What Black Swan Means to Us
This feels like a film from a bygone era where a movie could be a psychological thriller with some eroticism. We used to get these all the time but sadly they have become few and far between over the last decade or so. A team-up of Darren Aronovsky and my favorite all-time actress in a dark and sexy twisted thriller was a dream come true for a growing boy like me. 2010 was a killer year for movies and Black Swan was at the top of the list for me.
Arnovsky was at his finest creating a disturbing and intense world with a bit of melodrama but Natalie Portman was a tour-de-force as Nina Sayers. Her ability to transform from the innocent and fragile white swan to the seductive and dark black swan was a thing of beauty. Her descent into madness with such raw intensity truly makes her performance an all-timer. Aronovsky took care of the rest with incredible imagery and an excellent cast of Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Winona Ryder, and Mila Kunis. He creates a haunting and claustrophobic atmosphere that mirrors the main character’s descent into madness for the viewer as well.
–Vincent Kane
Black Swan is by far my favorite Aronovsky film, and might actually be the first horror movie I ever watched. I remember seeing the trailers for this one as a homeschooled kid who wasn’t allowed to watch rated-R movies yet and being so intrigued. Even watching this today, I’m still filled with a sense of unease and disquiet created by Portman’s loosening grasp on reality. Even the more fantastical elements of the body horror and hallucinations feel so real because of the performances, and growing up in a very controlled environment myself made me really relate to her claustrophobia and anxiety. Years removed from that lifestyle now, this one still takes me back in a really visceral way. It rocks though, and I’m glad it opened my eyes to a new genre.
–Valerie Morreale
A Thrilling and Intense Cinematic Experience
From the very first scene in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is already beginning to transform. She can’t see that at first, which makes sense; her hallucinations haven’t truly kicked into gear, she hasn’t yet been cast in the lead role in her troupe’s upcoming performance, and this all begins with a dream sequence. But this dream, which imagines her in the titular performance in Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’, already heralds in the start of her gradual metamorphosis into the dual roles of the black and white swans, a performance that will cause her to fly too close to the sun and lose all sense of her identity.
It’s a gorgeous scene in an equally gorgeous film. Black Swan is at its finest when it defies convention. It works brilliantly as a drama, but one with an unreliable narrator whose hallucinations push the experience into the realm of a psychological thriller. There are also brief moments of body horror, which, though tame given the genre they’re from, are so unexpected that when they do emerge here they’re genuinely shocking.
But the most enticing factor here is the film’s dedication to its protagonist’s mindset, made all the more complex by how reality can never truly be extricated from fantasy given Nina’s projections. She is a ticking time bomb, despairing over mild inconveniences or put-downs from her demanding director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), all while struggling to quell her hallucinations and the feeling that another dancer in her troupe, Lily (Mila Kunis), is attempting to steal her role. Nina is tearing apart, but Thomas keeps pushing her, Lily cracks jokes whenever she notices this protagonist’s distress, and Nina’s mother, Erica (Barbara Hershey), thinks that her daughter should simply give up her her dream, just as Erica had to do with her own dancing ambitions when she became pregnant.
What follows is a twisty, thrilling adventure that tunnels deeper and deeper down Nina’s ravaged mind and expanding psychosis, where her life is secondary to her ideal of perfection in her trade. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that so many theories have sprouted up in the months and years since Black Swan’s release about what this film signifies. Much of it is focused on womanhood, whether that’s through sexual maturity, restrictions placed on women and what they can be, or instances of sexual harassment and assault.
‘Swan Lake’ itself is obviously a big influence on this film’s plot, with a number of parallels between both stories that are impossible to ignore. Numerous scenes feature Nina sprouting wings, which doesn’t just tie her to Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet, but which also presents her as an Icarus-like figure who’s putting her safety at risk by rising higher and higher in her pursuit of perfection. There is no ceiling to this, it turns out, but two highly unenviable choices; having your wings burned off to ensure you crash back down to Earth, or rising higher still and immolating. Throughout this wonderfully delirious and messed-up psychological drama, it is clear that Nina is desperate to burn brightly, and will risk everything to achieve her dreams.
Perfect Technique
Like Nina, Aronofsky displays plenty of technical mastery in Black Swan. Just how he’s able to hide the use of cameras in a film where mirrors feature so prominently boggles the mind to try and imagine. No doubt the fast-paced camerawork, often embodying Nina’s POV as she hurriedly scans her environment — or which maps onto her heightened emotions and mounting stress — is used to hide the sight of cameras in these reflective surfaces.
