Embodied Ethics: a Phenomenological Analysis of Darren Aronofsky’s Sociopolitical Themes as Conveyed Through Three Films

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Embodied Ethics:

a Phenomenological Analysis of Darren

Aronofsky’s Sociopolitical Themes as

Conveyed Through Three Films

Veerle Bovens

University of Amsterdam MA Media Studies: Film Studies Supervisor: Dr. Tarja Laine Second Reader: Dr. Maryn Wilkinson Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Date: 27-06-2018

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Abstract

In representing traumatic events, stigmatized aspects of society, and/or one’s own sociopolitical viewpoints, a filmmaker has to make ethical choices surrounding aesthetics. This thesis argues that Darren Aronofsky aims to stir up sociopolitical reflection and debate on topics like drug culture, mental illness and climate change through affective cinematic strategies, rather than deeming the horrors involved unrepresentable. He thereby arguably exemplifies how a filmmaker may use confrontational imagery and aestheticized fictionalizations of horrific events to create an intense embodied experience for the spectator, which ultimately stimulates them to reflect on both their own ethics and the ethics of society. By applying phenomenological concepts and arguments to three different films out of Aronofsky’s oeuvre, namely Requiem for a Dream (2000), Black Swan (2010) and Mother! (2017), this research uncovers the director’s ethical themes and suggests their visceral affect on the spectators. It was found that each film challenges a societal stigma or attitude by portraying it from the perspective of those stigmatized or oppressed, depicting extremified consequences of these stigmas. Affective cinema thus encourages Aronofsky’s spectator to live through traumatic embodied experiences of others, like those of drug users, people with mental illness, or a personified Mother Earth, thereby causing adjustment or at least consideration of their own ethical conceptions and subjective experiences. Using aestheticized representation as a tool, cinema in that way may be an effective part of sociopolitical discourse on many different topics, capable of eliciting mass reflection and discussion.

Keywords: phenomenology; Darren Aronofsky; ethics; aesthetics; sociopolitics;

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List of Figures

Figure 1. Still of Marion Silver, caressing Harry Goldfarb in a split scene sequence, taken from Requiem for a Dream (2000)……...…………..………...p. 16 Figure 2. Still of Sara Goldfarb, disoriented in the doctor’s office, taken from Requiem for a Dream (2000)………...p. 19 Figure 3. Still of Harry Goldfarb, being operated on and covered in blood, taken from Requiem for a Dream (2000)………...p. 22 Figure 4. Still of Nina and Lily in the mirror, with Lily moving, taken from Black Swan (2010)………...………...p. 31 Figure 5. Still of Nina's skin, transforming into feathers, taken from Black Swan (2010)………...p. 36 Figure 6. Still of an unknown woman on fire, taken from Mother! (2017)…………...p. 43 Figure 7. Still of the heart of the home, slightly blackened, taken from Mother! (2017)………...p. 45 Figure 8. Still of Mother, violently beaten, taken from Mother! (2017)………...p. 50

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Introduction

“It’s a powerful enough word at the best of times, but the exclamation mark gives it that edge of delirium and melodrama and despair – just the way Norman Bates yells it at the end of Psycho. Or maybe we’re supposed to hear a second, brutal two-syllable word immediately afterwards. Darren Aronofsky’s toweringly outrageous film leaves no gob unsmacked. It is an event-movie detonation, a phantasmagorical horror and black-comic nightmare that jams the narcosis needle right into your abdomen. Mother! escalates the anxiety and ups the ante of dismay with every scene, every act, every trimester, taking us in short order from WTF to WTAF to SWTAF and beyond.”

- Peter Bradshaw, film critic for the Guardian

The critic above speaks of Darren Aronofsky’s film Mother!, a film hotly contested by critics and cinemagoers alike after its 2017 release. Whether they appreciated it or not, the experience of watching the film has been similarly overwhelming for many audience members, making it a prime example of lively affective cinema. It appeals to the senses, affects to the core, as the cinematic techniques are designed to stay with you, physically and mentally, even after the viewing experience has finished.

Aronofsky seems to create his films with the body in mind, aiming to affect. His films, often psychological horror films or thrillers, evoke embodied experiences, as Tarja Laine has extensively argued in her book Bodies in Pain. Each chapter covering a different film, Laine sketches the many ways in which Aronofsky’s cinematic techniques and narrative choices intersect with phenomenology, creating embodied experiences for the spectators through for instance sound, rhythm, or images of the body. Like most, if not all, film-phenomenologists, she studies film as it impacts the spectator in the moment, using the film as a basis to describe sensations as they happen. However, as other scholars have noted, Aronofsky is also one to paint pictures of contemporary human conditions (Skorin-Kapov xiii). He arguably extends his films beyond just the viewing experience to include possibly recognizable political discussions and experiences that resonate with off-screen society, like how to handle drug cultures, or human influences on climate change. In an interview with Time surrounding the release of Mother!, the director said: “I’m an optimist about the future. I think by descending into the dark, you can reveal the light. I hope the movie inspires people to act.” The

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director thereby aims to portray his own (ethical) stances in sociopolitical discussions with his films, seemingly using cinema as a platform to stir up debate and invite a change of perspective or action, for instance in the much debated and stigmatized areas of climate change, drug culture, or mental illness. His films become an encounter not just with the bodily, but also with a politically scrutinized Other like the drug user, the mental illness patient, or Mother Earth, part of disseminating activist messages that climate change is happening, or that people with psychiatric or addiction issues should be helped instead of shunned. Combining the areas of film-phenomenology and (socio)political cinema, one may consider to what extent such political messages are conveyed through the affective techniques of the film. According to film-phenomenologist Vivian Sobchack,

[s]igns of the filmmaker’s situation and stance (quite literally, “attitude”) are, for example, inscribed in and visibly represented by the camera’s stability or movement in relation to the situation that it perceives, in the framing of the object of its vision, in the distance that separates it from the event, in the persistence or reluctance of its gaze in the face of a horrific, chaotic, unjust, or personally dangerous event. [...] [S]/he ethically inhabits a social world, visually responds in and to it, and charges it with an ethical meaning visible to others. (243-244)

Elaborating on this argument with concrete examples, I shall therefore look at three works from Darren Aronofsky’s oeuvre, and analyze how his ethical stances may become evident and palpable through his engagement with affective cinematic strategies. I will suggest how the spectator may be affected by such strategies through bodily response like revulsion, discomfort, or shock, and argue how both film and viewer through this embodied experience become part of a larger sociopolitical discussion as they are encouraged to reflect by the filmmaker. Ultimately, this study will therefore contribute to the extensive body of thought on film-phenomenology, but also, in a broader scholarly sense, aim to illustrate fiction film as an important, informative, and inquisitive part of society. As I will demonstrate through the three films as each engages with a different discussion like climate change, drug culture, or mental illness, cultural products seem to have the capacity to stir political debate, instigate (self-) reflection, and exhibit scenarios for its spectator to sensibly understand. Therefore cinema, with all its affective measures, is arguably a crucial aspect of public debate, with

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the filmmaker in the possible position of both provocateur and moderator, representing what perhaps seems unrepresentable because the issue is too horrific, too far from home, or too repressed by society.

