BLACK SWAN
US, 2010, 108 minutes, Colour.
Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder, Benjamin Millepied.
Directed by Darren Aronofsky.
The initial response to being mesmerised was the maybe-inelegant but apt, ‘Whew’ (and then some).
Tchaikowski, Freud and Jung and many others would probably be quite excited by this exploration of the themes of Swan Lake. We are alerted to this at once with Nina (Natalie Portman in an intriguing performance) dancing with a frightening black swan – and then her waking. With a dream to open the film, there will be many dreams, hallucinations and fantasies along the way until the expected but also unexpected ending which is, in Nina’s words, ‘Perfect’.
For some audiences, the treatment of Nina’s perfectionism may be too much, too confronting, too graphic. But, Nina herself is both white swan and black swan and she has to dance both. This means that for the dancer, she has to be her ego character and her alter ego. Early in the film, Nina passes herself in a tunnel. She is going to encounter her other self more and more and she is going to find it personified in another dancer whom she sees as rival and demonises as a black swan (Mila Kunis as Lily, a performance that has to be both sinister and charming).
We see Nina as a girlish perfectionist, dominated by her loving but ever-demanding mother (Barbara Hershey is now playing mothers, and fits here because of some resemblance to Natalie Portman). She is driven but introverted, keeping to herself, without a social life, without personal and social development, tied to her mother’s apron strings.
According to the director of the ballet (Vincent Cassell bringing his capacity for being frightening and attractive fully to this role), Nina is all technique and needs to both find herself and lose herself. He is sexually aggressive and she begins to react with vigour rather than accepting passivity. He urges her to discover her sensual self, her sexual self, something which alarms and embarrasses her. Nevertheless, deep down there is her sensual black swan self which surfaces in the way desires do when they have been suppressed and can be integrated if acknowledged but which can also lead to madness and acting out the desires (in reality or in the mind) which is what happens to Nina.
And, all the times, there is the music and there is the dancing, a lot of music and a lot of dancing, but all in the context of the ballet’s plot and of Nina’s desperation to perform her dual role perfectly.
This should give pleasure and satisfaction to those audiences who are watching for the ballet and for the psychodrama. There are also elements of the horror film in the imagining of the black swan and of Nina’s fervid and violent imagination.
A personal difficulty: I would have preferred far less handheld camera photography. Of course, it has a realistic and sometimes disorienting purpose, especially as the camera so often follows Nina, trailing us along in her path. More satisfying is the constant use of mirrors – Nina contemplating herself, donning her costumes, putting on make-up, and occasionally glimpsing her black swan self.
Darren Arenofsky has not made so many films but they are all distinctive: science-fiction of Pi, the drug world of Requiem for a Dream, the fantasies of The Fountain and the earthy, violent world of The Wrestler. I admire all of them, but I found Black Swan the most interesting and challenging.
1. The acclaim for the film? Awards?
2. The director, the worlds that he has created, fantasy worlds, struggling individuals?
3. The world of the ballet, Tchaikovsky’s music, the excerpts from Swan Lake, the dance, the training, the rehearsals, the repetitions, the performance?
4. The New York world, exteriors, the Lincoln Centre, the subway, the streets, the nightclubs? The background score?
5. Nina’s home, the rooms, her own room, the bedroom, the meals, the bathroom, the lounge – and the variety of action framed by these rooms?
6. The world of the ballet, the rooms, the rehearsal room and its vastness, offices, stairs and corridors, dressing rooms, the theatre and the stage? Lights and darkness?
7. The camerawork, the use of the wide screen, the close-ups, the range of dance and performance, photography of the dance, editing? The hand-held camera? Following Nina?
8. The world of dreams, fantasies? The range of mirrors and their use?
9. The opening, Nina dancing with the black swan? Waking up, at home? The discussions about the ballet, its plot, characters, dramatic tensions? The role of the white swan, the black swan? Seduction, jealousy and death? Nina and her living the story of the white swan and the black swan? The director and his interpretation, Lily as a black swan? Lily and Nina’s mother always dressed in black? Nina in white?
10. Nina as the white swan, young, innocent, naïve, virginal, dependent on her mother, her mother pampering her, isolated, her response to the director’s aggression (biting his lip, getting the part because of it and her assertion), technically perfect? Yet the rash, her scratching it, tearing her skin, her fingernails? The dirty old man in the subway and her response?
11. Nina as the black swan, seeing her other self in the mirror, the variety of mirrors, the director urging her to be the black swan, to touch herself, her embarrassment, the blood, her fingers, her feet? Her back and the rash, scratching? Lily as her rival, her suspicions? Going out with Lily, defiance of her mother, refusing the drugs, Lily putting the drug in her drink, her dancing, the lurid nightclub, the men, the sexual encounter, her return home, her mother’s reaction, the sensual and sexual experience with Lily – waking up, finding it was in her imagination?
12. The contrast with the real Lily, a nice young woman, from San Francisco, awkward, banging the door, coming into the group, friendly, her skill at dancing, chatting with Nina, substituting for her – and Nina’s high-handed reaction, making demands on the director? Taking Nina out, the drugs, the sexual experience in Nina’s fantasy? Dressed to play her role? Nina’s attack, breaking the mirror, the glass, stabbing Lily, her hiding her body, the blood? Seeing Lily alive, Lily congratulating her? The real Lily and the mirror image of Nina? Nina’s alter-ego?
13. The director, in himself, seen only at the ballet? His demands? His entry, the speech, with each of the girls, tapping them on the shoulder? The selection? With Nina, the discussions, the kiss and her bite, winning the part? Nina phoning her mother – yet refusing to answer her mother’s mobile phone calls? The expectations of the director, his way of directing Nina, interrogating her about sex and sexuality, his advice? The rehearsals, the repetitions? The build-up to the performance? His reaction to Nina’s fall? The end and her achievement? His achievement?
14. Nina’s mother, her age and experience, her life, looking back on her life, her opportunities for dancing, giving it all up to have Nina? Dressed in black? The austerity of her look? Her dominating in the house? Her smothering her daughter with love, living through her daughter? The timetable at home, going to the rehearsals, meals, the celebration with the cake and her upset and wanting to throw the cake out? Nina’s health, the rash, the baths? Her dismay at Nina going out? Her talking with Lily in the corridor? Her being at the performance and her smiling?
15. The background of the ballet, the staff, the trainers, the dancing partners, the students, the dancers and their gossip, the partner and his sneering at Nina’s frigidity? Dressmakers, measurements, the makeup?
16. The reception, the director, Nina on the stairs, the speech, the public, the patrons?
17. Beth, her dressing room, her anger, her age, reputation, the dancers sniggering behind her back? Nina stealing her things? The reception, the thanks to her, her going out, her talk with the director and defying him, her low self-image, the accident, deliberate or not, in hospital, twisted shape, the flowers, Nina’s visit, the flowers, Beth’s reaction, discovering that Nina had stolen her things?
18. Nina’s state by the time of the performance: driven, technically perfect, the rehearsals, more rehearsals (and the pianist walking out), her death wish and going out, her being late for the performance, Lily dressed for performance, her watching from the stage, her entrances, her success and the applause, the fall and her anger? The black swan, the makeup, Lily, the attack, real and unreal? The dancing, the white swan, her blood, her fall (and the letting go and falling at the rehearsals)? Her stab wound, her death, her final words – perfect?
