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Art elicits reaction. This is a fact. It doesn't matter what kind of art you're engaged with; as a rule, it elicits some kind of reaction from the viewer. Even the absence of a reaction might in itself be considered a reaction, because even the act of dismissing an artwork occurs only when the artwork is considered, no matter how briefly, and reacted upon.
Nowadays, movies, being one of the most popular forms of art, often elicit wide and varied reaction. Some of it is intellectual, but a lot of it is emotional and visceral. If viewed as a combination of various arts, then it should come as no surprise that movies can evoke unique, sometimes violent, reactions regarding them.
As a viewer, I'm no different. I react to movies in a whole host of ways, oftentimes emotional. Naturally, how I react depends on the movie I'm watching. For example, when I got to the end of the animated movie My Dog Tulip I actually shed a few tears. This is unusual for me because I'm not a cryer when it comes to movies, but My Dog Tulip did precisely that. Inception on the other hand had me alternately gaping in amazement at the visuals and making me scratch my head (in a good way) because of the plot. Again, not a lot of movies are capable of doing this, but that is still the case.
Very few movies, however, are capable of making me sit back, stare at the screen, and go "Whoa!" followed by a few moments of silence as I contemplate just what the hell hit me. Lord of the Rings made me do that. Inception made me do that - after I stopped scratching my head, of course. And the latest movie to do that is Black Swan.
To say that Black Swan and its lead star, Natalie Portman, have received a lot of hype is kind of an understatement. After Portman's win at the Golden Globes, people are claiming she's a shoo-in for Best Actress at the Oscars. After seeing her performance, I'm inclined to agree - unless, of course, Anette Bening (for her work on The Kids Are All Right) and Tilda Swinton (for her work on I Am Love) get nominated too, because then it'd be an interesting three-way competition between two stellar veterans and one brilliant up-and-comer. Which is kind of like what happens in Black Swan, actually, but I don't really want to see too many parallels between the movie and real life. Portman, after all, is no Nina Sayers.
I'll try to get away from all the hype around Portman, and instead focus on the other things that, I felt, make this movie a great one. To be sure, Portman's acting was crucial, given how the focus of the entire movie is her character, but the fact that she even had a character like Nina to play in the first place must be credited to the story, created by Andres Heinz. As I have mentioned before, I firmly believe that a good story is 50% of what makes a good movie, and Heinz has made something incredible in Black Swan. While the script itself is nothing extraordinary, the story and the concepts certainly are. It's the story, frankly speaking, that has really, truly blown me away.
And that story is a very dark one, describing the descent into madness in the search for the heights of perfection, and the ways and means by which a young woman may be driven towards that peak, only to realize that to reach it, she must first fall. Sure, this has been done multiple times in a variety of ways, but what Heinz has done is to juxtapose it with the story of Swan Lake, one of the most popular and recognizable ballets, and the world of ballet itself.
Anyone who's seen Centerstage or any of the dance-related movies from the early 2000s knows that ballet is not just rough, it's outright cruel. It demands things from its dancers that many people consider far too harsh, if not outright sadistic. Some of the ballet movies portray it as hard, but if you have enough determination or you keep your head up or other some such sappy cliche, you'll make it. Black Swan shows that this reasoning is flimsy, at best. You have to be tough and made of stone, both physically and emotionally, to even make it in ballet. Even if you could overcome the physical pain brought on by the practice of ballet, it's not certain that you can overcome the emotional trauma it can bring on. Ballet does not merely damage souls, it destroys them.
And yet there is so much beauty to be had from that destruction. In one of the scenes in Black Swan Lily (played by Mila Kunis) says that ballet isn't for everyone, and this is quite true. But for those who find ballet suits them, at least as viewers of an art, they often find enormous beauty in it. As an appreciator of ballet myself I do find it one of the loveliest expressions of beauty onstage, or even anywhere else, for that matter. There is, quite simply, nothing else that can be compared to it, except maybe ice-dancing, but even the best ice-dancers draw from ballet as an inspiration. And, as in nature and the universe, true beauty can only emerge when something else is destroyed completely. There is simply no other way to it.