Before going into what each chapter will cover, I will first briefly go over what I mean by film-phenomenology and political cinema. Phenomenology has been a popular area of film philosophy over the past two decades, after having previously been dismissed as subjective, or lacking scholarly validity (Sobchack 56-57). According to Julian Hanich and Christian Ferencz-Flatz, the definition of film-phenomenology may be formulated as “an attempt that describes invariant structures of the film viewer’s lived experience when watching moving images in a cinema or elsewhere” (13). The field moves from a rationality-based analytic approach towards film scholarship, such as cognitivism or psychoanalysis, to a more sense based approach, discussing how the styles and techniques of a film affect the spectator. Viewers are in the world, and experience film through their bodies and their minds together, or through their lived

body as Vivian Sobchack aptly names it (1). The film experience is then an embodied

experience, as one feelingly uses their prior experiences of the world to instantaneously react to or understand what is happening on screen with emotions and responses expressed through the body. Sobchack’s thoughts, as well as the subsequent writings of many other film-phenomenologists, are based on Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a philosopher who was interested in the phenomenology of perception and first published his work on this topic in 1945. He built on philosopher Husserl’s explored phrase ‘intentionality’, which indicates that consciousness is always directed at something through the perceiver’s frame of mind (Husserl 200). Merleau-Ponty includes a more bodily focused perspective, arguing intentionality to be immediate and sense-based, structured by bodily responses rather than just a rationalizing train of thought (Phenomenology of

Perception 159-161). Through man’s past and current experiences of the world, he

argues, they develop their lived body and come to understand and appropriately respond to symbols, like those portrayed through film (“The Film and the New Psychology” 57). Many film-phenomenologists have since based their own concepts on Merleau-Ponty’s theory, which I will utilize in this thesis and will elaborate on per chapter. They argue which strategies elicit an embodied experience through observation of techniques and styles within film, like rhythm, the abject, or overwhelming noise.

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The development of the lived body is arguably influenced by political cinema in many ways, as politics and ethical dilemmas inform in part what the spectator —and the filmmaker— cares about and responds to. As cinema significantly shapes and disseminates political messages by portraying past, intended, and/or fictionalized political events and the consequences thereof (Molloy and Tzioumakis i), the experiences that the lived body gathers and reacts to are therefore partially constructed by the political influences upon and expressions within cinema. Certainly, cinema cannot be disconnected from its cultural and historical environment; as many New Film Historians have argued, the context in which a film is produced, released and viewed impacts all of these respective areas of filmmaking. One is influenced by many frameworks, which change the meaning of what they view and how they respond to it (Elsaesser “The New Film History” 247; Chapman 39). This is not just the case in documentary film, a medium that may actively and directly interact with politics. Fiction film — and the maker thereof— interacts with its context as well, and through aesthetic means may convey sociopolitical argumentation. It was film theorist Robin Wood who famously argued that fictional horror film might function as an allegory for timely societal fears, in a sense confronting the spectator with threats that hit close to home. Their fear and discomfort erupts from the likeness between film situation and a societal situation in which an Other, like a differing ethnic group or different sexuality, threatens the ‘normality’ of the dominant group (31). The Other is a philosophical term explored by many over time, but generally constitutes “a relation between the selfhood of an ego and the otherness of the other person who comes toward this ego” (Peperzak 22). Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas argues that in an encounter with the Other, one will experience self-reflection, as one gains meaning of the Self through the Other. In a sense, the spectator of a represented Other is invited to consciously contemplate their relation to this Other, and come to ethical conclusions about the Self and that Other (248). Wood contends that the real-life counterpart of a cinematic Other is often collectively repressed as people fear a possible breakdown of social systems, like the patriarchy or capitalism (25), but is brought forward and concretized through cinema. The Other is in a sense directly portrayed and followed, a “return of the repressed” (29), and thereby made visible and possibly understandable for the spectator. Combining these theories by Levinas and Wood, the fear, discomfort and further emotions that are introduced in

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the spectator through horror film monsters and representations of Others seem to have the capacity to stir inner debate and intentional reflection.

According to film-scholars James S. Williams and Douglas Morrey, renowned filmmaker and critic Jean-Luc Godard even feels that filmmakers have a responsibility to combine aesthetics with such ethics to “provide cultural meaning” (J.S. Williams 10-11; Morrey 222). Williams argues that Godard thereby painstakingly focuses on uniting form, content, and context in his films to create metaphors that emotionally and politically engage audiences (10-11), expressing that “beauty can be a symbol of morality” (Downing and Saxton 26). Arguably, Aronofsky does exactly that, combining aesthetics with ethical questioning. Godard however places high emphasis on ‘sensible form’ to represent horrible experiences, meaning that he turns away from aestheticizing for instance the Holocaust in fictional portrayals. An aestheticized, balanced composition of such events is unethical, he contends, as this ‘beautifies’ something that was never beautiful, and thereby may betray those who lived through the horrors and actually saw the lack of beauty. It then becomes a fictionalization that no longer represents the real-life counterpart (Downing and Saxton 26-28). Contrarily, Aronofsky’s films do not shy away from directly confronting his audiences with aestheticized affective imagery and fictional representation of horrors and the associated sensations. His films go into the extreme discomforts and injustices related to sociopolitical issues, aesthetically and emotionally overwhelming audiences to bring about ethical argumentation, rather than carefully implying horror and avoiding fictionalization. Thereby, as this thesis will argue, Aronofsky’s films confront one with the director’s interpretation of an Other through an embodied experience of their lives and perspectives, the aesthetics contributing to ethical reflection rather than trivializing what they represent. Methods of Affection Throughout this thesis, I shall make use of different phenomenological concepts and arguments as established by film-phenomenologists to analyze three films from Aronofsky’s oeuvre, and make this argument. By analyzing how he affects his audience with his film, I want to suggest the different ethical stances he thereby asks his audiences to consider, ultimately arguing that it is through embodied experiences evoked by aesthetics that spectators are invited to take part in sociopolitical and ethical

