Poster Analysis #2: Requiem For A Dream

Requiem For A Dream is 2005 film directed by Darren Aronofsky.  The film is based on a novel Hubert Selby, Jr and was adapted into a screenplay by Selby and Aronofsky.  It was produced by Eric Watson, Palmer West and Scott Vogel and the main actors in the film are Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans and Christopher McDonald.

The film itself exposes four individuals and shows the effects of their addiction to heroin, cocaine and diet pills (speed).  It takes place in Brooklyn where drugs are easily obtainable, which in turn keep each main character in their own cycle of dependence.  The protagonist, Harry Goldfarb, is your typical heroin junky with an ambitious plan of getting 'getting a pound of pure' with help from his two friends; this cocaine crazed girlfriend Marion and his long time friend Tyrone.  Meanwhile, his widowed mother is obsessed with the glamor of television and eventually find her way to dietitian who pushes her into the cycle of drug induced enslavement herself.

The poster for Requiem For A Dream is shown to the left.  The poster is made up of two images split up by a horizontal bar.  The top image is a close up of an eye which is blood shot with a dilated pupil.  This shows drug use and referes to the technique of quick cuts of the drug taking process that is used a lot in the movie to show when drugs are being used.  To the top of the image is four actors names which is used for star theory in the hope that a viewer of the poster may have prior knowledge of the actors work and they may become interested in seeing this movie.  Above the image the is a small, thin black banner containing the text "From the director of pie".  This use of other films can also interest viewers in the same way star theory can, if the viewer has seen and liked the film pie then they might consider seeing this film because it is by the same director.

The horizontal bar in the middle of the page contains the film title and another mention of the director of the film, this time with his name used.  This required viewers of the poster to have prior knowledge of Darren Aronofsky's work for it to be successful but if they do, they may be more interested in seeing the film because of him.

The image below is from one of the dream sequences in the movie and trailer.  The image is perfectly symetrical with pier being centred in the frame and the woman in the red dress being placed in the middle of the pier.  This goes against the rule of thirds, but the image remains interesting to the eye because of it.  To the bottom of the bottom image there is the billing block.  It contains different information about the film from the writers, producers and actors to the companies that produced the film.

Compared to the Shutter Island poster, this poster is much more simplified and less stylised but the use of the two images, especially the close-up of the eye, keep the poster interesting to the eye the the several uses of star theory help to draw viewers of the poster to see the movie.