieces of music in the world is Gorecki's third symphony. I'm listening to it right now, as I type. What moves me most about it is the way it rises and falls, like a prayer that grows louder, then softer, then louder again. Mansell's work here is like that, ebbing and flowing, and it lends real weight to these images. There are many places in the film where the score is absolutely essential to what Aronofsky's doing. This isn't just sonic wallpaper designed to cue easy emotional reactions. This is another level at which the film works on us, prods our expectations in an effort to provoke. The production design, the sound design... it's all masterful. Aronofsky seems to have pushed his entire crew into making something special and lasting.
And what do I think of the rating... or more accurately the lack of a rating... that's keeping this from the eyes of any audiences under 17? Well, it's a tough call. I think REQUIEM is a resolutely adult experience, and it's one that I don't think younger viewers are fully equipped for. It deals with very subtle disintegrations, and it is unblinking in how it portrays these things. Would younger viewers be scared off drugs for life by this film? One can only hope so. Anyone who would willingly pollute their bodies with these substances after watching this film is hopeless, lost already. The intensity of this film is what earned it the NC-17, but if you tone it down to make it approachable for younger viewers, then you risk cutting those things that define the character of the film. Once again, we find ourselves butting up against the imperfections in Valenti's outdated system. PG-13 and R seem to be almost interchangeable at this point, and NC-17 remains impossible, foreboding. There's nothing else, no option that indicates adult films about adult themes, and it's a shame. Aronofsky has been let down by the MPAA. We all have as viewers. We're not being protected by economically censoring something as direct and honest as this. We're being screwed out of being able to make our own minds up, and it's arbitary. If SCARY MOVIE can get an R, then this film certainly should. Artisan got shafted, and if I were them, I'd be mad as hell about it. I'd roll this out, town to town, and introduce it as the film the MPAA doesn't want you to see. Seems like a badge of honor, based on their track record.
Is this the definitive movie about drugs and drug addiction? No. I don't think there can be just one definitive movie. There's too many variations. No two people stumble in the exact same way. This is just an exciting piece of cinema, alive. I give it my highest recommendation, and I hope you'll see it not just to support a great filmmaker who is finding his voice in an exciting way, but also a studio that had the guts to release the film they made without cutting it. Keep your eyes open as the limited release continues to roll out. Check out the psychotic official site, probably the most surreal since FIGHT CLUB's last October. Let's reward Artisan for supporting the filmmaker, for actually putting the art before the commerce. I pray it pays off and serves as a smart example. Mainly, I hope Warner Bros. somehow falls under Aronofsky's evil hypnotic influence and lets him make the genius Batman film he's capable of. I'll certainly do whatever I can to help that process along. Right now, I'm off to bed, off to a sleep that will be haunted by the final images of these characters, each of them curled up, alone, no comfort to be found. I'll count my blessings as I wait for sleep to find me. I'll be grateful that I'm not alone, that I'm not addicted, that I'm not killing myself with each new day. I'll be grateful for the arms of Marla Singer, a place I find solace. I'll convince myself that there is hope for these broken souls, and maybe then I'll be able to set this film aside, get it out from under my skin. Just maybe...
"Moriarty" out.