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discussions. My methods are therefore grounded in concrete observations of form and style and their possible affect as I experience them myself and as they have been outlined by film-phenomenologists. When referring to the ‘spectator’ or ‘viewer’ within this thesis, I thereby refer to my own sensations, but by analyzing the possible reasons for these sensations as found in the aesthetics of the films, I extend these sensations to cover a larger audience. At the same time, the ‘spectator’ that I refer to is also somewhat the ‘implied spectator’: a cinematic counterpart to the ‘implied reader’ as originally developed by Wolfgang Iser, the implied spectator may be seen as the ideal hypothetical construct of a viewer, who is meant to view the film, appreciate its content and aesthetics according to the intended themes and morals, and respond appropriately (Holub 562; Plantinga 249-250). Aronofsky’s intentions and political stances as I inferred them may not always resonate with or be interpreted as such by the actual spectator, meaning that some, if not all, of the analyses I do within this thesis assume that the spectator does understand and experience as predicted. Ultimately, my analyses will suggest how the experiences gained by the films urge this spectator to reflect beyond the viewing experience, as one is able to relate the events of the film to their own lives through confrontation, realization, or objection, as enforced by aesthetics. I shall therefore rely on a synthesis between phenomenological scholarly work, and theories from more sociologically and/or politically focused film scholars, including those that have researched the specific ethical discussions that Aronofsky attempts to make his films part of.

My first chapter will focus on Requiem for a Dream. This 2000 film displays the experience of drug addiction, following four different characters as they each deal with the devastating consequences of their own substance abuse. I will argue that this film aims to challenge stigmas surrounding drug users —which sociology scholars have indicated to be, for instance, the idea that addicts have inherent moral shortcomings or are solely to blame for the continuation of their addiction (Barry et al. 1271)— by presenting their experiences as similar to the corrupted processes of Baudrillard’s

simulacra. The simulacrum is an artificial experience that removes and/or corrupts any

sense of profound reality (2), in other words masking that there once was a reality that was ‘good’, ‘beneficial’ or perhaps even ‘happy’. The simulacrum traps one in a lesser version of this reality, which comes with many downfalls and is difficult to escape: like drug addiction removes any sense of actual happiness and causes the addict to always

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crave the artificial version of it. In Requiem for a Dream, this artificial corruption is depicted through affective cinematic techniques, influencing the spectator almost as if they were a drug user who experiences their trips and cravings. Ultimately, the film portrays the almost agential powers of addiction as the addicts’ willpower is slowly removed and they become dependent on the simulacra to provide them with happiness and profoundness.

My reading of this first film will be supported by the engagement with several phenomenological concepts as previously set out by film-phenomenologists. Most of all, I will consider Vivian Sobchack’s concept of the lived body, which is a term I already mentioned and that will come back throughout all three chapters. Sobchack emphasized the encounter between film and spectator as a dialectical relationship, with two entities sharing an experience (82). She describes how one creates an understanding of the world through sensate experiences (59), to a point that aligns with the premise of this thesis: “movies provoke us in the ‘carnal thoughts’ that ground and inform more conscious analysis” (60). The spectator learns from as well as understands experiences through their lived body, making film an intentional, embodied experience. In Requiem

for a Dream, the lived body is addressed through familiar, yet intensified emotions. The

spectator in the simulacra of the drug trip goes from extreme euphoria, to alienation, to intense misery. Especially the latter two experiences firstly intersect with Julia Kristeva’s abject, in which the spectator is presented with the inside of the body coming outwards, through open wounds, protruding disfigured bones, or painful-looking purple bruises. This results in one feeling confronted with their own vulnerable mortal body, which manifests in a sensation that includes the entire body: goosebumps, revulsion, etc. (3). Secondly, they relate to the phenomenological concept of rhythm; the body has natural rhythms which the spectator inherently embodies, like breathing or the heartbeat, and which may be simulated or disrupted by the film’s text (Lefebvre 20). Through rhythm or arrhythmia, the spectator flows with the film or feels uncomfortable as artificial rhythms are introduced, significantly influencing the filmic experience through the body (Laine 63-64).

My second chapter covers Aronofsky’s 2010 psychological thriller Black Swan. This film deals with a different sociopolitical topic: mental illness. With preconceptions prevailing about the need to take social distance from people with psychiatric disorders (Parcesepe and Cabassa 6; Link et al. 1332), Black Swan sketches a highly subjective

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experience of a ballerina dealing with and breaking under the pressures of not just her surroundings, but also her own embodied, distorted mind. The film in a way sensitizes viewers to mental illness by having them experience the alienating and frightening process of an extreme combination of schizophrenia (in which one loses their sense of reality), dissociative identity disorder (in which one experiences multiple personality states within themselves), body dysmorphia (in which one experiences part of their appearance to be extremely flawed and compulsively tries to hide or fix it) and more. One is then arguably encouraged to understand different forms of mental illness, having sensibly experienced them through their affected body, contributing to larger conversations about the position and treatment of those affected by psychological issues.

This chapter will again be supported by phenomenological concepts. I will use a concept I termed periphery in this chapter, to indicate how movement at the edge or beyond the frame has the capacity to elicit an embodied sensation of horror or dread. As Merleau-Ponty has pointed out, cinematic images are as much defined by what is visible as by what is not visible, with units in absence palpable (Signs 20-21). The periphery in

Black Swan then functions to portray a lurking societal oppression that comes both

from others, trying to maintain the norms of society, and from the self, through shame or ignorance. The film thereby highlights how the dominant ideologies of society reject the mentally ill, preferring social distance or oppression over recognition of their illness and their expressions of the self (Parcesepe and Cabassa 6; Link et al. 1332). Furthermore, the depiction of the physical again elicits responses from the spectator in this film, and teaches them about an invisible illness. It becomes visible and palpable through Kristeva’s abject, but also intersects with for instance Laura Marks’ haptic

visuality and Maxine Sheets-Johnstone’s ideas on the phenomenology of dance. Marks

discusses how cinema itself has a skin in the way images are haptically portrayed, with visuals of smooth or rough surfaces, the textures evoking tantalizing skin sensations in the spectator and thereby interacting with the visual (xi). The textures and movement in Black Swan elicit the sensation of transforming subjectivity in the differences between the beginning of the film and the end of the film, as arguably brought about by an almost agential mental illness: main character Nina, White Swan-like, innocent and graceful, transforms into the Black Swan, passionate and corrupted, and the feathers sprouting from her skin emphasize this transformation. Sheets-Johnstone goes into the

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language of the body, with emotions conveyed through the physical and sensual movement of dance and choreography. The pieces in Black Swan as performed by Nina are arguably tied to her mental illness, expressed through the choreography that she performs with her body, portraying her increasingly changing subjectivity.

