Darren Aronofsky Pi (1998) & Requiem for a dream (2000)

Darren Aronofsky is known for his unique cinematic style and story telling that depicts addiction which psychologically ruins the human character, both mentally and physically. His stories that involve his main characters that usually end up having negative spiral left me, as the viewer, quite horrified and scared. As we experience Both Pi and Requiem for a dream (as well as The Wrestler, Black Swan and The Fountain) through the eyes of the main character, the viewer is lead down a distressing path which i can't turn away but i can only explain as both beautiful and devastating.

Aronofsky is so consistent with his storytelling but is always pushing the boundaries and in my own opinion i believe this has made him an auteur in his own right. Some of his techniques include his use of extremely close up razor sharp cuts and sound effects keep you gripped to the screen.

Pi starts off with Max explaining the reason for his suffering of terrible migraines, due to the fact that he starred into the sun for too long when he was a kid. He is a mathematical genius that is wanted by various people to help solve math codes when his only interest lies in searching for the pattern for pi. The longer his search goes on and the more he is pestered by these people, the more intense his headaches become and eventually drives him into insanity.

Requiem sees the story of a mother and son whose lives run parallel within the film. The mother, a lonely old woman, attempts to lose weight to fit into a red dress after a prank phone call claimed she wins a chance to be on TV. She gets hold of pills that are supposed to help her lose weight that she gets hooked on. Her son, a cocaine and heroin addict, buys in bulk between his friend and girlfriend to sell on and make money. But after both mother and son surpass the peak of losing weight and earning enough money, they end up taking their addictions too far which leads to a downward spiral.

His characters tend to suffer from loneliness, desperation and obsession that take the viewer on a distressed journey with the characters themselves. Neither character in Requiem or Pi are able to overcome their obsessions. Max, in Pi, suffers from extreme headaches. Aronofsky successfully shows Max's compelling experience with a scoring soundtrack and sound effects, a long with quick close ups of specific objects shaking such as the locks on his door, the door knob and the door itself. A similar situation is portrayed in Requiem when Sara, the mother, has become so indulged into her TV and trying to lose weight, that her fridge starts to move and shutter forward when she thinks about food and scares the life out of her. It eventually gets completely out of hand that she inprisons herself in her house and relies on her imagination on being on the TV. Both characters suffer from fear of failure that they are blind to see how badly their state of mind becomes.

My idea for my character in the extended practice module is that he will become obsessed with his imagination. He dreams of being else where and believes in the grass being greener on the other side. Darren Aronofsky's characters are extremely obsessed and self observed that don't think about others, which i'd like to take certain aspects from, but i don't intend on creating an extremely dark aspect.