Why do pupils dilate in requiem for a dream

Requiem For A Dream. You Might Also Like. Leave this field blank. Reply Share Share this answer:. Candice Drouet actress. Guy McLoughlin Video Producer. Watch more from editor Jay Rabinowitz on "Requiem for a Dream" here! Tuesday, July 26, Sh! Labels: darren aronofsky , jennifer connelly , requiem for a dream , shitting on the classics.

Anonymous December 19, at PM. Anonymous August 2, at AM. Anonymous November 19, at PM. I've just finished a shot-by-shot analysis of Hitchcock's "The Birds" at the Virginia Film Festival; he does the same thing, showing us some things and denying us others so that we are first plunged into a subjective state and then yanked back to objectivity with a splash of cold reality.

Here Aronofsky uses extreme closeups to show drugs acting on his characters. First we see the pills, or the fix, filling the screen, because that's all the characters can think about.

Then the injection, swallowing or sniffing--because that blots out the world. Then the pupils of their eyes dilate. All done with acute exaggeration of sounds. These sequences are done in fast-motion, to show how quickly the drugs take effect--and how disappointingly soon they fade.

The in-between times edge toward desperation. Aronofsky cuts between the mother, a prisoner of her apartment and diet pills, and the other three.

Early in the film, in a technique I haven't seen before, he uses a split screen in which the space on both sides is available to the other Sara and Harry each have half the screen, but their movements enter into each other's halves.

This is an effective way of showing them alone together. Later, in a virtuoso closing sequence, he cuts between all four major characters as they careen toward their final destinations. Burstyn isn't afraid to play Sara Goldfarb flat-out as a collapsing ruin Aronofsky has mercy on her by giving her some fantasy scenes where she appears on TV and we see that she is actually still a great-looking woman.

Connolly, who is so much a sex symbol that she, too, could have disgraced herself in " Charlie's Angels ," has consistently gone for risky projects and this may be her riskiest; the movie is inspired by Hubert Selby, Jr. I can think of an exception: Anyone under 17 who is thinking of experimenting with drugs might want to see this movie, which plays like a travelogue of hell.

Even when Harry or Tyrone are listening to the setup, the records are spinning but the stylus is not touching the record. This is almost certainly a mirror shot, not a mistake. Whenever someone takes drugs and their pupils "dilate" you can see that it's a normal eye being distorted by a computer because the arc of reflected light also is distorted. When she catches some wind while leaving the building, the coat is lifted up for some instants and you can actually see them.

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