My last chapter will focus on Aronofsky’s latest film Mother! (2017). As I already mentioned, audience members experienced this film as intense, with some claiming to be overwhelmed in a positive sense, while others’ disgust turned them away from embracing the film and its messages (Epstein). Aronofsky attempted to make the film an allegory for climate change, a phenomenon still denied as valid by many people (Lewandowsky et al. 1). In rapid progression, the spectator is taken through the violent history and possible apocalyptic future of Earth, their senses overwhelmed and their agency stripped away like it is for main character Mother. They are thus placed in the shoes of a personified earth, feeling the consequences as their own and other human actions are portrayed extremely by the characters on the screen, and intensified through affective cinematic techniques.

In this last chapter, I shall engage with the concepts of physicality and rhythm. The prior intersects again with Kristeva’s abject, but also considers how Earth is personified and aligned with the spectator through other images and sensations of the bodily, appealing to the lived body. For instance, Davina Quinlivan discussed the sensation of breath going in and out of the body as mirrored and affective through imagery or sound, subconsciously reminding the spectator of the boundaries between life and death, and therefore evoking a physical, sometimes suffocating response (8). Both the character Mother and the animate house indicate life in this sense, with a focus on their breath and heartbeat. Additionally, I will again discuss Lefebvre’s rhythm to indicate how the film progressively overwhelms the bodily rhythm of the spectator as Mother and the house are overwhelmed. This section will intersect with Julian Hanich’ concept cinematic shock: sudden (ar)rhythmic affect has the ability to make the spectator aware of themselves and others in their position in the film theatre. An audible gasp or creeping sensation across the body transports one between the film world and the real world, making one self-conscious of their physicality in general and as related to the other viewers (“Cinematic Shocks” 582). In Mother!, a large succession of these shocks occur, rhythmically punctuating horrifying events until they overpower the spectator, making them intensely aware of their own horrified bodily sensations.

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Although Hanich does not really delve into this subject, keeping his analysis purely focused on the experience itself (“Cinematic Shocks” 585), one could arguably take the step from being self-aware in the cinema to being self-aware of their own relation towards the content of the film, and thereby the sociopolitical discussions that are related to both film and spectator, i.e. climate change and the human influences thereupon. This is provided the spectator is aware of Aronofsky’s intentions and/or reads this in the film. In any case, reflection is aided by shock and sensation.

The three chapters function together to provide examples of the kinds of sociopolitical dilemma’s Aronofsky engages with, and the different affective techniques that allow for a confrontation between the spectator and these dilemma’s. Film and filmmaker thereby become mediators of discussion, the former used as a tool of expression and representation of topics at the heart of the latter. Like other political works of art, Aronofsky’s cinema is thereby a compelling act of sociopolitical expression, intentional and affective, and a powerful voice through artistic means.

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Chapter One

Requiem for a Dream

“I love you, Harry. You make me feel like a person.” - Marion Silver (played by Jennifer Connelly) in Requiem for a Dream (2000) Unfortunately, this feeling does not last. Instead, Requiem for a Dream portrays how four people lose their sense of personhood in their quest for drugs, chasing a continuous high to make everything feel right in the world. Director and co-screenwriter Aronofsky’s second feature film follows Harry Goldfarb, his girlfriend Marion, his best friend Tyrone and his mother Sara. Each character goes from a state of bliss to a state of misery, craving drugs and dealing with the highly painful and affective consequences of addiction. Harry loses his arm to his heroin addiction, the same addiction that leads Tyrone and himself to jail. Promising young designer Marion ends up selling her body for heroin money to quench her desperation. And attention-craving Sara takes so many amphetamines in her quest to lose weight before appearing on television, that she loses all sense of reality and ends up in a psychiatric ward. The film leaves no miserable end unexplored, leaving the spectator with a sense of distress, affected by the fates of the four characters through the film’s famously intense manner of editing.

Unsurprisingly, Requiem for a Dream has already been studied extensively within film scholarship since its release in 2000. The themes of desire and desperation provided interesting starting points for psychoanalytic readings (for instance by Paul Eisenstein), and the high-speed experimental editing techniques caused a stir in casual cinemagoers and film scholars alike, resulting in analyses from film-formalists (e.g. Lara Thompson) to film-phenomenologists (e.g. Tarja Laine). Important to note, however, is that the film has also transcended the scholarly field of cinema, becoming part of discourse within the fields of addiction and psychology. Psychologist Allison Mitchell for instance exemplified how an alteration of self-conception may lead to rehabilitation from addiction by using the film. In other words, she uses the characters to discuss how a change in attitude towards the self, and seeing oneself as a capable, self-aware, and most importantly intentionally active being may be instrumental in the road to recovery

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from addiction. Alternatively, medical scholar António Pais de Lacerda explored how medical students may gain insights on addiction through films like Requiem for a Dream, concluding with the argument that such films may stimulate interest in addiction and therefore could be used as educational support. It is important to note that the film has been used in such debates, as it marks that it has become part of professional, but also sociopolitical discourse, illustrating the influence of culture on societal debates. I therefore wish to position this chapter as an extension of what has already been said, building on film-phenomenologist Tarja Laine’s work on the techniques used within in the film to affect the spectator, incorporating a take on how the spectator may carry such affect with them to influence sociopolitical thought regarding addiction in society.

Indeed, it seems that Aronofsky aimed to create a larger understanding around the concept ‘addict’, inviting his audience in the cinematic language of the film to live through the embodied motions of addiction. In an interview with Salon Media Group, he said the following: “The Harry-Tyrone-Marion story is a very traditional heroin story. But putting it side by side with the Sara story, we suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, what is a drug?’ (...) Ultimately the film is about the lengths people will go to escape their realities, and what happens when you chase after a fantasy.” I would argue that the director thereby ethically engages with his audience, asking them to feel the humanity and universality of addiction situations, while also pointing out the devious entrapments of addiction. Requiem for a Dream invites conscious consideration of the ways in which one becomes and stays addicted rather than judgment, seemingly aiming to subvert sociopolitical stigmas and misconceptions about the topic — stigmas that include the blameworthiness and inherent moral shortcomings of the drug user (Barry et al. 1271) and the notion that the representation of drug use is harmful as it might glorify addiction and inspire people to take drugs (Rinke 47). To do so, the film extends the definition of addict; besides amphetamines, heroin, and cocaine, the characters seem addicted to a non-existent and unreachable, but universal ideal, the idea of a future enlightened state of happiness they seem to try and mimic with drugs. The film’s progression from summer to fall to winter portrays how their dreams slowly shift, the end goals progressively moving from idealistic productive achievements promising happiness towards finding a ‘quick fix’, a high that in a sense allows them to feel their desired state of living, but in reality is only short-lived and miserable, leaving them to crave more. Such desires for an ‘American Dream’ may resonate with the spectator as

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they sensibly experience the transition from hope to craving the wrong thing, but may also urge them to reflect on their own understanding of addiction within society. As such, Aronofsky and his film function as debate and reflection starters in a sociopolitical context.

