Requiem for a Dream. Sequence Analysis. Phone Scene

The scene opens with a close frame of Marion’s face as she applies dark heavy makeup. The lighting in her bathroom is a clinical, dark, cold blue as she looks into the frame the viewers almost become the mirror in the shot, but slightly to the right of her body, a head shot. This is the first time we see her put on any makeup through out the entire film, which is dark, black liner symbolizing the emotional weight of what is about to happen and what decision she has to make because of her addiction. This also shows the viewer the weight and hopelessness of her or Harry getting out of this and back to each other. We know that she is alone and has been waiting for him for weeks. Her blank facial expression almost zombie like, tells us that she has hit the bottom and she knows it. The non-diegetic ambient music, keyed in, signals the quite lonely isolation and the slow anticipation that she feels for whats to come. Then the phone ringing comes in and echos throughout the bathroom. The first ring of the phone queues the frame to a strange birds eye view from the upper corner of the bathroom looking diagonally down at Marion. We see how dark and cold the space is and how small she seems, and how small she feels of herself. She lets it ring three times before she picks up and answers, hello, in a nervous, shaky voice not knowing who to expect on the other line. Right as she is cold and lonely and awaiting her horrid event ahead, her lover harry is on the other line, the only person the viewer knows, has ever taken care of her or loved her. As she says hello, the frame cuts back to the same frame as the opening cut. The viewer gets to hear the other end of the line while still in her space, letting us be inside the conversation and feel her emotions. What we hear is hear name in a sad, breathy voice, and right away she knows that it is Harry. The second she realizes that it is Harry we see her facial expression change to a mix between relief,compassion, fear and we can see the disappointment in her eyes, that he has no idea what she is about to do. The heart wrenching, additional ambient music queued in makes the viewers emotions as slow and intense as hers. She now knows he has been thinking and missing her and hasn’t been able to get a hold of her on his desperate drug run to florida. She asks him when is he coming home, and then we have a reaction cut to the floor of a dirty florida hospital. Harry is sitting on a floor in a dark corridor that has public phones, the cord stretched to his level. The frame is as if we are sitting on the floor with him, pushing even further, the emotion that everything has gone awry and is hopelessly lost forever. The yellowish lighting in his space is flickering, furthering the anxiety and fear that he feels about what he has done. He knows he has left her to her desperations and isolation. In the middle of his answer, soon, it cuts from his to her space as we continue to hear him from her line. The color difference of the spaces they are in gives the viewer the feeling of how far away they really are from each other, although the atmospheres are equally un-nerving and weighted heavily with emotions and fear. We can hear him breathing heavily is this depressing state as he know that he has failed her. In trying to escape the inevitable event in her near future she asks him if he could come home today, although she knows that is not possible. This is really when the viewers hearts sink because now we are assured of the hopelessness of the situation and now everything has officially fallen apart. We know without him she will continue into this night, he cant save her now. He tells her yes, and begins to cry as we get reaction cuts, back and forth, to both their spaces, he tells her to wait for him. As we hear him tell her this from her space, we can see in her eyes that she cant, she has already waited and now has hit bottom, she knows how painful it would be for him to know what is about to happen. Her face turns back to the cold expression like that of the light she is cast in as he apologizes with sorry, and that ends the conversation. The scene ends with a head shot of him in his space as he drops the cord phone and it swings away as he continues to cry. The continual similar head shots back and forth between these very distant but similar atmospheres establishes the viewers emotions, because here we are forced to look directly into their emotions and fears, we don’t have a choice to look away and neither do they. The dialogue plays a huge part in this scene, as simple as it is, the sounds of their voices is the emotional pull in the dialogue. The events the viewers have experienced with them before this end, is important to the coding and emotion behind the simple lines in the dialogue between them.