Thousand Burned-Out Yesterdays

<sub>Harry: Marion... I've been thinking about you so much... are you okay?
Marion: When are you coming home?
Harry: Soon.
Marion: When?
Harry: Soon... you holding out all right?
Marion: Harry... can you come today?
Harry: Yeah... [crying] I'll come... I'll come today. You just wait for me, all right?
Marion: OK, Harry...
Harry: I'm coming back, Marion.
Marion: Yeah.
Harry: Marion?
Marion: Yeah.
Harry: I'm really sorry, Marion...
Marion: I know.

- 'Requiem for a Dream' (2000)</sub>

A couple of weeks ago I finally watched Darren Aronofsky's masterpiece 'Requiem for a Dream', and it was without a doubt the most intense and heartbreaking movie I'd ever seen. It had such an emotional and even physical impact on me that I couldn't stop thinking about it for days, so, as a way to channel some of that emotion, I decided to put my feelings and my admiration for the story into a drawing.

This scene, which occurs near the end of the movie, represents the incredibly sad moment at which Harry (Jared Leto) and his girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) finally realize they've reached the point of no return, in life as well as in their relationship. They know that, no matter how hard they try, they will never be able to escape from the utterly hopeless and desperate conditions they've created for themselves by making too many wrong choices and mistakes along the way, and during this last phonecall they realize that they have also lost the one good thing they still had - each other.

The title of the drawing was taken from the song 'Was It A Dream' by 30 Seconds To Mars (as some Jared Leto fans may have recognized). I was listening to the track while drawing, and when I heard the phrase 'a thousand burned-out yesterdays' I immediately felt that I had to use it, because, in my opinion, it suits the scene perfectly.

And yes, that is Jared Leto - I know it doesn't look much like him, but I blame that on the terrible quality of the screenshot I used as a reference.

This is my entry for =Diamond4girl's Drawn To A Moment Contest.

_{Pencil on paper
Size: top drawing: 31,5 x 20 cm - bottom drawing: 26,5 x 14,5 cm
Materials: 2B and HB mechanical pencils; 2B and HB Bruynzeel pencils; kneadable eraser; blending stumps in various sizes; and tissues
Time: a few weeks
Music: mostly 30 Seconds To Mars and the soundtracks for 'Requiem for a Dream' (Clint Mansell) and 'Inception' (Hans Zimmer)}