Basing each section on the progressively different degrees of simulacra as stated by Jean Baudrillard, I will describe the progress that the spectator makes in their understanding of addiction, as the filmic language pushes one to reconsider this continuously. Baudrillard argues that in the postmodern world, a ‘profound reality’ is being replaced by an imitation of it, to the point where it replaces the real (2). The copy no longer bears a relation to what it originally was, and the artificial instead takes over, leaving one with a simulacrum, a corrupted and perverse version of this reality. In

Requiem for a Dream, the drugs arguably create such a simulacrum, removing the

characters from their profound futures that require meaningful work to reach, and leaving them with the misery of craving the artificial, short-lived high, which the spectators live through in terms of aesthetics. Baudrillard’s simulacra are set up in different stages, called orders (83), which I will use to interpret the different stages of addiction as portrayed in the film:

1. The counterfeit is the reflection of a profound reality: with the first order of simulation, Baudrillard describes pure reality and counterfeit, with their relation simple and openly displayed. The counterfeit is close to the original, yet is always marked as a duplicate, with reference to the real (84-85). In the summer section of Requiem for a Dream, this stage is reflected: the drugs cause a sensation of euphoria and productivity as the characters work towards their actual goals of enlightened happiness, their profound reality still clearly in sight. The cinematic techniques allow the spectator to experience the excitement with them. In this way, the spectator may see and sense substance use as exciting, feeling the positive effects as a demonstration of why someone might get addicted to drugs in the first place.

2. The counterfeit masks and denatures its profound reality / masks the absence of its

profound reality: Baudrillard’s second order of simulacra marks a shift from the

real to the artificial, where the distinction and relation between the two is not as clear-cut. He argues that with mass or extremely realist production, the counterfeit begins to replace the original, becoming indistinguishable and slowly

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threatening to erase what once was the original (97-98). As the film progresses to the next section of fall, the drugs become more important to the characters and are taken in abundance and out of need, making the film’s language more urgent. The spectator is thus asked to see the downsides of addiction, the cravings, and the manner in which addiction in a sense gains agential powers over the addict’s life. The profound futures slowly drift out of sight and sensation.

3. The counterfeit becomes pure simulacrum, bearing no relation to any original

profound reality anymore, and even preceding the original: in the last order of simulacra, the counterfeit stands alone, functioning as though it is the original,

preceding it in apprehension, and thereby creating an unsettling simulation (100). Baudrillard argues that without origin or reality, this simulation is perverted, corrupted and controlling (43; 153), becoming the “hyper-real” (2). In winter, the agency of the substances fully overpowers the subjectivity of the characters, and through the affective editing, also the spectator. Now the spectator is immersed into the misery, horrifyingly experiencing the most extreme effects and consequences of addiction, while the characters have completely abandoned their profound futures, and fall for the corruptive highs of the drugs.

Together these sections affectively portray the experience of being a drug addict and invite the spectator to scrutinize their preconceived notions of addiction to include the perception that addiction goes beyond the drugs themselves, being a desperate and ill-founded quest for a dream-like, happy reality that is extremely toxic and difficult to subvert. The stages of the simulacrum as evoked by the film’s aesthetics make the spectator increasingly uncomfortable with the power of addiction, and in that way society’s attitude of shaming drug addicts is challenged. Instead, the spectator is asked who or what else is to blame for addiction. Health institutions? Government policies? The hardships of poverty? Societal norms of success? Trauma? Such questions encourage one to consider the ethics of shunning drug addicts, and instead ask: how may someone be helped, so that they do not end up in the same overwhelmingly miserable situations as these characters?

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Embodied Euphoria

One could see the summer section of the film as the first order of simulacra: plot-wise, each of the characters longs for a ‘profound reality’, and with an air of invincibility and excitement aims to achieve that goal. Harry and Marion want to start a clothing shop and establish a wealthy, passionate and happy future together, Tyrone wants to overcome his poverty and make his mother proud, and Sara wants to fit in her old red dress out of nostalgia, and to be considered beautiful as she appears on her favorite television show. These are dreams, meaning they are an illusion to begin with, but they symbolize a future that would likely sustain each of the characters in terms of money, happiness and overall satisfaction in life. These futures may therefore be comparable to the Baudrillard’s “profound reality”. Chasing this reality, the characters move towards their goal by temporarily dabbling in the counterfeit: drugs. Ecstatic about their futures, they artificially pep themselves up, using the substances as a gateway to what they hope to be the real one day, constantly keeping their goals in mind. There is a clear relation between the counterfeit and the real; one does not replace the other, there is still a movement towards and appreciation of the ideal and real, but drugs function as intermittent to stimulate dreaming about the real and experience artificial happiness, since the real at this point is unattainable. The counterfeit is in this sense represented as likely harmless, an adequate reflection of a profound high.

In this first section of the film, the spectator is drawn into the characters’ excitement and positive highs through the hyped editing techniques, mimicking the somewhat profound simulation that the drugs provide. This for instance happens in the time-lapse sequences, like when the young people party in Marion and Harry’s kitchen. The drugs give energy, making the shot palpable with adrenaline, while also introducing a carefree, spontaneous vibe as the characters laugh and go about their day, moving about the space as the camera does not move at all. Through the quick pace of movement within the frame, the elated music and productive sounds, and confident and engaging attitudes of the characters’ bodies, the spectator’s lived body similarly experiences a positive response to the drugs. The experience evolves in front of their eyes, playing with one’s sense of time and adrenaline as though they, too, are on a drug like amphetamines. David Lenson has argued that it is such sensation of time and space that marks a pleasurable drug trip, calling it a “modification of the structure of

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perception” (73). Instead of experiencing the oppressive burden of seemingly slow-passing yet aging-process-triggering linear time, energizing drugs like XTC or amphetamines introduce a sense of productivity and youth, as time feels deconstructed and loses its seamlessness, its boring continuity (37; 73). This is what the spectators experience through the cinematic techniques as well; the accelerated experiences function as energetic fragments of the character’s lives, palpably displaying how the artificially stimulated summer passes. When the characters come off their highs, the experience is still pleasurable as well, with time momentarily slowing down in a serene and soft way, a necessity between the hyped-up moments. As Harry and Marion are alone, a split screen sequence reveals the slow caress of the bodies as they talk about their relationship and dreams of the future (see fig. 1). Their mutual caressing of the other’s skin entices the skin of the spectator, allowing one to see the romantic bond in the middle of their drug use. It becomes like Laura Mark’s haptic visuality, an intimate, erotic and embodied manner of looking (85-86), showing nothing yet of the supposed crushing cravings that come with addiction.