The visual effects are largely seamless in depicting Nina’s ascension to the role of the black swan, with wings that gradually form on her upper back. The body horror elements are shocking, especially when they ramp up in frequency and intensity late into the film, as Nina’s perception of reality has become truly warped. The bold visual style also doesn’t contradict the movie’s serious moments or its lack of adherence to any one genre. By never losing sight of its protagonist and her emotions, Black Swan is uniquely attuned to Nina’s state of mind at all times, with an impressive amount of care placed into how her perspective is conveyed visually. There is something aggressive and unrelenting about the film in this regard, which keenly mirrors (ba-dum-tss) Nina’s deteriorating mental state. We’re hardly given any breathing room to decompress throughout the film, since that’s something that Nina is never afforded.
Reflections and Imaginings
Early in Black Swan Nina is seen observing her reflection in a subway mirror, only for a random woman to catch her attention, causing this protagonist to stare at her through — you guessed it — another window. When Nina brings Lily home with her for the night, a scenario that hardly seems real given that Erica never once refers to this other woman standing in their apartment, one of the very few shots that include Nina’s companion views her through a mirror.
Mirrors can amplify one’s greatest strengths and weaknesses; it is impossible to judge your physical features objectively while looking in one. For Nina, these surfaces aren’t just a way of amplifying her flaws, but of confirming her delusions. But does confirming them involve recognising that her sanity is slipping, or sincerely believing that they are real? Just like when it comes to studying one’s reflection, Nina can’t approach this objectively. By making us aware of the presence of these reflective surfaces, Aronofsky invites viewers to recognize that the reality that is presented before this protagonist cannot be trusted.
Endless, interlinking theories
According to some viewer theories, Nina’s, mother is sexually abusing her. This could explain her bedroom being filled with plush toes and pink colours, her petulant outbursts when things don’t go her way, or her innocence, this protagonist’s defining feature. While one could argue that Nina’s innocence goes against this very theory, since such an act taking place over the course of years would surely rob her of this, it could simply be that the sexual assault she suffered through has ensured that, psychologically speaking, she cannot develop past the point in her life when she was abused.
Nina’s relationship with director Thomas can also be viewed through a predatory lens, with this director insisting to Nina that it does not matter that she has perfected her technique. Instead, he wants her to indicate desire and lust, where her technical abilities are an afterthought in this performance of intense passion. He tries to get her to open up about her sex life, used his previous muse sexually as a form of payment for securing this woman’s dreams, and only chooses Nina for the lead role because of how she responds to him forcefully kissing her out of the blue. Replace the young and aspiring dancer with a young and aspiring actress, and the creepy art director with a sleazy Hollywood producer, and this tragic story practically writes itself.
I’m less inclined to buy into these theories, though they do hold merit. Instead, I think they both look a little too closely into their respective aspects of the story, while correctly asserting that sex, sexuality, and sexual maturation are key facets to understanding Black Swan. Broadly speaking, Nina’s choices are rarely her own. This predatory director constantly pushes Nina to view herself in a sexualised light, since the rest of the world clearly does. Whenever he uses her for sexual pleasure he always finds a way to dress it up as an important lesson about Nina’s performance, something which she is innocent enough to believe. She’s so naïve that alarm bells don’t even ring in her head when he asks her to come back to his apartment for drinks late one night. Even when Thomas’ former muse, Beth (Winona Ryder), makes it clear moments later that Thomas takes advantage of the students he prioritizes, Nina still has no expectations for what this late-night offer of drinks at his place signifies.
But even Nina’s innocence isn’t of her own choosing. While she technically has the option to do whatever she wants, it’s clear that her mother has been grooming her to behave this way. She is cocooned in this nest of permanent childhood, with a doting mother who acts as a vampiric force on Nina, constantly using her daughter for emotional support given how empty her life has become since having her. This fosters an incredibly unhealthy co-dependent relationship, where, although Nina desperately wants to break free from her mother’s grip, because this is all she’s ever known she doesn’t have the tools to carve out a new path for herself. She is easily flustered and overwhelmed by her emotions, while also being far too innocent in her dealings with other people to recognize the ways she is being taken advantage of.
