Black Swan

I was unable to fit in The Wrestler and The Fountain into my Darren Aronofsky expose before Black Swan came out. I’ll get to them….

This isn’t Aronofsky’s most accomplished movie, but it is damn close. It once again explores a human trait that undeniably is the focal point of all Aronofsky’s films: Obssession.

Tommy obsessed with immortality - The Fountain

Max obsessed with math and the chaos of the universe – Pi

Harry obsessed with the American dream – Requiem for a Dream

The Ram obsessed with the spotlight - The Wrestler

Nina the ballerina is obsessed with the perfect performance – Black Swan

I’m sure he would say otherwise, that his motivations are specific to each film, but the facts are there.

Black Swan is about a ballet dancer Nina (Portman) whose inner feelings are locked inside and as she takes the lead in Swan Lake, these feelings slip to madness.

Nina is sexually repressed, controlled by her mother, and introverted. the company’s director (Cassel) forces her to change and show the darker side to the Swan Lake lead.

Aronfosky again employs cinema verite for the uses of camera set-ups and lighting. Similar to The Wrestler he tends to follow and shoot the characters. However, this time a more framey eye is employed. I’d say that the film’s visual style is as bold as anything Aronofsky has ever done.

Shooting in this style for a horror film is risky. Big time. In an interview here with Matthew Libatique and Aronfosky, the director talks about the risk of cinema verite and horror:

We were very nervous about mixing a vérité approach with the horror aspects of the film, because we thought the documentary feel might destroy the suspense of those scenes. We tried to find other films that had taken a similar approach, but we couldn’t, so we just decided to roll the dice.

This is very true. If the film wasn’t film languagey enough it could, indeed, have been ineffective. However, Aronofsky’s film is deeply focused on composition, movement, color palette, and metaphor, but through the scope of documentary style.

People often obsess over the significance of things like color palettes.

You: What does that even mean you pompous dickhead.

Me: Well, relax. Such discussion is not to be feared. Color palettes are colors specifically designed to evoke emotion, ideas, places, and themes.

I snickered at this comment from Libatique, the film’s cinematographer, in the same article:

Darren likes a designer to pitch an idea for a limited palette, and then we all agree on different colors. We assigned some symbolism to the various colors: black represents the darker side of Nina’s character, white is her innocent side, pink represents her childhood, and green conveys envy and ambition…Darren makes bold choices, and I ask myself if it’s too much sometimes, but I trust his instincts.

I laughed a bit because the same thought came to my mind when looking at Aronofsky’s choice of palettes. Dichotomy of stuff is important in this movie. Dark to light. Teacher to student. Mother to Daughter. Black and white (Obviously). Madness to sanity. Sexual to prudent. Reality to fabrication. They are all in there.

Aronfosky’s bold use of black and white in the office of Thomas Leroy might be the type of thing Libatique is referring to above. It made me laugh. Though I think when using something like color palettes you can never be too bold.

Natalite Portman will win for best actress. Aronfosky has produced some of the best performances of the past ten years. Which is odd because when you think of him, you think of his visual style more than his ability to direct great performances.

Portman’s face and body are in nearly every frame of the film. A film comprised almost exclusively of tracking shots of her back or close-ups of her face.

I pointed out to my brother that only someone as audacious as Aronfosky would keep the camera in close-up on Nina (Portman) while the argument is taking place between Beth (Ryder) and Thomas (Cassel). Aronfosky is screaming to the audience that this film is about Nina, not the other two.

Every second of the movie is Portman’s to respond and react in. She brings a physicality combined with emotional vunerability that is reminiscent of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler.

Supposedly BS was heavily influenced by one of Polanski’s greatest films, Repulsion. I always call Pi Aronfosky’s Repulsion with a dude. This might be Aronofsky’s Repulsion with ballet in it.

This movie is a modern classic that ranks with only two great films, The Social Network and 127 hours, in 2010. Comment…comment…comment and let me know what you think.

A/5 or go fucking see this

-Collin