The hip-hop montage that accompanies the taking of the pills is also still fresh at this point, and therefore marks excitement for both the characters and the spectator. This montage is an extremely close-up and quickly edited sequence of the methods and consequences of taking the drug; pills on the palm of a hand and a popping sound as the hand makes quick contact with the lips to transfer the pills, or the crunching of marijuana leaves, distributed on a small sheet of paper, the closing of the plastic baggie and lips releasing a cloud of smoke. The shots follow each other in rapid succession, and mark specifically that the body is in a state of change, of energy, of ecstasy. In the middle of summer, one extended hip-hop sequence shows how Harry and Tyrone are making money with their drugs business, while Marion progresses further and further with her designs, all while under the influence themselves. The shots are close, quick paced, often even sped up, blurring what must be a longer experience as money is piled into a shoe box, and a Figure 2. Still of Marion Silver, caressing Harry Goldfarb in a split

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sewing machine quickly stitches more and more fabric. Several scholars have established the relationship between rhythm and emotion, arguing that they are guided similarly by affective elements as regularity or irregularity, alertness or weariness, pleasantness or unpleasantness and many more opposite pairs of variables (Keller and Schubert 142), with the emotive body responding rhythmically and organically to outer stimuli (Prinz 163). During the hip-hop montages of summer, the spectator thus cannot get around the euphoria of the situation as stimulus, and through the rhythmic focus on bodily movement and intensified sounds of productivity and ecstasy feels such excitement in their own bodies. The drugs thereby mark a positive future, a gateway to the dream: one is temporarily released from the notion that drugs are inherently bad, as the spectator through their lived body understands that the characters receive pleasure and a lack of pressure from passing time in the simulation. In that way, it is possible to imagine how one may become addicted to the pleasurable sensations, introducing a sense of rationality and humanity to the concept of ‘addict’.

Loss of Agency

As fall arrives however, the film seemingly moves into the second order of

simulacra, where the distinction between the original and the counterfeit slowly

becomes distorted. The characters now become addicts, realizing that they need the drugs as much as they enjoy them; the craving for the high is now placed on the same level as the craving for a brighter future, and the drugs threaten to take over the dream, shifting the character’s motivating factors in life. They not only lose their profound reality, but also their profound selves. Harry and Marion begin to lose some of their bodily connection, as instead of touching each other for comfort they are now continuously on opposite ends of the room, bickering over drugs and money, and driving each other to corrupted actions like dangerous drug deals or even forms of prostitution. Meanwhile, Sara slowly loses her sense of reality and happiness, her frantic and addicted state of mind cutting off connections with her neighbors as she battles her drug-induced hallucinations all alone.

This downgrade in euphoria is also depicted in the film aesthetics, shifting the spectator’s visceral connection with the film from feeling euphoria to feeling alienation, realizing a sense of abjection, or disconnection, from the norms of society. Fall starts with a blood-covered, screaming Tyrone, running from gunshots. This scene is

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fast-

paced, but in no way like the euphoric time-lapses of summer. The camera alternates between being right on his face as he runs and point of view shots, the frame shaking from being hand-held, the background moving fast behind him, reflecting the panic and confusion he feels emotionally. Loud, overwhelming gunshots, police sirens and dogs barking follow him, while dramatic, almost melancholic music plays, reminding the viewer of the titular requiem: one now has to mourn the loss of the dream. Emotionally, the spectator similarly wants to shout ‘what the fuck’ as Tyrone runs, dramatically confronted with the danger of drug trafficking rather than the euphoria associated with drug use. The relationship between the viewer and the characters changes, as the latter suddenly become abject heroes: basing his concept on Julia Kristeva’s abjection, in which one’s repulses at corporeal substances coming out of the body, Thomas Elsaesser has argued that these are unlikeable heroes, rejecting and/or being rejected from the status quo with objectionable character traits and choices. They become abject as they lose their “selfhood”, spit out by the norms of society (“Double Occupancy and Small Adjustments” 125). Tyrone in this scene quite literally portrays the abject: the blood on his face makes the sight of him uncomfortable, as he has violently burst from his euphoric, invincible state of being. The spectator is now face to face with his fragile mortality, and according to Kristeva’s theory their own (3). The promising vibes of his future fortune have subsided, and make room for the consequences of utilizing the artificial, the simulacrum, in the place of the original. Elsaesser argues that it is precisely

abject heroes that indicate to the spectator “what it means to be human”, displaying the

flaws of society and subjectivity ((“Double Occupancy and Small Adjustments” 125). Extending this argument, one could consider that the abject hero status of Requiem for a

Dream’s characters thus allows one to see the humanity in the drug addict and the

deviousness of addiction, as they have come to know the characters and understand their abjection from society. In this manner, the stigma of a blameworthy addict is challenged, and the spectator has gained a better understanding of addiction through feeling, which can be reflected upon in subsequent sociopolitical thought.

Throughout fall, the cinematic aesthetics indicate an extreme decrease in the characters’ agency, affecting the spectator’s increasing discomfort with the simulacra and subsequent understanding of addiction. The power balance seemingly shifts from the ‘natural’ physical beings, the humans, to the simulacra, the drugs; the characters no

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longer seem in control of how and when to take the drugs, but instead become fearful of and subjected to the power of the artificial substances. Philip Fisher argues that: [w]hat is feared defines for us the very opposite of all that we will or choose or desire, and for that reason it is the negation of our own self-understanding. With fear, we are the victim or the potential victim of something coming towards us in the world, something that undermines, for at least the moment, our capacity to think ourselves as agents. (15)

