WARNING: MINOR TO MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!
1. Sarah Goldfarb’s Kitchen Table Monologue – REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000)
I have to admit, this number one spot really means a lot to me. Not only is it my favorite moment in any Aronofsky film, the absolutely heart-wrenching monologue Ellen Burstyn gives to her son Harry (Jared Leto) at the dinner table in REQUIEM FOR A DREAM is my favorite part in what I deem one of the top five best female performances ever recorded. Call it hitting close to home, or a sad sense of nostalgia, whatever. When Sarah Goldfarb, who’s resorted to prescription drug abuse as way to cling to her own past (fitting into her red dress for TV), explains to Harry how alone she’s become since the death of her husband…well, I become transfixed every time I watch it. In fact, when I see this scene, I usually call my own mother shortly after. Profoundly touching, universally true, marvelously played…I have an extremely hard time reconciling the fact Julia Roberts mined Oscar gold for Erin Brockovich when this scene alone is ten-fold the quality of that entire picture. On second thought, I’m glad she didn’t win…f*ck the Oscars. I love Ellen Burstyn in this scene!
2. Tom Creo’s Final Death Transformation – THE FOUNTAIN (2006)
Sure we’re in the minority, but I know for a fact both John “The Arrow” Fallon and I absolutely love the achievement Aronofsky put forth with THE FOUNTAIN, his third feature film. Extremely ambitious, often panned as arty indulgence, there’s no better example of what an elegiac ode to death the film is than the final “death transformation” sequence that comes at the film’s visually stunning climax. When Tom Creo (Hugh Jackman) finally comes to realize the only way he can eternally unite with his dead wife Izzy is to die himself, a spiritual journey concludes in such a beautiful way – both emotionally and visually – I’m getting chills just writing about it. Seeing those astral, micro-chemical showers set to Clint Mansell’s heart-tugging score…watching Tom Creo cosmically realize his fate is one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen caught on celluloid.
3. Randy The Ram’s Final Ring Appearance – THE WRESTLER(2008)
With a highly naturalistic, tour-de-force comeback performance by Mickey Rourke in THE WRESTLER, Aronofsky’s fourth feature film, we fall in love with the actor all over again in the same way do for many of our favorite 80s wrestling icons. With a raw, verite style…Rourke is shown as a beaten man…physically, financially, emotionally. With an estranged daughter and a like-minded stripper as his only real human contacts, it is the final decision Randy “The Ram” that truly resonates. Now, I suppose there’s not much debate in what eventually happens to the Ram when he leaps from that top rope in the closing scene. But honestly, whether or not Randy’s heart gives out isn’t the point. The fact that he was ready to die…or at least at peace with the prospect of it…in the one place he felt the safest, most alive… the ring. That is the point. Outside the ring he had nothing, inside the ring he had everything…and that he was willing to die for the latter, is what it’s all about!
4. Randy & Stephanie Reconcile – THE WRESTLER (2008)
Seriously, is there a better actress in her generation than Evan Rachel Wood? A few come close, but can’t really touch her, can they? Well, Darren Aronofsky certainly recognized this, wisely casting her opposite the formidable Mickey Rourke in THE WRESTLER. Now, I honestly wish Wood had more scenes too chew on, but it is Rourke’s film…and frankly, if she had more scenery, she might have flat outshone the Oscar contender. That being said, it’s the incredibly intimate moment the two actors share late in the film…a stripped down father-daughter confrontation over their past and potential future. As Randy “The Ram” seeks his daughter Stephanie’s forgiveness, a vulnerable exchange between the two on the Jersey shores of Asbury Park. A well rounded scene that taps into the full spectrum of human emotion.
5. Harry & Marion in Bed – REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000)
Have you ever seen a sadder form of disillusionment than drug addled “lovers”? If you have, I suggest giving the bedroom scene between Harry (Jared Leto) and Marion (Jennifer Connelly) in REQUIEM FOR A DREAM another whirl. What can easily be construed as a young filmmakers pretension, or even a heavy handed metaphor, anyone who’s truly known this world knows how true it rings. The set up? The two young lovers, during the highest of highs a drug-binge can incur, they face each other on a bed and whisper sweet nothings to each other, professing false love as if they think they mean it. The way Aronofsky shoots the scene, in split-screen, is a great way to show the sad reality of the situation. Here these two are, physically so close, yet emotionally so distant. They share the same shot (visually), but are fractured and isolated in their own frame…completely detached from one another.
