How capitalism kills? Cover Image

Jak zabija kapitalizm? Requiem dla snu Darrena Aronofsky’ego jako film radykalny
How capitalism kills?

Author(s): Jarosław Pietrzak
Subject(s): Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego

Summary/Abstract: The author mercilessly examines the neglected context of Darren Aronofsky’s film Requiem for a Dream – its radical and political significance. Pietrzak follows the film’s construction of the cinematic world and the way its postmodern form (editing full of redundancy, repetitions and chronological disorders, as well as other “non-transparent” devices, among which the physiological realism seems to be dominating) is almost entirely subordinated to its content (which, contrary to the empty variant of this kind of devices, that refer to nothing but themselves). Following Aronofsky, the author relates the postmodern interpretation of reality to its socio-economic dimension. Apart from interpretational movements of ideas, symbols and contexts, cinematic representation of the mechanisms of “structural, intentional and functional exclusion” become the most important issue. The author internalized the theoretical tools of Althusser, Adorno and Foucault, whereby he demonstrated the process of destruction of the culture appropriated by the capital.

  • Issue Year: 2008
  • Issue No: 07 (14)
  • Page Range: 119-136
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: Polish