In fall, both the characters and the spectator are suddenly confronted with the consequences of the drug use, an element that was never desired, and that negates the idyllic intentions they first had. Instead, they are now subjected to the drugs, through fear of losing their happiness losing their ability to see themselves as intentional agents able to resist the drugs. This lack of agency is conveyed through the way in which the drug trips are now portrayed. The aesthetics and cinematic form become restless and fearful rather than ecstatic. Sara for instance visits the doctor to seek some form of help with the unpleasant effects she experiences with taking the drugs. This scene is shot with a fish-eye lense, enlarging Sara’s head as the people in the doctor’s office move around her. The scene speeds up, and then slows down again, ultimately breaking the scene in two: an unhinging tension occurs between the slow-moving Sara and fast-moving doctor. In this moment, the spectator

experiences the scene as though through the intoxicated Sara’s perspective. There is no control over the situation as the drugs dictate perception; Sara is a separate, affected entity from the rest of the world, seemingly fragile and

frightened. One experiences a shock as there is suddenly a loud bang, which, in a moment of mental subjectivity, only Sara (and the spectator) can hear. In this moment, Sara’s face in a distorted and uncomfortably proximate manner approaches the camera (see fig. 2). The scene feels ‘off’ as the drugs gain control over Sara’s consciousness, and

Figure 2. Still of Sara Goldfarb, disoriented in the doctor’s office, taken from Requiem for a Dream (2000)

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through cinematic techniques, the spectator is pulled into this process. They too feel disturbed, viscerally experiencing the unhinging effects of drug use.

It is in this moment as well that the spectator becomes especially operative as a witness. Ed Tan first described this experience, explaining that the spectator feels empathetic emotion for the protagonist’s situation, observing through the shots as though the camera is their own eyes moving about the scene, as though they are there as invisible entities. However, the witness is unable to act upon these emotions, leading to virtual action tendencies: a readiness to jump into action and participate (17). Building on this theory, I would argue that the spectator could gain a form of ethical consciousness in their role as witness, prompted by their emotional involvement with the situation. In the doctor’s scene this could be explained as following: Sara asks for help in the doctor's office, having seen her refrigerator move —another indicator that the personified addiction is taking over Sara’s subjectivity, as she hallucinates outward units to physically threaten her into submission— yet the doctor does not care. The spectator palpably experiences that Sara needs help, the filmic language evoking awareness of her embodied mental state as being overpowered by the drugs, yet in this moment, when she asks for help, it is not given to her. In this moment, anger may rise in the spectator: for the injustice they see, for the fragility of this lady they experience through affective techniques, and for the helplessness they themselves are in. As a witness, they are unable to act upon their virtual action tendency, but such tendencies may plant a seed. The spectator emotionally comes to understand the helplessness of addiction situations, as the drugs gain agency and the healthcare systems overpower their initial calls for help. The feeling of frustration and fear that subsequently arises in the spectator may be instrumental in the spectator’s ethical, sociopolitical thought on addiction beyond the viewing experience, redirecting the blame from the addict’s morality to society’s (and thereby perhaps their own) ignorant and shaming treatment of addiction. It is not just a lack of restraint on the addicts part that causes and sustains addiction, as is sometimes believed in common discourse on drugs (Barry et al. 1271). Addiction can also be influenced by health care professionals possibly being undereducated or influenced by stigmas or emotional perceptions themselves (van Boekel et al. 97), the psychosocial context in which the individual develops (Steptoe and Hamer 222), and a lack of social support (Steptoe and Hamer 220). Condemnation of the addict’s morality is therefore not the way forward, as studies suggest an addict may

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sooner fight their way out of addiction with an increased impression of their own self worth (Mitchell 221). The spectator is therefore asked to reflect on their own and societal attitude towards addiction, instead of making a snap judgment. Embodied Perversion The spectator’s ordeal is however not over yet: as the film introduces winter, the third order of simulacra is palpable, and arguably the most affective section of the film is about to begin, conceivably truly imprinting the spectator with an ethical understanding of addiction. At this point, the drug induced artificial experience of the world is all the characters experience and care about; the original dreams are vanished, and seem forever unobtainable, while the artificial “happiness”, or high, that the drugs give them is right in front of them. The drugs have created their own simulacrum for the characters, a hyper-real which, like Baudrillard has also argued, is corrupted and perverse, as well as commanding (43; 153). The virtual moments of relief from feeling the weight of the world as granted by the drugs now drive each character to different, but equally miserable corners. They chase their highs until their physiology is no longer able to keep up with the artificial simulacra, and they are forced to give up the bodily, the reality, to succumb to it. Harry quite literally loses an arm as the many heroin needles infected the skin, Marion ‘sells’ her sexual body and integrity for drugs money, Tyrone loses his bodily freedom through incarceration and Sara quite literally loses her health and her mind, the drugs seeping into her every sense of reality. The evil

simulacrum is now full fledged, as it has removed the hopes and dreams for profound

reality.

It is at this point that the film as simulacrum itself also overpowers the spectator. The depiction of each character’s fate follows one another in rapid succession, increasingly faster, more ungraspable and horrifying. The rhythm intensifies until it vibrates in the spectator’s bones, their consciousness is overpowered and they experience the fast-paced hardships of an extremely bad intoxication, the different situations flashing by with nauseating speed. The sensation is completely unlike the experience of euphoria in the summer section: instead of rhythmic comfort, smooth and in line with euphoric emotion, one now feels arrhythmia, which Henri Lefebvre argues is a bodily harmony disrupted, moving towards disease (20). It is as though Aronofsky's film proposes that this is what happens if simulacra become complete, palpably

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conveying the misery the characters are experiencing by overloading the rhythmically disturbed, affective imagery on the spectator. Tarja Laine has extensively looked into the rhythm used in Requiem for a Dream as a means to affect the spectator’s body in her book Bodies in Pain. She argues that rhythm is a crucial part of the film-spectator relationship, as rhythm carries emotion itself, and in this film in particular portrays a clash between a natural rhythm of the body and the artificial rhythm induced by drugs (52). This means that the spectator experiences the bodily rhythm of the characters, the contrasting rhythm the drugs introduce, and the high-paced rhythm of the film itself, resulting in pain and humiliation on an emotional and palpable level, as one is affected by the “painful effects of disturbance in their sensuous relationship with the world, even after the film has finished” (72).

With this rhythmic progression, it is the body in change that comes to the forefront in both the characters and the spectator, marking a physical connection between viewer and film that could have the capacity to last beyond the viewing experience. While the characters surrender their bodies to the simulacrum, in Laine’s terminology transforming their lived-body to a thing-body that is withdrawn from authenticity and thereby open to abuse (48), the spectator gets touch with their own bodily sensations as the horrors evolve. Harry’s arm confronts one again with Kristeva’s literal abject, his bruised wound pulsating from infection and oozing with blood. The depiction of the growing abject repulses the spectator, who can be nothing but horrified as Harry’s feverish head stains his pillow with sweat and the medical saw nears first the camera and then Harry’s flesh, ultimately spraying blood and allowing one to imagine through their lived body the sensations of submitting their fragile human body and losing limbs (see fig.