So when Erica wants Nina to abandon her dream of performing ‘Swan Lake’, such a valid concern rings out to this protagonist as the fulfillment of an almost prophetic series of events. She has clearly been groomed to follow in the footsteps of her mother, and is now being coerced into abandoning that pursuit just as she’s getting close to actualizing her goals, similar to how Erica had to sacrifice her career to look after Nina. Meanwhile, this particular role has been practically crying out to her to become more forceful. To transform into the black swan is to embrace her sexuality, and to wield it, too. That’s why Thomas couldn’t care less about her technique; he wants her to embody sex appeal, shedding her innocence for good. Her mother wants Nina to always remain her little girl, forever ensnared in a trap that she never asked to be placed into, but which she is often reticent to leave given that she knows nothing else.
Either scenario is unenviable, creating a tortured duality that only tears her apart even further. She can’t be the sexual being that Thomas wants out of her without sacrificing who she is, but she never had an authentic chance at self-discovery given how limiting her upbringing has been under her mother’s watchful eye. By trying to be someone she’s not, Nina mistakenly views Lily as her competitor. Lily, who is free-spirited and flirtatious, is everything the tightly wound, painfully innocent Nina is not. So when this protagonist is thrust into an entirely new world through a sexual awakening, it is not a joyous occasion, but one where she becomes bitter and distrustful.
By never teaching Nina to resist others, since that would mean this protagonist would resist her clinginess, Erica has failed to teach her daughter how to demonstrate enough self-worth to not give in to the demands of someone she respects. It’s also impossible to discuss these dynamics without mentioning that Thomas is something of a father figure to Nina, whether that’s in the age discrepancy between them, the fact that he acts as her mentor, or the implication that this protagonist’s father was the director of Erica’s troupe. Nina, who does not know how to reject men’s advances and who has been groomed to live like a wilting flower in need of others’ protection, is desperate to earn the approval of this paternalistic figure in her life. Meanwhile, Lily is also involved in some kind of tryst with Thomas; the details are a little spotty given how often this film wraps us up in Nina’s delusions, but there are enough clues to suggest this is the case.
While Nina’s bitterness and festering resentment towards her peer might seem like an act of defiance that is kickstarting her blossoming independence, she is only doing it because her relationship with Thomas is threatened. What’s more, she sees Lily as a better lover than her, maybe not in a literal sense, but in how her sexual openness is far more appealing compared to how closed-off Nina is from this side of herself. The parallels between this and Nina’s nagging insecurities over not being good enough in her dream career (and role) are obvious. In both cases, she perceives herself as letting down Thomas by failing to live up to his standards.
The crucial mistake Nina makes is in thinking that Lily is a natural black swan; instead, she’s simply an independent, fun-loving woman. And she’s also someone that Nina can never authentically be, so this protagonist feels that she must vanquish Lily to subsume her identity. After all, is her mother’s behaviour towards Nina not extremely similar, just in a strictly psychological sense? And when Nina does effectively remove Lily from the spotlight, she is suddenly willing and able to wear this avatar of self-control and sensuousness, just at the risk of killing her innocence. These themes are best illustrated by a scene where Nina attempts to masturbate in her bedroom, only to abruptly stop when she sees her mother sleeping in a corner of the room. She is unable to complete a normal and healthy activity due to her mother’s presence, but by that same token, the only reason she’s doing it is because Thomas asked her to. Whether these are physical or psychological limitations, Nina is trapped. And in killing her innocence, she has simply given herself over from one bad role model to another, trading her mother’s damaging tutelage for Thomas’.
But while this theory personally speaks to me, it’s not something that remains fixed in my mind as the sole way of understanding the film. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if I find that, upon future rewatches over the years, my interpretation of the film ends up shifting considerably. Nor would I be shocked if my own life experiences along the way contribute to me gaining a different understanding of the themes and subtext the film presents.
But Black Swan isn’t just a marvel for its virtuosic filmmaking or thematic depth; it’s also incredibly entertaining. The last 30 minutes of the film are incredibly tense, with heart-stopping sequences that draw you in and leave a firm knot of anxiety in your stomach about what will befall this protagonist. It is a one-way trip down a delightfully twisted rabbit hole, which continually thrills with its many storytelling avenues and impeccable filmmaking. It is also an experience rich enough to reward multiple rewatches and endless theorizing. Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 masterwork firmly belongs in the canon of cinema and in the public consciousness of what constitutes a great film.
What are your thoughts on Black Swan? Share them down in the comments!