6. Marion’s Double Dildo Scene – REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000)
As if Keith David playing a sleazed-off dope peddler isn’t unsettling enough, the measures Aronofsky takes to make Jennifer Connelly utterly revolting is quite a coup. We all know the set-up. In the manic final reel of Aronofsky’s REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, how low a person will go in order to feed their addiction has never been more foul and repugnant than what Connelly’s character endures. Namely, a seedy girl-on-girl exhibition in front of dozens of horned-out pervs, where Connelly’s Marion is reduced to trading nasty dildo pumps with another broad. You remember it…on her knees, hoisted on a table as if a sporting event, the sweaty, unflattering lighting Connelly is under…the look of humility and degradation etched on her face as she’s become nothing more than an objectified sex slave…that shite is so well done I almost kicked drugs on the spot!
7. Tom Creo Doing Tai Chi Across a Starry Background – THE FOUNTAIN (2006)
Alright, so this is really more of a shot I greatly admire than an actual scene or sequence of events…but it’s one I often think about for some reason. It’s probably a testament to Aronofsky’s visual panache and the staying power therein. Anyway, the shot in question takes place in the first half hour of Aronofsky’s iniquitously underrated THE FOUNTAIN, and arrives in the deep-space-future triangle of the narrative. When Hugh Jackman’s Tom Creo is early introduced, we see the motherfucker bustin’ some slow-mo Tai Chi, in silhouette, against a starry backdrop. Mystical, hypnotic, ethereal, just downright cool…I’ve never really heard a satisfactory take on why this shot exists in the movie. Oh wait, the shot falls under the DVD chapter title “The Last Man” (or is at least set to the Clint Mansell song of the same name) and wouldn’t you know it, one of the meanings of Tai Chi translates to “Ultimate.” Booya!
8. Max Cohen Finds the Number 216 – PI (1998)
As far as visceral terror is concerned, the sequence toward the end of Aronofsky’s searing, kinetic feature debut – PI – probably ranks as high as #2 on our list (hint, Maid Marion takes the cake). With very little dialogue, grating synth-sounds and a brooding atmosphere…this is the final undoing of Max Cohen…manic mathematician extraordinaire. In a mad-dash of exhaustion, paranoia and mental imbalance, Max has reached his width’s end. He hears the lustful refrain of his neighbors echoing through his brain, chanting his own chorus of “Fuck You, Fuck You” while jamming some kind of air gun up to a (real or imaginary) growth on the side his head. The way Aronofsky comports the scene, the sounds he uses, the flickering light work, the stark angles…visually speaking, it’s really the closest thing to a horror movie on our list. The scene concludes with a fade to white as Max discovers the number 314 in the middle of his 216 digit number.
9. Randy The Ram’s Match with Necro Butcher – THE WRESTLER (2008)
As an 80s child who fervently watched the Worldwide Wrestling Federation, how the hell could I ever omit one of the more nostalgic, not to mention brutal and barbarous, parts in Aronofsky’s docu-style drama THE WRESTLER? I couldn’t…so I shan’t. In one of The Ram’s more esteemed comeback bouts, we see the roided-up “broken down piece of meat” square off with Necro Butcher, a gigantic, bearded man in overalls never to be trifled with. Well, unless you’re Ram…who resorts to slicing his forehead with a razor blade in order sell the ass whipping all the more. Grittily shot with 16mm, Aronofsky puts you right in the ring with the Ram…and as emotionally battered as we’ve seen him reveal to be early on, we now see what extreme physical torment the man subjects himself to in order to please a crowd. Even taking abuse, The Ram can give strangers what he can’t give the closest people to him.
10. Max Cohen Explaining Fibonacci Sequence to Hasidic Jew – PI (1998)
In PI, Aronofsky’s highly imaginative shoe-string debut – about the fractured, schizoid mind of a lonely mathematician predicting stock market patterns – there’s one scene that always stands out to me, no matter how long the interim between actually watching the film. The scenes takes place in a coffee shop, where a genial Hasidic Jew named Lenny enters and immediately recognizes Max (Sean Gullette). Upon sussing what Max does for a living, an infinitely watchable (and listenable) conversation takes place. As Lenny explains deeply rooted in numerical code the Torah is, Max retorts with knowledge of the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio. What’s interesting here is how we temporarily step outside Max’s maddened mind and see how he interacts with others. An entertaining, educational and highly memorable moment.
