Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)

[TedW]

I'll re-post this from another thread...

I'll probably see this, but Natalie Portman giving a "great performance"? I think she benefits from having been around for awhile, being generally well-liked, and people wanting her to be better than she is. (It seems every popular actor gets nominated at some point just from having survived x-number of years in the business -- it might be her turn this year.) I don't think she's horrible, just paper-thin. Not much there beyond her being exceptionally cute. I've seen much of her screen work and saw her onstage doing The Seagull with Streep, P.S. Hoffman, Kevin Kline, et. al, directed by Mike Nichols. About the best chance you're gonna get as an actor to be good... and she got swallowed up.

But hey, she kisses a girl in it, so they got my ten bucks. Very wise, Mr. Aronofsky...

[domino harvey]

She was already nominated before, for Closer

[mfunk9786]

You've seen much of her screen work, but you cite no reasoning for your opinion that she'll never truly be worthy of an Oscar nomination in your relatively lengthy post? Bravo!

Quite frankly, she's deserved supporting Oscar nominations for The Professional and the-film-that-shall-not-be-named, Garden State; in addition to the otherwise abysmal hatefuck that is Closer. She's a natural talent with an ability to connect her emotions with the audience in a fluid, moving way. It's a vulnerable quality that most other young actresses these days lack that sends her into a stratosphere also occupied by Michelle Williams, Scarlett Johansson [in Lost in Translation, at least], Ellen Page, etc.

She's beautiful, sure; but aren't most actresses?

[HistoryProf]

Andrew O'Hehir gushes over Black Swan.

I'm quite looking forward to this. My enthusiasm is tempered, however, because I'm ambivalent about Aronofsky; his ambition can result in such pretentiousness, especially in his earlier films. O'Hehir's review suggests that Black Swan has its eye-rolling moments--it is an Aronofsky film--but the strengths of his recent films have outweighed their weaknesses by a fair margin.

(And I'm with numero trois in my hostility toward the Ain't It Cool News crowd. Coincidentally, I first became aware of AICN because Harry Knowles' overwrought review was included in the booklet accompanying Requiem for a Dream. It remains one of the worst film reviews not penned by Armond White that I've ever read.)

i'm very very tepid on this one...it sounds an awful lot like he's trying to be David Lynch and M. Night Shamalan w/ an added dash - or bucket - of pretentiousness. I suspect this will drift much further towards "the Box" territory than Mullholland Dr.

And i'm calling it now: The Mila Kunis character is a figment of Portman's imagination/psychosis.

[tavernier]

Damn--you spoilt it!

[mfunk9786]

As the credits rolled and I prepared to see Darren Aronofsky come out for a Q+A after Black Swan opened the Philadelphia Film Festival tonight, I was struck with a conundrum that had a lot to do with this site. When I see a film like this, my list-obsessed mind immediately goes to "where does it go on the Top 10?" I knew it was better than the phenomenally unusual theatrical experience Enter the Void though, so my mind immediately went to the only movie I had ranked higher: The White Ribbon. Ah, The White Ribbon. What a serious film, a gorgeous film to look at with a lot of calm morals being put across to the viewer in an occasionally shocking, but mostly staid fashion, an pitch-perfect film that can easily be classified as one of the best films of the last several years.

But then, there's Black Swan.

Oh, Black Swan. Part of me wants to rank it below The White Ribbon. There's something about 2nd place that suits this film well. It's like the 2nd hitter in a baseball lineup or the 2nd track on an album. The White Ribbon brings you into my Top 10 list with it's well-defined strengths, and Black Swan keeps you listening to the album or filling the bases with its scrappy, go-for-broke passion.

Or maybe I'm thinking too hard. The credits are still rolling. I'm still clapping, you know, along with hundreds of people, most of whom are on their feet. I'm waiting for Aronofsky to come out before I stand, you know. But anyway. Ranking. Aw, fuck. There he is. The much-maligned director of such magnificent, bombastic failures as Pi and The Fountain, and the much more realized [but cliched to varying degrees] The Wrestler and Requiem For a Dream. Certainly the kind of resume that your average film student would love to have but would never admit it to his peers. But it could be a whole lot better. He's certainly not the person you'd think of as one of the best directors in Hollywood, nor as rightful successor to 80s Croenenberg big-event schlock.

