Genre Research - Requiem for a Dream

Before starting the actual filming our group started to make some research into films of the same genre in order to find out what elements they have in common and which of these elements might be appropriate for our opening: as a result we found that, even though the theme of drugs in movies often comes together with or after a different main theme (for instance crime), there were several films that satisfied our requirements and among these, we made some research into the most successful ones.

The first movie we looked into was Requiem for a Dream (2000) by Darren Aronofsky.

Plot: The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island individuals are shattered when their addictions become stronger. (quote: imdb.com)

These extreme close-ups from the movie show two common examples of different ways of taking drugs: pills for physical treatments and a syringe for heroine. The first looked more appropriate for our purpose since we could simply use some peppermints while we did not have any handy way of faking a syringe.

Unlike the previous two, cocaine is usually shown in films as a white powder and it is usually placed in front of a black background in order to create a contrast.

One theme that always accompanies the one of drugs is obviously money since all movies of this genre deal with different kinds of illegal traffics.