This is precisely what happens to Nina in Black Swan. In her pursuit of perfection, of becoming both the perfect White Swan and the perfect Black Swan, she destroys herself. And we, the viewers, have ringside seats to this performance of destruction, out of which is born incomparable beauty. This is foreshadowed in the opening of the movie by a scene of Nina dancing the Prologue to Swan Lake, only for us to learn later that it is a dream. That dream, however, is the perfect opening in that it sets the stage for the rest of the movie. We already know, right from the beginning, that something is not quite right with Nina. She might seem relatively normal, but that opening scene tells us something is about to go very, very wrong.
On the surface, though, it would appear that Nina's star is rising. She gets cast for the main role of Thomas Leroy's (played by Vincent Cassell) adaptation of Swan Lake, even though initially she thinks she isn't going to get it. But then we see what happens to her as she struggles to become both the White and the Black Swan, and we see her gradually falling apart. This is emphasized by the wonderful visuals showcasing what, in Nina's gradually crumbling sanity, seems to be an actual, physical metamorphosis into a black swan. She grows feathers out of her back, and in one interesting scene towards the latter third of the movie, her knees actually snap backwards like the legs of a swan.
This metamorphosis continues during her opening night performance - the last thirty minutes of the movie. My cousin Kyla said she was frightened by these last thirty minutes, and she had every right to say that. At this point the viewer, like Nina, is already unable to tell the difference between reality and fantasy. Nina's full descent into madness - which is also the moment when she reaches the heights of perfection she has craved to gain - is when, dancing as the Black Swan, her arms become wings and her eyes change into something more animal and less - far, far less - human. In that moment, Nina is not only the most beautiful thing in the world, she is also completely broken.
And moments later, when she "transforms" back into the White Swan for the Finale, she realizes that there is no way she will ever reach that peak again. She has reached it, and now she must pass on into something less. This is something she cannot accept. And so, she understands that the only way to truly stay upon that peak, to remain perfect, is to destroy herself utterly - to die.
That is precisely what makes Black Swan such a fantastic, awe-inspiring movie. To watch that slow descent into insanity, while at the same time struggling to reach that peak of perfection at the cost of one's own self, is both beautiful and terrible. Black Swan takes these dichotomies - perfection and destruction, beauty and insanity - and sets them upon the most perfect stage, supported by the darkest storyline.
It is, just like Nina as both White and Black Swan, so terribly, wonderfully beautiful.
Nowadays, movies, being one of the most popular forms of art, often elicit wide and varied reaction. Some of it is intellectual, but a lot of it is emotional and visceral. If viewed as a combination of various arts, then it should come as no surprise that movies can evoke unique, sometimes violent, reactions regarding them.
As a viewer, I'm no different. I react to movies in a whole host of ways, oftentimes emotional. Naturally, how I react depends on the movie I'm watching. For example, when I got to the end of the animated movie My Dog Tulip I actually shed a few tears. This is unusual for me because I'm not a cryer when it comes to movies, but My Dog Tulip did precisely that. Inception on the other hand had me alternately gaping in amazement at the visuals and making me scratch my head (in a good way) because of the plot. Again, not a lot of movies are capable of doing this, but that is still the case.
Very few movies, however, are capable of making me sit back, stare at the screen, and go "Whoa!" followed by a few moments of silence as I contemplate just what the hell hit me. Lord of the Rings made me do that. Inception made me do that - after I stopped scratching my head, of course. And the latest movie to do that is Black Swan.
To say that Black Swan and its lead star, Natalie Portman, have received a lot of hype is kind of an understatement. After Portman's win at the Golden Globes, people are claiming she's a shoo-in for Best Actress at the Oscars. After seeing her performance, I'm inclined to agree - unless, of course, Anette Bening (for her work on The Kids Are All Right) and Tilda Swinton (for her work on I Am Love) get nominated too, because then it'd be an interesting three-way competition between two stellar veterans and one brilliant up-and-comer. Which is kind of like what happens in Black Swan, actually, but I don't really want to see too many parallels between the movie and real life. Portman, after all, is no Nina Sayers.
I'll try to get away from all the hype around Portman, and instead focus on the other things that, I felt, make this movie a great one. To be sure, Portman's acting was crucial, given how the focus of the entire movie is her character, but the fact that she even had a character like Nina to play in the first place must be credited to the story, created by Andres Heinz. As I have mentioned before, I firmly believe that a good story is 50% of what makes a good movie, and Heinz has made something incredible in Black Swan. While the script itself is nothing extraordinary, the story and the concepts certainly are. It's the story, frankly speaking, that has really, truly blown me away.