But here we are, there he is, and I'm on my feet clapping like a seal. And why? Well, I might as well admit it to myself: This is the best film I've seen so far this year, and is unlikely to be topped. Why Black Swan rather than The White Ribbon? The filmmaking skill that makes The White Ribbon so excellent also makes it very cold.

I think I just got burned by the flaming hot Black Swan. I can't not give a film with this much moxie its due. I'll take the underdog, the hot mess that gets everything right in spite of itself over the film that gets everything right because of meticulous design and planning. And what a film it is!

From the opening moments, the 16 mm film stock and handheld feel ensure that this isn't going to be a successor to ballet films of the past. There's a loose feeling to these preliminary scenes, much like The Wrestler, that brings the viewer directly into the mind of its main character. That makes the maniacal horror film that follows so much more effective. Natalie Portman has absolutely no problem carrying this film from the outset. I know I'm someone who leapt to her defense like a white knight saving a damsel in distress (you're welcome, Natalie), but she really does deserve her first Oscar for this film. I'm sure there will be other actresses in the hunt, and that Ms. Portman (for some reason) does not get as much respect as she deserves, but wait until voters get a load of this performance. She plays Nina Thayer, a sexually repressed ballet dancer in her early twenties who lives with her mother (a supporting actress nomination for Barbara Hershey is a must here, in a role that brings back memories of Diane Ladd in Wild at Heart) and a million pink stuffed animals, lost in arrested development in a world where dancing and her domineering, pretentious also-ran mother are the only things she has any time for.

Nina is given the opportunity to audition to play the lead in a stripped down performance of Swan Lake for the top ballet troupe in NYC, and... well, that's as far as I'll go. I don't even want to spoiler tag anything. There are hallucinations, terrifying reveals, and characters that never ever fit into common archetypes. Nina's mother is far from your average stage mother, she can barely stand to see her daughter succeed thanks to her own career being cut short by her pregnancy. The director of the ballet is too busy trying to put on a good show to be balls-out creepy and lecherous, but it's not for lack of trying. Winona Ryder, in a small but juicy part, doesn't take the news of being too old to be the lead in the troupe's productions anymore sitting down. Oh, and Mila Kunis is also here, and I don't mean to diminish her performance, because she does exactly what she needs to do and she goes from cool and detached to sincere and friendly with a believable ease. How she fits into the plot, I'd dare not reveal. I can just give you a reverse spoiler: Mila Kunis' character is not a figment of Nina's imagination! *gasp*! Aronofsky is smart enough to skip the "she's actually dead," "she's hallucinating everyone around her," etc... cliches and create something amazingly original. It's a blend of the woman-in-trouble fear (and terrific Lynchian under-the-chin shots in key moments, best evidenced when Nina is atop some stairs with her instructor, you'll see) of Inland Empire and Mulholland Drive, along with the icky vibe of early Croenenberg. Oh, and throw in a few ludes.

The best film of the year, and an absolute must-see, even if you don't buy into it hook, line, and sinker. The dancing looks lovely, the fear and dread are very real, and twists happen constantly (but manage to catch the viewer off guard routinely, thanks to the low-key style of most of the film). The closing act is one of the most memorable that I've ever seen.

I'm just glad I get to see it all over again on Saturday night.

Sorry for the long, rambling post - maybe my thoughts will gel and I'll have more to say after that screening. But the point of this whole thing is: go and see this film when it opens in your town. We need more of this at the movies, and I think everyone will admit that even if they don't like it. But let's face it, how could you not like this crackerjack spectacle?

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

I'm really glad you posted this. I'm looking forward to seeing it even more now.

[mfunk9786]

Even if ballet or creature-shock or competitive performance films aren't your cup of tea, there are so many levels here. And I can't overstate what a great performance Natalie Portman gives. Aronofsky has always been able to get a lot out of his leads (Burstyn, Rourke, even Leto are notables) and this is no exception. When she receives good news about something early in the film, she calls her mother from a bathroom stall, and she becomes so emotional, so full of joy and relief, and as the tears stream and her face reddens, I was wondering if I myself was going to start sobbing... and this is about 20 minutes into the film! Her performance is filled with such raw emotion that it's hard to ignore its strengths. There is a moment late in the film on-stage where her eyes stare directly through you in a terrifying whirlwind of intensity - a moment that seems frozen in time and one-of-a-kind, the sort of thing you could do 20 more takes of and not be able to recapture. And then 30 seconds later, the same look! More intense and passionate and overwhelming than the first time. This woman is an incredible talent, and she gets what might go down as the most exciting role of her career here, and does it more than mere justice.