3). Meanwhile, Marion’s situation portrays graphic sex, a physical submission of the body to the bodies of others. Her physique, covered in beads of sweat, is shot

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aggressive close-ups of her face and lower regions, alternated with images of an unforgiving chanting crowd as her flesh is violated, and the shots almost become both horror film and hard-core pornography at the same time. Requiem for a Dream cannot be categorized as either genre, yet in Marion’s situation it certainly adapts techniques often utilized within them, like imagery of the body and bodily excretion, aimed to draw an embodied response out of the spectator. Linda Williams even calls such horror films and pornography “body genres” (3) 1_{. According to Isabel C. Pinedo, horror films often} adopt sexual imagery in order to slightly arouse the spectator and grab their attention, as this “primes them to react more strongly to other feelings, such as suspense and fear” (347). In the Marion scene, this means that the sexual aspect provokes the spectator, but ultimately, they respond viscerally to the woman’s body as it violated, feeling repulsed and humiliated rather than aroused, because it goes beyond a sensual experience to physical and emotional violence. Such embodied humiliation is even further stressed at the sight of Sara, whose physical body is brutally shocked by a medical team that was supposed to help her. Electricity pulses through both character and spectator as the camera hones in on her pained face, and she contorts, the electronic music emphasizing the horrors.

These different affective strategies collaborate to ultimately overwhelm the spectator, the aural, visual and haptic aspects uniting to leave the spectator seething at the film and the situations of the characters. Important to note is that the film does not resolve these feelings; there is no spring chapter to indicate the emerging of new life, a new start, a new profound reality away from the simulacra. There is no catharsis. Instead, one is metaphorically shown how Harry’s dream ideal has disappeared, and he steps back to fall into the black abyss of the simulacra, while Marion cuddles with her newly acquired money, Tyrone goes through excruciating withdrawals in jail, and Sara’s ultimate dream is portrayed, an unattainable image when seeing the shaved, frail woman in a psychiatric hospital. It is therefore that the spectator is left with the hopelessness of addiction, understanding sensibly the power of addiction and the human agency that gets lost in the process. I would argue that this feeling is 1_{In an interview with Novella Carpenter, Steven Shaviro connected the genres as well: “[Pornography} and horror films] are both visceral. They both are about things happening to human bodies, [and about] having bodies on an intense sensorial level. Part of the point of those films – often precisely because they are exploitative – is to get the audience to react in the same visceral manner as [the bodies] depicted on screen.”

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instrumental in how the spectator carries their understanding of addiction beyond the viewing experience. Cinematic affect in this sense paints a palpable picture, to be used to see addiction in light of the humanity of the addict and the situations that lead them to relentlessly chasing their highs. Ultimately, these situations are what the spectator is asked to reflect on through embodiment. Conclusion As Requiem for a Dream ends, the spectator is left in a state of alarm, affected to the core, and moved to think: how could this process of addiction have been avoided, and how can the addicts be saved? The development of drug addiction has been spelled out in the different sections of the film, allowing for a viscerally understandable experience of what is in essence a disease and how it may escalate, but does not show a way out. The spectator has come to know the characters and experience their highs, but even more expressly their lows, as the film demands reverence in its overwhelming affective powers. In the absence of a spring chapter, the viewer is asked to reflect on the

simulacrum that is caused by addiction to artificial substances and the horrifying

scenarios they experienced: how did these characters get here? The film thereby portrays how one gets addicted to experiencing moments of enlightenment, searching for means away from trauma, from stress, from depression, and especially from the societal pressures of reaching the American Dream. It makes addiction human and perhaps even universal, allowing for Levinas’ meaningful encounter between the Self and the Other (248). It also stresses the help that is necessary to get out of this prison- like simulacrum; the addict cannot escape their fate, as the simulacrum introduces short-term awe-inspiring highs, while chipping away at the willpower to resist and find the profound real high of life. The concept of the simulacrum thus helps one see the evil of the artificial as it is portrayed in Requiem for a Dream, and how it affects to the core, ultimately allowing one to consider the complexities of drug addiction, and the flawed

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Chapter Two

Black Swan

“We open our season with Swan Lake. Done to death I know, but not like this. We strip it down, make it visceral, and real.” - Thomas Leroy (played by Vincent Cassel) in Black Swan As seen in the previous chapter on Requiem for a Dream, Aronofsky has a knack for making his films visceral, like Leroy wants to achieve with his version of the Tchaikovsky ballet. With a fascination for both the mental and the physical aspects of the human existence, he created Black Swan in 2010, attempting to provide an insight in the incredibly tough world of professional ballet dancing. The film, classifiable as a psychological horror, depicts the life of Nina, a professional dancer of the New York City ballet company who is chosen to dance the lead in the season’s Swan Lake performance. Cracking under the pressure of the role, of her overbearing former ballerina mother, and of her borderline sexually abusive artistic director Thomas Leroy, Nina loses her grip on reality, slipping into hallucinations and battling mental illness. This illness is not specified within the film, but seems to be an overwhelming and in reality impossible combination of schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder and body dysmorphia, combining itself into a growing madness. The spectator gets immersed into the aches, pains, and pressures of ballet, experiencing Nina’s terrifyingly distorted mental space. She transforms from White Swan-like, pure, and perfectionist Nina to the corrupted, loose, and raw Black Swan, changing not only in her dance style and outfits, but also with her entire being, physically and mentally. The film thereby visually and sensibly portrays mental illness as evoked by social and psychological pressure, testing the boundaries of reality and sanity in a visceral manner.

The imagery of the film is riddled with doubles, mirror images, and distorted parent-child relationships. It is therefore unsurprising that many scholars have already analyzed Black Swan through psychoanalytic and cognitivist frameworks by for instance looking into its depiction of doppelgängers, mirroring and deep desires (Christiansen 309; Stephenson 65). Psychologists also tackled the film, discussing the psychological disorders portrayed. Although schizophrenia is suggested, the researchers state the

Embodied Ethics: a Phenomenological Analysis of Darren Aronofsky’s Sociopolitical Themes as Conveyed Through Three Films

Embodied Ethics:

a Phenomenological Analysis of Darren

Aronofsky’s Sociopolitical Themes as

Conveyed Through Three Films

Veerle Bovens

Abstract

Table of Contents

List of Figures ... v

Introduction ... 1

Chapter One: Requiem for a Dream ... 11

Chapter Two: Black Swan ... 25

Chapter Three: Mother! ... 40

Conclusion ... 54

Works Cited ... 57