Subversion of the dominant narrative structure of mainstream American cinema in Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream" (2001)

Show simple item record

dc.contributor.author Konik, Adrian
dc.date.accessioned 2010-10-27T10:43:22Z
dc.date.available 2010-10-27T10:43:22Z
dc.date.created 2010-10
dc.date.issued 2002
dc.description Article digitised using: Suprascan 1000 RGB scanner, scanned at 400 dpi; 24-bit colour; 100% Image derivating - Software used: Adobe Photoshop CS3 - Image levels, crop, deskew Abbyy Fine Reader No.9 - Image manipulation + OCR Adobe Acrobat 9 (PDF) en_US
dc.description.abstract In "Requiem for a Dream" (2001), Aronofsky uses certain techniques of critical cinema to make the audience aware of the "constructed-ness" of the represented material. In doing so he goes against the "norms" of mainstream American cinema that aim to "mesmerize" the audience and "draw" them into the narrative. There are distinct parallels between the techniques used by Aronofsky and those employed by Eisenstein in his critical cinema, namely the use of non-stable footage, to make the camera conspicuous, the use of montage of rhythm, to disrupt the continuity of the narrative, the use of "word play" in relation to the captions and the representation of footage in "reverse", which force an audience to engage critically with the material, and the use of "Brechtian" theatre techniques to alienate the audience from the text. However, Aronofsky does not merely mirror Eisenstein's use of these techniques but rather develops them in his own way. Also, Aronofsky does not attack capitalism and bourgeois axiology in the same way as Eisenstein, but rather aims his criticism at the way in which subjectivity is constituted through the hegemony of the postmodem mass media. Through his critical cinema he subverts this constitution at both an overt level, involving the more blatant and jarring techniques of critical cinema discussed above, and at a subtle level, involving the valorization of a different narrative structure to that of mainstream cinema, namely one that does not edge its way towards some amiable form of Apollonian resolution. I conclude with a brief discussion of how Aronofksy's film constitutes a criticism of image-saturated postmodern culture. en_US
dc.description.uri http://explore.up.ac.za/record=b1719138 en_US
dc.format.extent 20 pages en_US
dc.format.medium Pdf en_US
dc.identifier.citation Konik, A 2002, 'Subversion of the dominant narrative structure of mainstream American cinema in Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream" (2001).' South African Journal of Art History, vol. 17, pp. 54-73. en_US
dc.identifier.issn 0258-3542
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2263/15085
dc.language.iso en en_US
dc.publisher Art Historical Work Group of South Africa en_US
dc.rights Art Historical Work Group of South Africa en_US
dc.subject Cinema en_US
dc.subject Aronofsky, Darren, 1969- en_US
dc.subject "Requiem for a Dream" en_US
dc.subject Motion picture aesthetics en_US
dc.subject American cinema en_US
dc.subject Postmodem culture en_US
dc.subject Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich, 1898-1948 en_US
dc.subject.lcsh Cinematography en
dc.subject.lcsh Cinematographers -- United States en
dc.subject.lcsh Motion pictures -- United States en
dc.subject.lcsh Motion pictures -- Aesthetics en
dc.subject.lcsh Postmodernism en
dc.subject.lcsh Film criticism en
dc.title Subversion of the dominant narrative structure of mainstream American cinema in Aronofsky's "Requiem for a Dream" (2001) en_US
dc.type Article en_US


Files in this item

This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record