[knives]

I realize this is small beans compared to what you're talking about, but is the dancing as poorly done as the trailer would indicate?

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

When she receives good news about something early in the film, she calls her mother from a bathroom stall, and she becomes so emotional, so full of joy and relief, and as the tears stream and her face reddens, I was wondering if I myself was going to start sobbing... and this is about 20 minutes into the film! Her performance is filled with such raw emotion that it's hard to ignore its strengths.

So will this be a devastating emotional roller coaster like Requiem?

[mfunk9786]

Knives: I don't claim to be a ballet expert, but hopefully ballet buffs will have more admiration for what is clearly a heap of training that Portman went through than they will be nitpicking. A lot of the dancing where Portman is concerned is followed by swirling medium shots and close-ups, which suit the film and don't seem to me to be an attempt at distracting one from particularly poor dancing. As someone without much experience even watching ballet dancing, I found Portman to be stiff when she needed to be for her character's purposes, and intense and fiery when necessary as well. I'm sure her utterance that she "just wants to be perfect" will make experts cringe, but this is a film, not an audition tape for Portman to join a prestigious ballet troupe, and hopefully viewers can accept that fact. It's a film set in the world of ballet dancing, but it's not a ballet film, you know?

The rest of the dancers are members of the Pennsylvania Ballet and are surely quite good as a result, so Aronofsky made a good choice by going with trained unknowns rather than actors in the background.

Jean-Luc: Absolutely, and without being dependent on as many camera tricks and lenses and rigs and pulsating basslines. It's visceral and emotional throughout to varying degrees and extremes.

[Kellen]

Is Winona Ryder's role just a quick cameo? I've always loved her since I was a kid, and I was hoping she'd appear in the film quite a bit.

[mfunk9786]

She has only about 5 total minutes of screentime. But boy oh boy, they are some 5 minutes!

[MichaelB]

So will this be a devastating emotional roller coaster like Requiem?

Or a hilariously overwrought pile of toss like... well, Requiem?

(Actually, though I swore I'd never sit through another Aronofsky film after that, I have to say this does look intriguing)

[mfunk9786]

It's funny, there's drug use in this film and it's filmed in a very restrained manner, there's no "look at me" quick cutaways to the consumption, or wacky flashing lights and sped-up trips. This movie has nothing at all in common with Requiem for a Dream.

[Markson]

Some neat international posters here.

[Finch]

Those posters are amazing. A welcome change from the usual floating heads.

[colinr0380]

Agreed, those posters are beautiful!

[bigP]

I'm imagining some rather lovely art cards accompanying the DVD / BR release. It would be a waste to not make use of such striking artwork.

[Duncan Hopper]

This has to be the one of the most outrageously over-the-top camp films I have ever seen.
Its pure hysterics from start to finish, dangerously walking a tightrope between high camp and complete trash.
I definitely enjoyed it, but I'm not sure I enjoyed it for the same reasons everyone else in the cinema did.
For me it was enjoyable in the same way 'Mommie Dearest', 'Boom' or really trashy 70's Euro horrors are.

[Jack Phillips]

This has to be the one of the most outrageously over-the-top camp films I have ever seen.
Its pure hysterics from start to finish, dangerously walking a tightrope between high camp and complete trash.

You mean it's like . . . Showgirls?

[Markson]

ijustwanttobeperfect.com

[mfunk9786]

Let's hope there's a big ad campaign for this one. As long as they get asses in the seats, I can see it having a lot of staying power. It was a big crowd pleaser at the two screenings I attended.

[R0lf]

This has to be the one of the most outrageously over-the-top camp films I have ever seen.
Its pure hysterics from start to finish, dangerously walking a tightrope between high camp and complete trash.

You mean it's like . . . Showgirls?

"And for all of the hokey dialogue and sleazy sex, it lacks the guilty pleasure thrills of Showgirls or the full on psychedelic imagery of Mr. Anger. A fellow programmer and critic told me this was absolutely meant to be taken within the same vein of a Verhoeven film. So it's Showgirls without tits? What is the point of that?"

[mfunk9786]

Everyone seems to be way off the mark here.