And that story is a very dark one, describing the descent into madness in the search for the heights of perfection, and the ways and means by which a young woman may be driven towards that peak, only to realize that to reach it, she must first fall. Sure, this has been done multiple times in a variety of ways, but what Heinz has done is to juxtapose it with the story of Swan Lake, one of the most popular and recognizable ballets, and the world of ballet itself.
Anyone who's seen Centerstage or any of the dance-related movies from the early 2000s knows that ballet is not just rough, it's outright cruel. It demands things from its dancers that many people consider far too harsh, if not outright sadistic. Some of the ballet movies portray it as hard, but if you have enough determination or you keep your head up or other some such sappy cliche, you'll make it. Black Swan shows that this reasoning is flimsy, at best. You have to be tough and made of stone, both physically and emotionally, to even make it in ballet. Even if you could overcome the physical pain brought on by the practice of ballet, it's not certain that you can overcome the emotional trauma it can bring on. Ballet does not merely damage souls, it destroys them.
And yet there is so much beauty to be had from that destruction. In one of the scenes in Black Swan Lily (played by Mila Kunis) says that ballet isn't for everyone, and this is quite true. But for those who find ballet suits them, at least as viewers of an art, they often find enormous beauty in it. As an appreciator of ballet myself I do find it one of the loveliest expressions of beauty onstage, or even anywhere else, for that matter. There is, quite simply, nothing else that can be compared to it, except maybe ice-dancing, but even the best ice-dancers draw from ballet as an inspiration. And, as in nature and the universe, true beauty can only emerge when something else is destroyed completely. There is simply no other way to it.
This is precisely what happens to Nina in Black Swan. In her pursuit of perfection, of becoming both the perfect White Swan and the perfect Black Swan, she destroys herself. And we, the viewers, have ringside seats to this performance of destruction, out of which is born incomparable beauty. This is foreshadowed in the opening of the movie by a scene of Nina dancing the Prologue to Swan Lake, only for us to learn later that it is a dream. That dream, however, is the perfect opening in that it sets the stage for the rest of the movie. We already know, right from the beginning, that something is not quite right with Nina. She might seem relatively normal, but that opening scene tells us something is about to go very, very wrong.
On the surface, though, it would appear that Nina's star is rising. She gets cast for the main role of Thomas Leroy's (played by Vincent Cassell) adaptation of Swan Lake, even though initially she thinks she isn't going to get it. But then we see what happens to her as she struggles to become both the White and the Black Swan, and we see her gradually falling apart. This is emphasized by the wonderful visuals showcasing what, in Nina's gradually crumbling sanity, seems to be an actual, physical metamorphosis into a black swan. She grows feathers out of her back, and in one interesting scene towards the latter third of the movie, her knees actually snap backwards like the legs of a swan.
This metamorphosis continues during her opening night performance - the last thirty minutes of the movie. My cousin Kyla said she was frightened by these last thirty minutes, and she had every right to say that. At this point the viewer, like Nina, is already unable to tell the difference between reality and fantasy. Nina's full descent into madness - which is also the moment when she reaches the heights of perfection she has craved to gain - is when, dancing as the Black Swan, her arms become wings and her eyes change into something more animal and less - far, far less - human. In that moment, Nina is not only the most beautiful thing in the world, she is also completely broken.
And moments later, when she "transforms" back into the White Swan for the Finale, she realizes that there is no way she will ever reach that peak again. She has reached it, and now she must pass on into something less. This is something she cannot accept. And so, she understands that the only way to truly stay upon that peak, to remain perfect, is to destroy herself utterly - to die.
That is precisely what makes Black Swan such a fantastic, awe-inspiring movie. To watch that slow descent into insanity, while at the same time struggling to reach that peak of perfection at the cost of one's own self, is both beautiful and terrible. Black Swan takes these dichotomies - perfection and destruction, beauty and insanity - and sets them upon the most perfect stage, supported by the darkest storyline.
It is, just like Nina as both White and Black Swan, so terribly, wonderfully beautiful.
