In Pi, despite working on an extremely tight budget, Aronofsky still went with the
more expensive option of shooting in black and white film. Also, nearly every shot is over-exposed, producing images in which
there is very little grey in between the grainy blacks and blinding whites. The heavy contrast in every shot keeps
the viewer on edge, and even as one begins to grow accustomed to Pi itself, the images continue to sustain
the uneasiness that carries throughout the first 83 minutes, until Max is finally able to free himself from his
demons by relinquishing his quest to “understand our world.”
Aronofsky’s choice to shoot Pi in this manner helps the audience to place themselves inside
the world of Max Cohen; he lives in a psychologically disturbing world of contrast and alienation. While remaining
intellectually intriguing, the film is never pleasant to watch, creating a viewing experience that parallels Max’s
own experience of searching for meaning in the midst of mental anguish.
Aronofsky also uses what he has dubbed “Hip-Hop montages” (used more extensively in Requiem for
a Dream, and discussed on the Editing page) for the scenes when Max takes the various opiates and barbiturates
prescribed to him in an attempt to control his debilitating migraines. These shots, along with the several first
person close-up shots from Max’s perspective such as the swirling of cream in coffee of smoke in the air, are the
only visually pleasing shots throughout the picture. The viewer is only given brief moments of aesthetic relief,
all of which coincide with Max’s brief moments of sanctuary; finding order in chaos and pleasure from drugs are
Max’s only escapes from his otherwise tortured psyche. Other than these close-up shots and hip-hop montages,
Pi lacks a conventionally pleasing aesthetic until the final scene, in which both Max and the image on the
screen have seemed to have found some sort of peace and calm. In other words, the experience of looking at Pi
reflects a characterization of max.
In Requiem for a Dream, Aronofsky manipulates color in much the same way that he does black
and white in Pi: "We tried to figure out how we wanted to limit the palette of [Requiem] so that we
could control it and hopefully thereby make a statement with our choices. Our first decision was to almost
completely eliminate the color red from the film. The only place we allowed for red was Sara's hair and her dress.
We did this because the color red was at the core of Sara's dream. We wanted the color to leap off the screen."
(Quote from
Requiem notes)
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